“Not by might and not by power, but by My spirit,” says the Eternal One, is the Haftarah reading for both the Shabbat during Chanukah and that of this coming Shabbat. The sages included it in our Festival of Lights because that was the exact opposite lesson of that which is commemorated on Chanukah. Military might was never on a pedestal for our people; spiritual might knocked it off that pedestal. We had many battles, many wars, to fight across the centuries including today, and we were buoyed by preparation, by power and, perhaps, by miracles. We never sought conflict but when it happened, we didn’t stand by to be slaughtered.
The late Senator Adlai Stevenson who in the 1950s was twice the Democratic Party’s presidential nominees, once said, “If we win men’s (sic!) hearts throughout the world, it will not be because we are a big country, but because we are a great country. Bigness is imposing, but greatness is enduring.” What he is saying is that the enduring power of any country rests in its belief in human dignity, its commitment to justice and dignity, its practice of freedom and equality.
I’ve always been taken by the way Israel has lived up to the biblical injunction that we should be Or la-Goyim, “a Light to the Nations,” and while today many have questions as to the longevity of the bulb, there’s no doubt that she saw herself as a beacon to not only the world’s Jews, but to the world! Whether it was through her help to the refugees of any continent or her medical assistance to those in the Caribbean who endured horrific hurricanes, or her commitment to advance medicine and technology for the sake of international welfare, she never turned on the spotlight only within her borders.
That’s what’s missing in the world today. Alas, we too in this country were always partners with our allies, and even our enemies often received our aid, monetary and otherwise. We were great, and most Americans were proud of that greatness. We could walk in any of the world’s capitals or the small towns of any country and, for the most part, we were admired not for being Peter but for being Peter from America. We minimized the use of “God” in our national vocabulary, our schools and elsewhere, but God’s spirit was always manifest in what we did for others. Today, we maximize “God” in so many spheres, but even those who proclaim themselves deeply religious seem to have lost that “spirit.” Holier-than-thou never appeared so “in your face,” so ludicrous as values of ethics and morality fell by the wayside by those who are superb in being the master judges of others.
(Speaking of “not by might,” a young woman said to her boyfriend who had been beat up by a bully, “You shouldn’t be afraid of him. He’s an ignorant savage and you’re an intelligent, educated man.” Her boyfriend replied, “So what should I do? Beat him to death with my college diploma?”)