Chanukah 13 Breeches 13 Attributes

As we're now in the month of Kislev, we will speak a little bit about Hanukah in order to get ready. The Ben Ish Chai quotes the Arizal that when one says the berachot of the Nerot Hanukah, he says LeHadlik Ner Hanukah, unlike Shabbat when we say LeHadlik Ner Shel Shabbat . He answers with a Kabbalistic reason: Because we want to spell out the letters נחל N a H a L (using the first letters of each word L eHadlik N er H anukah) which means stream . And this stream is a two way stream- One stream stands for N afshenu H ekita L Hashem/Our souls are waiting for God's salvation . So we're hoping to God- that's a Bitachon indicator. The other stream is N otzer H essed L ’Alafim/ God protects and watches over our good deeds for 2000 generations, which are the 8 th and 9 th attributes of the 13 Attributes of God's Mercy ( El Rachum V’Hanun etc). What is the significance of this? He says that on each day of Hanukah, a different one of the 13 attributes is aroused. Day one is El , day two is Rachum , day three, Hanun…. etc . When we hit day eight, it’s Notzer Hessed/God watches our kindness, and L’Alafim is trait nine. Notzer Hessed L’Alafim/God watches the kindness for 2000 generations. Even though it's two separate traits, it's really one unit. And so, with the 8th unit comes down the 9th, the 10th, 11th, the 12th, and the 13th, which is all on the eighth day of Hanukah, and it’s called Zot Hanukah. That's why it's such a special day- because all 13 attributes come down. (Similarly, when we read the sefer Torah on Hanukah there are 13 different readings, so to say. There are the 12 tribes, and there's the also the tribe of the Kohanim, which is the 13th tribe, if you break it up that way. We do one Nasi/prince each day. But on the eighth day we do the 8th, 9th, 10th, 11, 12 th and 13 th , which correspond to the attributes) Our goal is to understand what exactly the connection is, between the 13 attributes and the holiday of Hanukah. And they explain as follows… In the Mishna Masechet Middot (chapter 2, mishna 3) it says that there were different boundaries and gates around the Bet Hamikdash. One of them was called the Soreg , which was only 10 hand-fists high. It didn’t really serve the purpose of a real wall. But it says that there were 13 breaches made there by the Greeks when they came to the Bet Hamikdash (as we sing in Maoz Sur - they made breaches in the walls). Furthermore, it says that when we won the war, we filled in those breaches. The people would go to each breach and bow down in thanks to God that we won the war. So the question is, what exactly is the significance of these 13 breaches in this wall? Rav Gedalia Schorr z’l explains, in his Sefer Or Gedalia , that the purpose of this 10 hand-fist high wall was to designate an area where goyim were not allowed to go. (There were certain areas in the Bet Hamikdash where contaminated people couldn't go, where non-Kohanim couldn’t go, and a certain point where no goyim were allowed to pass). This bothered the Greeks. They felt, with their philosophy, that they were equal to the Jews. So why couldn’t they go past there? They specifically made 13 breaches in those walls, in order to, so to say, break the differentiation between Jew and goy. But there's a deeper significance- Why the number 13, why didn’t they make 11 or 12 breaches? The answer is, because it corresponds to the 13 attributes of mercy that God has for the Jewish people. That's what they were trying to separate. One of the differentiating factors between the Jews and the goyim is that Hashem deals with us with these special 13 attributes of mercy. And that's what happens on Hanukah… We'll continue tomorrow with the significance of Hanukah and its connection to these 13 attributes. But the first thing we have to know is that the 13 attributes have to do with the 13 breaches that the Greeks made in the wall.