Not For Use
On Joseph, Hanukkah, and Modesty
“These lights are sacred, and we are not permitted to make use of them, but only to look at them, in order to offer thanks and praise to Your great Name…” (Hanerot Hallalu)
Rachel was of beautiful form and fair to look upon. (Genesis 29:17)
And Joseph was beautiful in form and appearance. And it was after these things that his master’s wife lifted her eyes to Joseph and said: '“Lie with me.” (Genesis 39:6-7)
AND JOSEPH WAS OF BEAUTIFUL FORM — As soon as he saw that he was ruler (in the house) he began to eat and drink and curl his hair. The Holy One, blessed be He, said to him, “Your father is mourning and you curl your hair! I will let a bear loose against you” (Rashi)
The basic mitzva of Hanukkah is each day to have a light kindled by a person, the head of the household, for himself and his household. And the mehadrin, i.e., those who are meticulous in the performance of mitzvot, kindle a light for each and every one in the household. And the mehadrin min hamehadrin, who are even more meticulous, adjust the number of lights daily. Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel disagree as to the nature of that adjustment. Beit Shammai say: On the first day one kindles eight lights and, from there on, gradually decreases the number of lights until, on the last day of Hanukkah, he kindles one light. And Beit Hillel say: On the first day one kindles one light, and from there on, gradually increases the number of lights until, on the last day, he kindles eight lights. (Shabbat 21b)
Joseph’s saga and Hanukkah are deeply interconnected. One theme that connects them is beauty. Joseph, like his mother Rachel, is described as “beautiful of form and beautiful to look at.” The Torah offers us many examples of beautiful women, but Joseph’s beauty—typically a trait associated with women in the Torah—is remarkable and astonishing. Commentaries go wild imagining the effect that Joseph’s beauty had on onlookers. A famous Midrash portrays the women of Egypt looking at him so intently that they forget what themselves and start cutting their fingers instead of the fruit in front of them. Joseph’s beauty is also cited by the Biblical narrator as a reason that he finds favor both with his master, Potifar, and with his master’s wife. Commentaries even insinuate that Joseph is lusted after by both Potifar and his wife.
Joseph’s beauty resembles that of his mother, and also distinguishes him from his half-brothers, the children of the dim-eyed Leah. Thus, when the brothers throw him in the pit and sell him into slavery, we can imagine their envy as an expression of a visual asymetry. It is an envy rooted in the difference between their appearance and Joseph’s. Joseph’s natural beauty is enhanced and emphasized by his flamboyant coat of many colors, which the brothers dip in animal blood so as to support their false account that Joseph was eaten by beasts. In disfiguring the beautiful coat, the token of Jacob’s favoritism of Joseph, Rachel, the brothers display an open hostility to beauty. Like contemporary radical protestors who deface paintings in museums, the shock value is the point.
Thomas Mann imagines that the violated k’tonet passim portrays a symbolic rape of Rachel by Joseph’s brothers and perhaps a literal one of Joseph. But even if we restrain ourselves from imagining the horrors of the pit—horrors that neither Joseph nor his brothers ever recount in detail—we can say that the brothers’ enmity towards Joseph comes down not just to a difference in social position, but a difference in sensibility. The brothers are “triggered” by Joseph’s dashing looks.
The word Hanukkah, which contains the word Chein, meaning beauty, is a holiday in which we are commanded to enjoy—but not derive benefit from—light. The light is beautiful and it is also sacred. And the two are connected, teaching us that beauty is something we can look at, but not something we can utilize. In aesthetic theory beauty is contrasted all the time with utility. Of course it is possible to make tools that are both beautiful and functional, but the proper response to beauty is “beholding.” You can behold the beauty of a forest only by suspending the thought that its trees might make for good timber.
Both the brothers’ hatred of beauty and Joseph’s own indulgence of it—at least per the Midrash—mark an immature relationship to that which we cannot use. Joseph’s vanity, if you will, demonstrates a kind of obscene revelry in beauty, one that cheapens it. While Joseph enjoys “beauty privilege,” it also leads to unwanted* attention (again, the Midrashic record suggests Joseph enjoys the illicit glances of Potifar’s wife). A more disinterested relationship to beauty, one that notices, but doesn’t use or ravish, is needed. We call this attentional attitude modesty. Joseph’s immodest posture is a perfect fit for the obsessive negative attention of his brothers. The two reinforce one another. Joseph’s immature narcissism, at least as imagined by the Midrashic tradition, represents a kind of “use” of his light that stands in contrast to the light of the Chanukkah Menorah, which we are enjoined to behold, but not to use.
Channukah is the only Holiday in which the concept of hidur, beatification, is enshrined in the Halacha. The notion that one might beatify the Holiday is core. It is so core that we even learn of the notion of mehadrin min hamehadrin, beatifying on top of beatification. The mishandling of Joseph’s beauty—by Joseph, by his brothers, by Potifar’s household, and the raising up of beauty on Channukah are connected. How should we relate to the beautiful? We can’t oppose it as the brothers do? We also can’t turn it into a pretext for self-absorption or dandyism as Joseph does. And we can’t turn it into something that we objectify and chase after as the Egyptians do (and as the Greeks did). Rather, we must cultivate a modest attitude to beauty, one that acknowledges and beholds the light, but does not seek to use the light.
Just as the light of the Menorah cannot be used, only beheld, so a miracle cannot be used, only beheld. Miracles only happen when we are in a state of beholding. When we try to deploy them, they vanish, or even backfire.
In Pesachim 26a, we find Rebbe Yochanan (whose name also contains the word, cheyn, for beauty) teaching in the shade of the Temple. Apparently, this constitutes a “use” of the Temple, and thus a violation of its sanctity. But the Gemara offers a resolution of this supposed faux-pas by suggesting that the beauty and sanctity of the Temple are not to be found in the exterior but in the interior.
On Hanukkah, we are enjoined to publicize the miracle. How do we reconcile the public nature of the holiday, which often involves placing a Menorah in a window, or even on the sidewalk, outside one’s shop, with the lesson of modesty, learned from Joseph’s trial? One possibility is that the Menorah’s light —even in the mehadrin min ha mehadrin form—is itself a cover for an inner light, a subtle light, a mysterious light. It is a decoy or cipher for the light of the Jewish people.
Like Joseph, the Jews are an enviable and envied people, and we shouldn’t flaunt or pamper ourselves in front of antisemites. But nor should we hide our light either. Rather, we can reveal our light modestly. Just as the interior of the Temple is the source of its sanctity, it is the interior of the Jewish people that is the “light unto the nations.” This interior light is not exhausted by the more obvious examples of Jewish civilizational contribution. And like the light of the Menorah, which just is, it is enough for the Jewish people to just be, without justification or defense.
The light of the Menorah contrasts with the colorful zest of Joseph’s k’tonet passim, offering us a more basic beauty, the beauty of illumination and contrast, or brightening the dark. Stripped of his garment, Joseph swaps the ostentatious beauty of Egyptian/Greek adornment for the inner beauty of Jewish hope. It is Joseph in prison, with no makeup, no powdered hair, and no coat, who is most illuminating. The Jewish people has been placed throughout history in conditions of darkness and still our light, kindled from within, endures.
Am Yisrael Chai. Shabbat Shalom,
Zohar Atkins