The Torah records the first encounter between the “fathers” of the two civilizations at the heart of the Chanuka story. After safely disembarking from the ark, Noach, in his drunken state, is taken advantage of by his son, Cham. Both Shem and Yefet, the fathers of Judaism and Yavan, respectively, come to protect their father’s dignity. The two seemingly engage in the same pious act of covering their father with a blanket, yet the blessings that Noach gives them reflects a clear preference to the actions of Shem. Shem is granted the blessing, “Baruch Hashem Elokei Shem…” while Yefet is blessed, “yaft Elokim l’Yafet, v’yishkon b’ohalei Shem.” Something about Yefet’s blessing is dependent on Shem. What was it in Shem’s act that made him worthy of this superior blessing?

Chazal in the midrash Tanchuma highlight a discrepancy in the grammar at the beginning of the story. “VaYikach Shem v’Yefet et HaSimla, VaYasimu al Shchem Shenehem …VaYachasu et Ervat Avihem” (Bereishit 9:23) The pasuk begins in the singular- “Vayikach”- and “he took the garment” but concludes in the plural “they placed it in their shoulders…and they covered the nakedness of their father.” Why the switch between singular to plural? The midrash explains that Shem acted immediately and showed more courage in the mitzvah than Yefet. Yefet joined and help out, but only after Shem’s initiative. The midrash adds that as a reward for this extra effort by Shem, his descendents merited the mitzvah of talit. Yefet’s descendents were rewarded with the promise that they will be buried in the ground. What is the connection between the actions of these two brothers and the “rewards” they earned as a result?

Rav Reuven Taragin, drawing from the works of Rav Solovetchik and Rav Hutner, explains that Yefet’s blessing is the blessing of beauty, a concept that Judaism very much values. The mishna in Megilla says that a megilla written in Greek is kosher (all other languages are pasul) because the Greek language, a reflection of their culture as a whole, is a beautiful one. The Greeks developed the aesthetics of art, music, and literature.  They were experts at discovering the beauty in the world and expressing the beauty that man has within himself. However, the value of beauty also contains with it a possible danger. The whole notion of beauty is subjective-it places a tremendous amount of importance on the individual to determine what is beautiful. As the popular saying goes, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

This philosophy was at the center of Greek ideology and culture. The Greeks were the ones that put the Earth and mankind both literally and figuratively in the center of the universe. They celebrated the human body and all of its accomplishments. In Greek mythology the gods possess strong humanistic qualities: anger, jealousy and lust.  These gods were created in the image of man, not the reverse. When one’s perception of reality is viewed through the lens of beauty alone, man is essentially god-his word, his thoughts, and his opinions rule.

Judaism has a simple response to this. A person must remember that there are objective values that don’t stem from man, but from G-d. Man must be able to distinguish between values that he can appreciate and determine and those that he cannot.

The difference between these two philosophies can be seen in the reaction of Shem and Yefet upon seeing their father debased and dehumanized lying in front of them. Religious man acts immediately. Wrong is what G-d says is wrong, and he must act immediately to improve it. The man of beauty, on the other hand, believes it is wrong, because he believes that it is wrong. It is wrong because his subjective set of values tells him that what he sees is wrong, and this extra step of consciousness, of mental processing, causes a delay. Shem acts immediately; Yefet needs a little bit of time to reflect.

Religious man, the descendents of Shem, is given the mitzvah of the talit. The tzitzit serve as a continual reminder that G-d is always “above.” “U’zechartem et kol mitzvot Hashem, v’asitem otam.” Shem’s descendents earn this distinction of recognizing objective values and living their life by them. The descendents of Yefet though are given the gift of burial. For if there is one thing that runs counter to the value of beauty and the idealization of the human body, it is the phenomenon of death. Yefet, the man of beauty, is given the gift that will allow him to escape the reality of death that counters his concept of the beauty of man. 

Generations later, this difference between the Greeks and the Jews played on. The Greeks were not against mitzvot or the Jewish G-d. They were against transforming those subjective ideals to an objective mandate. The Jews could continue to practice, as long as they made it about themselves, not about some G-d that was commanding them to perform. They were against “chukei retzonecha.” Chukim are the greatest expression of man submitting himself to a Higher Power. It is this same conflict that we must safeguard and defend even today; against both those that attack us from the outside and our own voices that challenge us from within.