That's why we say, " Asher kidishanu b'mitzvotav," blessing G‑d for sanctifying us with His commandments, when we wash our hands before eating bread, or before kindling Shabbat candles, or any other mitzvah that the rabbis instituted and the people accepted-because that process is divine. Which means that we believe that when the Jewish people accepted the decision of the Sages concerning which books go in and which not, that means that these books are holy and the others not. We believe that G‑d reveals Himself to the world through the history of the Jews. What does Judaism mean? It means belief in the Jews. By way of comparison - Buddhism means belief in the path taught by Buddha. I'll give you another major principle to follow: This is called Judaism. But it's all up to us, when we decide to cash in. The Redemption, according to the sages, could have been complete with Moses, with King David, with King Hezekiah, with Ezra, with the Maccabees, with Bar Kochba.and in so many other instances. There, it is amorphous, not fully defined and can materialize in more than one way. Rather, a prophecy is the state of matters in a higher realm, before it has reached our earthly plane.
It is a kind of knowledge that defies definition and clarity, just as G‑d Himself. If we could know the way He knows, we would be Him. G‑d and His knowledge are one, as Maimonides writes. The world as G‑d knows it is not something the human mind can fathom. Prophecy is not "the world as G‑d knows it". So it is quite possible that Daniel's prophecy could have materialized with the victory of the Hasmoneans-if it were not for their mistake of taking the royal crown that had been promised to the seed of David. How that prophecy actually materializes is up to us. There, however, it is in an amorphous state. Here's a little lesson in prophecy from the Shelah (R' Yeshaya Horowitz, 16-17th century): The prophet sees a vision as it is above, in a higher world. To whom does it sound most likely? To his very biased modern mind. So he does what historians always do: Ignore the tradition and compose a scenario that sounds most likely and conclude that this is fact. To him, prophecy is just another fairy tale. If you would suggest to this author that perhaps it was written as a prophecy, he would most likely provide a condescending smile. I sincerely doubt that the author of the introduction you read approached the Book of Daniel with an open mind. To which the Rebbe pointed out something similar to what I just wrote you. "What do you mean, 'so what?'?" he cried out, "I am a Jew!" There's a story of a chassid who went to see his rebbe and cried, "Rebbe, I don't believe!" The fact that all this bothers you to such a degree is the greatest proof of how much faith you do have. How could they (and we) be sure what is what and that a mistake wasn't made in the selection? And I know they were a lot of works now in the Apocrypha that they rejected. I know that when the sages were canonizing the Bible, they had a lot of works in front of them, and had to figure out what's authentic and what's not. Nevertheless, I recognize this is a serious problem. To be clear, any doubts I have are confined solely to Daniel, not to the prophets in general. Nevertheless, I have been unable to get these doubts over Daniel from my mind. I certainly know that it is a cardinal faith of Judaism that the prophets were true. I am finding it very difficult to sweep these difficulties away in my mind. Moreover linguistic analysis apparently shows Hellenistic vocabulary, all of this suggesting the book was written around the time of the Chanukah wars, as an attempt to explain contemporary events as the birth pangs of the Messiah. the prophecies apparently explain the Messiah as coming after the Chanukah wars. Its introduction contended that Daniel's apocalyptic Messianic prophesies are all most easily explained as referring to the history of the Jews from Babylonia through the Chanukah wars. I was recently reading a commentary on the Book of Daniel.