Just the other day someone wanted to know why we would teach in
the religious school that the miracle of Hanukkah might not actually be the oil
that lasts for eight days. Isn’t that
the most important part? What else could
be the reason if not that for having the holiday?
I hate to break it to you, and this might not be what you get
into with your kids who are younger than 10 or 11 or so, but I don’t think
there was a miracle with the oil last eight days. Nevertheless, I do believe Hanukkah is an
important holiday to celebrate with an important message to learn.
Now why do I think what I do?
First, if you read through I and II Maccabees (books in the Apocrypha, a
collection of biblical style books written after the canon of the Hebrew Bible
was already closed but still religiously significant and included in the
Catholic Bible), which were written during the time when the Maccabees were
rulers of Israel, there is no mention of the miracle with the oil. That is to say, in accounts that were written
either right during the time of the Hanukkah story or not long after, they don’t
know anything about “super oil.”
Furthermore, when we say the addition to the Amidah prayer for
Hanukkah Al ha-Nissim, or when we read the passage Ha-Nerot Hallalu
recited after lighting the menorah candles, neither of these prayers mention
magic oil either.
It is not until the Talmud, edited together around 450CE that we
encounter the story of the lights. The
events of Hanukkah happened around 150BCE and so we are talking about six
hundred years between the two events.
And even those early parts of the Talmud are still separated from the
time of the Maccabean Revolt by more than hundred years. A nice story to be sure, but not one that rings
with the note of historical accuracy.
So why then do we a light a menorah at all? I suspect it is because the Maccabees really did
restore the Holy Temple after they defeated the Seleucid Greeks, and the
menorah was a key symbol of the Temple, so incorporating it into the
celebrations the held for their victory made sense. And I
think they made Hanukkah an eight-day holiday (the Temple menorah has six branches
plus one central light) because that fit better with other important holidays
like Sukkot and Passover, and the Maccabees felt their victory worthy of a
similarly long celebration.
The miracle of Hanukkah then, the one we read about in the Books
of Maccabees, the one we mention in our additional prayers including the candle
blessings, the one even the Talmud acknowledges, is the faith of the Maccabees
that their dedication to Judaism could help them prevail of the Greeks. And despite their smaller numbers, despite
even the fact that even some of the Maccabees were themselves Hellenized Jews,
their commitment to Jewish tradition, their hope and bravery, that is what we
truly celebrate.
When you light the candles this year, make sure that lesson is a
part of what you celebrate and remember.
And after we put the menorah away, remember that just as the light of
Hanukkah grows stronger every night of the holiday, so too, can our faith and
courage during difficult times, helping us to prevail against those who might
seek our harm, and see Jewish life and relevance survive and thrive.
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