Chanukah Essay

• December 21, 2011
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• 25 Kislev 5772
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  A Titanic Victory and a Small Cruse of Oil

  Eyes Fixed on Eternity

  Rabbi YY Jacobson

  • December 21, 2011

  There is something strange about the Chanukah celebration.

  The festival of Chanukah commemorates an extraordinary victory -- of the Maccabees, a relatively small and dedicated force of fighters, against one of the great imperial powers of classical antiquity, the Seleucid branch of the Alexandrian empire.

  This story takes us back 2100 years ago, to the year 164 BCE, some 150 years before the birth of Christianity and two centuries before the destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans. Israel was then under the rule of the empire of Alexander the Great. A Syrian ruler Antiochus the 5^th ascended the throne, and he was determined to impose his values on the Jewish people. He forbade the practice of Judaism, set up a statue of Zeus in the Temple, and systematically desecrated Jerusalem's holy sites. Jews who were caught practicing Judaism were tortured to death. This was tyranny on a grand scale. Sadly, he was helped in this endeavor by two Jewish high priests, Jason and Menelaus, who assisted him in banning the Jewish lifestyle and turning the Temple into an interdenominational house of worship on Greek lines.

  To put it into historical perspective, had Antiochus succeeded, Judaism would have died. Its daughter religions -- Christianity and Islam – would have, of course, never come to be.

  A small group of Jews, led by the elderly priest Matityahu and his sons, rose in revolt. They fought a brilliant campaign, and within three years they had recaptured Jerusalem, removed sacrilegious objects from the Temple, and restored Jewish autonomy. It was, as we say in the Chanukah prayers, a victory for 'the weak against the strong, and the few against the many.' Religious liberty was established and the Temple was rededicated. Chanukah means "rededication."

  This was a remarkable event. We, the Jewish people, are here today only because of the courage and vision of this small group of determined Jews who would not allow their G-d and their Torah to be reduced to the dustbins of history by the Syrian-Greek tyrant.

  Yet astonishingly, the Talmud, the classical text of Jewish law and literature, gives us a very different perspective on the Chanukah festival.

  “What is Chanukah?” asks the Talmud (Talmud, Shabbat 21b.) The answer given is this:

  “When the Greeks entered the Sanctuary, they contaminated all its oil. Then, when the royal Hasmonean family overpowered and was victorious over them, they searched and found only a single cruse of pure oil that was sealed with the seal of the High Priest—enough to light the menorah (candelabra) for a single day. A miracle occurred, and they lit the menorah with this oil for eight days. The following year, they established these [eight days] as days of festivity and praise and thanksgiving for G-d.”

  So, according to the Talmud, the festival of Chanukah is less about the military victory of a small band of Jews against one of the mightiest armies on earth, and more about the miracle of the oil. The Talmud makes only a passing reference to the military victory (“when the royal Hasmonean family overpowered and was victorious”), and focuses on the story with the oil, as if this were the only significant event commemorated by the festival of lights.

  This is strange. The miracle of the oil, it would seem, was of minor significance relative to the military victory. Besides the fact that this was a miracle that occurred behind the closed doors of the Temple with only a few priests to behold, it was an event concerning a religious symbol without any consequences on life, death, and liberty. If the Jews would have been defeated by the Greeks, there would be no Jews today; if the oil would have not burnt for eight days, so what? The menorah would have not been kindled. Would the latkes taste any worse?

  Compare Chanukah to Passover and Purim. In both of these holidays, we celebrate the salvation of the Jewish people from genocide. On Chanukah, in contrast, we are celebrating that the oil lasted for eight days?!

  Imagine that following the Israeli victory of the 1967 six-day war, during which six Arab armies were determined to exterminate Israel and its three million Jews, a candle located in a Jerusalem synagogue would have burned for six days. Sure, it would have added a nice sentimental touch to the euphoria of Israel’s salvation, but would have this, rather than the deliverance of millions of innocent human beings from a second holocaust, been the cause of the celebration? Would this detail even make it to the front page of the news?

  Similarly, the burning of the Temple candelabra for eight days was, no doubt, a hear twarming follow-up to a great victory. It was a demonstrative sign that G-d cherished the sacrifice of His children and had rewarded them with a display of unique affection. Yet this was merely the icing on the cake, a coup-de-grace to a historical momentous victory on the battlefield. Yet the Talmud turns this minor detail into the decisive motif for the Chanukah celebration!

  What is more, the miracle with the oil is the only element of the Chanukah events that we commemorate to this very day. We have no custom or ritual commemorating a miraculous triumph. What we do have is the kindling of a menorah for eight days, commemorating the fact that the oil in the Temple menorah lasted for eight days.

  The answer allows us to appreciate the essential ingredient that has defined 4,000 years of Jewish history. The military victory was extraordinary, yet it didn't last. The dynasty of the Hasmonean family became entrenched in civil war and corruption. 210 years after Chanukah, in 68 CE, the Temple was destroyed, this time by the Romans. Jerusalem was plundered, Israel was decimated, and the Jewish people exiled. It was the beginning of a period of Jewish powerlessness, dispersion, and persecution which had lasted almost two millennia.

   

  The political and military victory of Chanukah did not last. What lasted was the spiritual miracle—the faith which, like the oil, was inextinguishable.

  Strength that is founded on military power alone is temporary. It may endure for long periods of time, but ultimately, its might will wane, and it will be defeated by another power. The strength that is founded on moral and spiritual light can never be destroyed.

  With their eyes focused on eternity, the rabbis of the Second Temple era grasped that the timeless core of Chanukah was not the victory on the battlefield alone, but rather the fact that this military triumph led to the re-kindling of the sacred light and the moral torch. The military victory was an enormously significant event that we must be deeply grateful for. Yet what makes Chanukah a vibrant and heart-stirring holiday thousands of years later across the globe is the story of a little cruse of oil that would not cease to cast its brightness even in the darkest of nights and among the mightiest of winds.

  For more than two millennia, Jews have been gathering around their Hanukah candelabras, kindling each night an additional candle. As they gazed at the dancing flame atop their menorahs they can hear the candles sharing their story. It consisted of a simple punch line: The flame of Jewish faith, the flame of Torah, the flame of the Mitzvos, would never be extinguished. The candles were right: Judaism lives.

  Imperial Greece and Rome have long since disappeared. Civilizations built on power never last. Those built on care for the powerless never die. What matters in the long run is not simply political, military or economic strength but how we light the flame of the human spirit.

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