Why We Love Chanukah

Though only considered a minor Jewish holiday, Chanukah has captured the imagination of Jews and is perhaps one of the most celebrated of Jewish holidays. Its origins go back to about 168 years before the common era. We read, in the first and second book of MaCabees, of the oppression suffered by our ancestors under the strong arm of a group called the Seleucids and their leader Antiochus IV. We are told that Antiochus, in his quest for complete power and his wish to dominate that part of the world, imposed harsh restrictions on the Judeans in an attempt to eradicate Judaism. He outlawed Jewish practices such as circumcision, observing the Sabbath, kashrut, studying Hebrew. The story goes on to tell us that we – the few – stood up against our oppressors – the many – and we triumphed. (It’s always nice to be on the winning side!) In the 2 1/2 year guerilla war, we fought with passion to maintain our identity and we were able to come back into the temple, rededicate it (Chanukah means dedication) and clean up the desecration that our oppressors had caused. They had torn our scrolls, splattered the blood of pigs on the Temple walls, left our Temple in complete disarray.

In the first and second book of MaCabees, which are in a set of books called the Apocrypha – a scripture that is also part of the Christian canon – we read about all these historical events, about our survival and about why we celebrate this holiday for eight days. And in those documents written around the same time of the actual events, there is never a reference to the oil that burned miraculously for eight days. We are told that we are to celebrate this holiday for eight days with joy and gladness because we had, for the previous 2 1/2 years, not been able to celebrate the major pilgrimage festival of Sukkoth. This is not quite the story most of us have been told about the holiday. The story that excites us is the beautiful, mystical, magical story that was written some 600 years later in the Talmud. It is there, in the Babylonian Talmud Shabbat 21b, that we hear about the one small vial of oil that was found that still had the seal of the High Priest on it. There was only enough oil to keep the eternal flame burning for 1 day and it would take many days for pure oil to be found, but miraculously, the oil burned for eight days.

Both stories of why we celebrate the holiday contain both similar and dissimilar concepts. There is even a 3rd explanation of why 8 days, when we read, in Pesika Rabati 2:1, that when the Hasmoneans (the MaCabees) entered the Temple, they found 8 rods of iron spears which they grooved out and then kindled wicks in the oil which they had poured into the grooves. We like to focus on the similarities of the stories. All the explanations of Chanukah talk about our surviving! As small as we were (and still are), as much as we are tempted to assimilate out of existence, and as so often we are outnumbered, “out weaponed”, overwhelmed, oppressed, we survive… Judaism survives.

There are many things about the original story in 1 MaCabees and 11 MaCabees that we tend not to emphasize… the reality that it was not only a battle against our external enemies, the Seleucids, but it was also a civil war between the Hellenizers (the Jews who were very comfortable and very willing to assimilate into the Greek culture) and the Jews (the MaCabees also called the Hasidim) who wanted to retain their unique Jewish identity. It’s difficult to celebrate a holiday when we focus on our internal divisiveness. The Hellenizers apparently we’re OK with adopting and giving up their Jewish identity. The MaCabees fought against this.

So we have now, in this modern era, to examine what Chanukah means to us. We have to look at what we can learn from Chanukah and what it means to keep the light burning. At this dark and cold time of the year, it is amazing to see the lights of so many of our faiths burning brightly. Light has come to symbolize hope, strength, faith, joy. As we light our Chanukiot in our homes(and this is definitely a home holiday although we do have communal candle lighting at our synagogue) we are sharing with one another the pride of our identity. Each member of the family is to have his, her or their Chanukiah to light. Each of us has to find our own relationship to our Jewish identity. We are to light the candles and place the Chanukiah near a window so it can be seen by all those walk by our homes, to let them know that we are proud of who we are. In our Hebrew school classes, our children make their replica Chanukiot and with pride bring them home to their parents. The students play the dreidel game and they learn 4 Hebrew letters quite well; nun for the word NES (miracle), gimmel for the word GADOL (great), hay for the word HAYA (happened) and shin for the word SHAM (there)…..A great miracle happen there…. If we were in Israel, the last letter would be pei for the word PO (here).

And this holiday is a miracle! Its magical, mystical qualities brings us together. So many of us celebrate it and enjoy it. We get together with our families and our community to cook make and eat latkas and sufganiot, to invite family and friends to our homes for Chanukah parties. This holiday shows us how much we have to celebrate. As our neighbours are celebrating Christmas and some of our neighbours just celebrated Diwali, we too can celebrate what is uniquely ours, Chanukah. And we share with our neighbours the celebration of faith and hope. We love Chanukah because we celebrate it as a positive and affirmative sign of our Jewish identity. We love Chanukah because we get together with our family and our community to light our beautiful Chanukiot and sing beautiful songs. We love Chanukah because our kids enjoy the games they play with their dreidels, receiving their chocolate gelt, the odd present or two doesn’t hurt. We love Chanukah because on each of the 8 nights we can do Tikkun Olam… we can be part of projects to help mend the brokenness of our world. We have so much as Jews to celebrate and to commemorate.

So as we complete lighting of the candles on Sunday night, we will continue to keep the light burning. We will continue in our homes and in our community to be proud of who we are as Jews, to be proud that we live in a land still safe for us to light our candles publicly. We will continue to learn from the oppression that we have suffered to understand the oppression that others have also suffered and are still suffering. We will continue to understand that often, as Jews, we don’t agree with one another, but that internal strife makes us far more vulnerable to external threats. As we store away our Chanukiot till next year, as we try to finish all those chocolate coins we have given one another and all those latkas, we will know the true light of Judaism continues to burn as long as we remember who we are and create for our families and for ourselves Jewish homes and support our Jewish community. I hope you’ve had a wonderful holiday celebration. Chag Sameach, keep healthy!

Filed under: Educator's Message

« Read more articles

---