On Chanukah we commemorate the miracles of defeating the Greeks and the discovery of a single canister of pure undefiled oil in the Temple. But why do we still celebrate these ancient miracles today?
Furthermore, being that initially they did not find any pure undefiled oil, it would have been permitted to have lit the candelabra with impure oil. But another miracle occurred and a canister of single of pure oil was discovered. Impressive indeed! But why is the relatively smaller miracle of the oil emphasised more that the other more impressive miracle of defeating the Greeks?
One Chanukah, R’ Avraham Twerski visited his elderly friend Leizer who was quite ill in hospital. Leizer was depressed having just received a grim prognosis from the doctors. R’ Twerski sought to lift his friend’s spirits. He had an idea. After much pleading with the hospital staff, he obtained special permission to be allowed to light a menorah.
Leizer was indeed uplifted. “The oil in the temple could only burn naturally for one day,” he commented, “yet it burned for eight days. The doctors say I only have one year to live – but that’s according to nature. G-d can miraculously turn one year into eight – or even more!”
Indeed the doctors could not explain how Leizer indeed lived another ten years – without any treatments!
The ancient miracles of Chanukah are not really ancient at all! The only thing making them ‘ancient’ is because of the ongoing influence of the Greeks outlook that everything is ‘nature’.
We might have miraculously physically conquered the Greeks, but we have not yet ridden ourselves of their ideologies. In many ways then, the miracle of defeating the Greeks is incomplete, because until we rid ourselves of their ideologies, we too run the risk of perceiving the miracle as mere nature. But the miracle of the oil is different. As insignificant as it might seem compared to winning a war, it was nonetheless clearly miraculous and therefore a demonstration of G-d’s ability to defy nature and perform miracles. Furthermore, unlike being completely saved from the Greeks which includes ridding ourselves of their ideologies, the miracle of the oil was pure and complete, not requiring any additional efforts on our part. Or in other words, its miraculous status cannot be defiled by Greek ideology.
King Shlomo teaches us that “Mans soul is the candle of G-d” [1]. A candle brought about through a miracle is by definition a “candle of G-d” and is therefore connected to a man’s soul, indicating his spiritual connection.
On Chanukah the lights are holy: it is forbidden to physically benefit from them!
In other words they are “candles of G-d” – spiritual lights than cannot be defiled by Greek ideology.
These are the candles of which Yosef spoke. After Yosef – now a powerful Egyptian ruler – revealed himself to his brothers, he attempted to assure them that he would not harm them despite the evil they had brought upon him: “You thought to do bad to me, but G-d brought good to me” [2]. He further assured them that ‘if ten candles (referring to his brothers) could not extinguish one (referring to himself), can one possibly extinguish ten?’ [3]. Being that he was now much more powerful than them, this comment does not seem to be too assuring! Rather he was primarily assuring them that that he was spiritually unaffected by their sending him to Egypt and that he was still a “candle of G-d”.*
‘Chanukah’ shares the same numerical value as the word ‘guf’ meaning body. By kindling our Chanukah lights, we are demonstrating that as well as a body we have a soul. In turn, the more we connect to our soul – our spiritual side – the greater our defeat of the Greeks and their ideologies.
Have a pure Shabbos and a bright Chanukah,
Dan.
Additional sources:
[1] Mishlei 20:27 [2] Bereishis 50:21 [3] Rashi, Bereishis 50:21Accordingly it is interesting to note that it is R’ Binyomin bar Yefes who teaches us this lesson, and we have been taught that ‘the words of Yefes will be in the tents of Shem (the son of Noach from whom the Jewish nation descended)’ [Megilla 9b] i.e. the tents of spirituality, perhaps alluding to this teaching and the candles referring to a spiritual dimension. In truth ‘Yefes’ is referring to a different son of Noach, from whom descended the Greeks – another allusion to Chanukah.
