HOW TO TEACH ABOUT HANUKAH?

 Rabbi Rifat Sonsino , Ph.D

This year, the Jewish festival of Hanukah begins on Thursday night, Dec. 10, and lasts 8 days. It commemorates the military victory of the Jewish rebels (the  so-called Maccabees),  against the Syrian-Greeks, in 167 BCE. After a few fierce battles, the Jews, under the leadership of Judah the Maccabee, defeated the enemy and rededicated the Temple of Jerusalem to the worship one God, which had been desecrated by Antiochus IV, the king of the Syrian Greeks and his army. In fact, the Hebrew word “Hanukah” means dedication.

We do not really know why it lasts 8 days, and early sources do not tell us why. However, over the centuries, various explanations have been proposed, including the theory that it was a late Sukkot (Festival of Harvest) (See, II Mac. 10) or simply that when the rebels entered the temple they found eight iron spears. They stuck candles on them and lit them (Pesikta Rabbati). And, then there is the so-called “miracle” of Hanukah, proposed by the Talmudic Rabbis, centuries after the event: a miracle occurred and one candle lasted 8 days (Shab. 21b). We don’t know why the Rabbis came up with this explanation, but perhaps it was because they did not like the rebel Maccabees and wanted to attribute the great event to a divine power. Thus, for example, the 16th-century Maharal of Prague, Rabbi Judah Loew, suggested, “The main reason that the days of Hanukkah were instituted was to celebrate the victory over the Greeks. However, so that it would not seem that the victory was due only to might and heroism, rather than to Divine Providence, the miracle was denoted by the lighting of the Menorah, to show that it was all by a miracle, the war as well”.

I am very uncomfortable with this miraculous explanation, not only because, as a religious naturalist, I do not believe that miracles, as a divine intervention into the acts of nature, can or do happen  but also because it may be misleading to the younger generations who expect incredible events to save them through supposedly God’s deeds. What happens when you pray and the so-called “miracles” do not occur? Does that mean that people were not deserving or that God was being capricious? God, as the energy of the universe, does not change the course of nature. I think it is better to deal with Hanukah as a great military victory that altered the course of events and allowed the Israelites of the 2^nd cent. BCE to live in freedom, in their own land, keeping their traditions as they saw fit.