Saturday, December 9, 2023
Sunday, December 3, 2023
THE FESTIVAL OF HANUKAH; MIRACLE: YES OR NO?
This year, the first candles of Hanukah will be lit on Thursday
night, Dec. 7, 2023. The festival lasts 8 days.
The traditional explanation of why the festival of
Hanukah is celebrated for eight days is based on a Talmudic passage: Oil for
one day, miraculously lasted eight. . However, this is a late development.
Early texts do not mention this so-called miracle. It is time we give up this
irrational explanation and find a better one. And that historical explanation
does exist.
The history behind Hanukah is, briefly, this: In the
second cent. BCE, Antiochus IV, the Syrian king, set out to conquer Egypt.
While he was fighting there, Jason, who was deposed from his position as the
Jewish High Priest in Jerusalem, left the Ammonites with whom he had taken
refuge, and attacked Menelaus, his brother in Jerusalem, in order to regain the
High Priesthood. A civil war broke out between the two, and Jason successfully
entered Jerusalem. King Antiochus was furious. On his way back from Egypt, the
king attacked Jerusalem, imposed restrictions on Judea, and eventually
desecrated the Temple. In reaction, a priest by the name of Mattathias, and his
sons (called the Maccabees), fought against the Syrians, and were able to clean
and rededicate the temple of Jerusalem to the worship of one God in the year
165 BCE. This rededication is called Hanukah (“dedication” in Hebrew).
The First Book of Maccabees (c.mid-2nd cent.
BCE), states that Hanukah ought to be celebrated for eight days but does not
indicate the reason for it (see, 4:59). It is in the Second Book of Maccabees
(c.125 BCE) that we find a rational explanation: It happened that on the
same day on which the sanctuary had been profaned by the foreigners, the
purification of the sanctuary took place, that is, on the twenty-fifth day of
the same month, which was Kislev. And they
celebrated it for eight days with rejoicing, in the manner of the feast of
booths, remembering how not long before, during the feast of booths [Sukkot],
they had been wandering in the mountains and caves like wild animals. (10:
6). So, Hanukah was really like a delayed Sukkot that lasts seven days plus
Atzeret, a one day festival (See, Lev. 23: 33-36; cf. v.39).
The first reference to the lights of Hanukah appears in
the writings of Josephus (1sr cent. CE) who calls the festival “Lights” by
saying: I suppose the reason was this liberty beyond our hopes appeared to
us and that hence the name given to that festival. (Antiquities, 7:7).
In it only in the Talmud, which was edited
in Babylonia in the 5-6th centuries CE that the so-called “miracle”
makes its appearance (under Persian influence?): What is [the reason of] Hanukah? For our Rabbis
taught: On the twenty-fifth of Kislew [commence] the days of Hanukkah,
which are eight on which a lamentation for the dead and fasting are
forbidden. For when the Greeks entered the Temple, they defiled all the
oils therein, and when the Hasmonean [i.e. Maccabees] dynasty prevailed against
and defeated them, they made search and found only one cruse of oil which lay
with the seal of the High Priest, but which contained sufficient for one
day’s lighting only; yet a miracle was wrought therein and they lit [the lamp]
therewith for eight days. The following year these [days] were appointed a
Festival with [the recital of] Hallel and thanksgiving. (BT Shab. 21b).
Later on a midrashic text (c. 9th
cent.) provides another explanation: When the Hasmoneans defeated the
Greeks, they entered the temple and found there eight iron spears. They
stuck candles on these spears and kindled them. (Pesikta Rabbati 2: 5).
It is clear that the explanation of why
Hanukah was celebrated for eight days changed over the years, some legendary,
and some more historical. For me, the simplest and the most reasonable
explanation is that, in its own time, Hanukah was a delayed Sukkot. No
miracles. The festival today proclaims many important values, such as courage,
dedication, thanksgiving, and above all, the right to be different. These are
the values we need to stress, and not the miracle of oil which is not rational,
historical or even believable in our time.
HAPPY HANUKAH
Rabbi Rifat Sonsino, Ph.D
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