Happy Eight Days of Chanukah Message - Day 2

CHANUKAH: WHAT IS TODAY’S MIRACLE?

The festival of Chanukah is about miracles. The second candle blessing, recited each night of the holiday, praises the One "…who performed miracles for our ancestors in ancient days at this season." When we play dreydl, the spinning top has four sides, each marked with the first letter of the words a great miracle happened there. (In Israel, the dreydels are one little different from the dreydels we play with here, because theirs say a great miracle happened here!)  The tradition of lighting the menorah either outside or in the window or even on the public square stems from the mitzvah of “publicizing the miracle.” Every aspect of Chanukah, down to the greasy latkes and donuts, is to remember “the miracle.”

But what was the miracle? Of course, there is the conventional wisdom that a small container of consecrated of oil, enough to light the Temple light for just one day, actually burned for eight days----precisely the amount of time it took to produce more oil. 

As our Talmud study group learned last Shabbat, however, there is a problem with this tale. That is, it did not appear in Jewish literature until about 500 years after the Maccabee wars took place. Some people are distressed to learn that this story, along with many others that comprise our inherited tradition, likely never actually occurred. The truth, however, is that the deeper meaning of the story has nothing to do with whether it was an actual occurrence. Rather, it shows us that the festival of lights has been so important throughout Jewish history that, as our people and our religion have evolved, so have the stories we tell—and so have the miracles in which we believe.

For was it not a miracle that a small group of Jews were brave enough to remain strongly identified as Jews, even when one could be severely punished for doing so?

And isn’t it miraculous that these Jews, the Maccabees were able to retain their Jewishness under pressure without becoming fanatical and fundamentalist, which has been a problem during other periods of war and oppression. According to some historians, the Maccabbees were able to find a middle path—they neither abandoning Judaism altogether, nor did they completely shun the contemporary society around them.  Knowing what we do today about fundamentalists, and the havoc they bring when they become fanatic, this is truly a miracle from which we can learn.

Whenever I teach history, the first lesson I always put forward is that the discipline of history is the study of continuity and change. At times, when we look at our Jewish past, we see the continuous golden chain of tradition. Other times, we see the way the Jewish people have evolved; so tremendously so, that we are hardly the same people that we once were. And yet, here we are, more than 2,000 years after the Maccabean war. Jews are celebrating that a great miracle happened­—either there or here. It might not be the same miracle, and it certainly isn’t the same celebration. But we Jews are still here, still bringing light into the darkness, still responsible for one another---and that’s a miracle!