Chanukah

The rise of The Saducees, eventually encouraged by Alexander Yanai, the most powerful of the Hasmonean kings, undermined the peoples’ faith in Torah and rabbinic tradition. So why is there such a big deal over the matter of Chanuka?

It is the act of lighting the Chanukah lamp that constitutes the precept. Therefore, even if the head of the household is sick and cannot get out of bed, we may not bring them to him to light by his bedside and then set them down in their proper place.

The Chanukah lamp represents the Torah. Although the sun, the moon, and the stars illuminate and unveil the presence of God, the Torah is above even them. The perfect Torah testifies to God's greatness more than any other aspect of creation.

“The light shall triumph,” proclaims the Chanukah candle. It conveys the story of the small Jewish nation that stood up to the colossal Greek culture and emerged victorious. Does it also have the power to reveal to me what Jewish culture is?

God performed a miracle allowing the Hasmoneans to light the Menorah even though they did not have to. This showed Israel that at the source of the argument between the sages of Israel and the philosophers of Greece, the sages of Israel were right.

In the past, people gathered at home just before nightfall. At sunset, then, the streets were full of people returning home. The sages therefore ruled that the time for lighting Chanukah candles is "from sundown until the marketplace has emptied out."

On Purim, the faith in God's omnipotence and the Torah's divinity were revealed. On Chanukah, the faith in personal Divine Providence was revealed: God delivered the many into the hands of the few. We, too, must strive to see God's providence in all.

The turning point in Hellenist culture came when classic paganism became a general idea. This happened when they stripped paganism of its religious content and transformed it into a cluster of ideas - purposive, active forces became laws and domains.