Adapted by Channie Koplowitz Stein
We know that on Chanukah we celebrate the victory of the Maccabees over the Greeks, and we realize that this battle was not for physical survival, but for spiritual survival, for the power to retain our Jewish identity and our way of life in a culture that tried to force us to accept its diametric opposite. While the Greeks valued beauty, the intellect, and the perfection of the body, they believed everything existed only in the physical world and under human control. Therefore, they lived only for themselves, for their own pleasure, and owed allegiance to no other authority. Judaism, on the other hand, believes in a Creator Who remains involved in the world, renewing and recreating the world on a daily basis. We therefore owe our full allegiance and love to Him.
The Greeks wanted to destroy our souls, not our physical bodies. For example, we could study Torah as an intellectual pursuit, as great literature, but not as a guide for life. To accomplish this goal of assimilating us into the greater Greek culture, Antiochus, the Greek emperor, enacted banning the practices considered foundational to Jewish belief. The three most commonly cited edicts banned circumcision, Sabbath observance, and sanctifying the New Moon. While the foundation to Judaism is obvious in circumcision and Sabbath observance, how is sanctifying the New Moon also so basic to our belief system? How is Chanukah itself a holiday without the trappings and laws of our other holidays - there is no prohibition on working, there are no required festive meals. How can we make Chanukah more impactful for ourselves and for our families?
In Orot Hamoadim, Rabbi Zilber sheds a spotlight on Chanukah, our Festival of Lights. Antiochus wanted to extinguish our light, and each of these mitzvoth is symbolically connected to light. Shabbat is a day of "all light"; the New Moon is the emergence of new light in the darkness; when Moshe was born, the entire home was engulfed in light, and Moshe himself was born circumcised. And Moshe would later be instructed, as the first mitzvah upon Bnei Yisroel's leaving Mitzrayim, to sanctify the New Moon. This was our introduction to nationhood.
In this context, the Torah says that Bnei Yisroel left Egypt חמשים. That word had been translated as being armed or as being only one fifth of the entire population. However, Rabbi Zilber explains the word as an acronym of the mitzvoth that would merit Bnei Yisroel's leaving Egypt, חודש מלה שבת, the New Moon, circumcision, and Shabbat.
Rabbi Dovid Cohen links the ritual of sanctifying the New Moon to the first stage of marriage. Marriage is comprised of two parts, the kidushin/engagement/sanctification and the nisuin/marriage ceremony. Sanctifying the New Moon represented our engagement to Hashem, while at Sinai we entered the marriage canopy and ceremony.
Through Divine Inspiration, Yaakov Avinu understood that our exile in Egypt was the paradigm for all our future exiles. Therefore, he sent Yehudah גשנה/to Goshen to meet Yosef. Rabbi Strickoff, citing the Bnei Yissaschar, sees in this unusual construction an allusion to all the future exiles represented by these four letters and depicted on the emblematic toy of Chanukah, the dreidel. Each of these letters represents a different aspect of human existence that the nation dominating us was trying to subvert and destroy. Persia-Media wanted to destroy us physically, our גוף; Greece tried to assimilate our שכל, our intellectual bent; Babylon, by destroying the Beit Hamikdosh, attacked our נשמה, our spiritual soul; and we are now in our final exile, initiated by Rome, an exile which attacks הכל, all of these areas. While the dreidel spins, the central core, the "pintele Yid", still remains in the center.
The moon represents the intellect, writes Yemi Chanukah. The Greeks understood the special intellect of the Jews among whom were astronomers par excellence, beyond the wisdom of the Greeks. For the Jewish astronomers understood the movement of the sun, the moon and the planets, and based the calendar on these calculations. As the Gemmoroh in Shabbos says, "This is their knowledge and wisdom [visible] to the eyes of all the nations." They could witness how the Jewish calendar was divinely inspired, beyond their human ability, with the sanctification of the monthly moon playing a central part. Therefore they banned the sanctification of the Moon.
All of the Greeks' edicts were meant to break down the barriers between Jews and gentiles, leaving the Jews indistinct and absorbed by the other nations. Certainly banning circumcision would erase any physical distinction between Jew and gentile. Eliminating our Shabbat would have Jews work and do business on Saturday and perhaps "rest" on Sunday like the rest of the world. Finally, our calendar is based not on the solar system of the rest of the world [or exclusively on the lunar system], but on a combination of the solar and the lunar, because just as the moon receives its light from the sun, so do we receive our "light" from a higher Authority. Oil, which rises to the top, represents the higher Authority and is therefore a fitting symbol of our Chanukah observance.
Through these edicts, the Greeks tried to make us forget Torah and turn us away from Hashem's mitzvoth. Therefore we thank Hashem for the wars and the struggles. By forcing us to stand up for our values, we strengthened those values and maintained our connection to Hashem. Any time we lose that connection, even when we are in Eretz Yisroel, we are in exile, writes Rabbi Scheinerman. We held firm to the כה we rested and put our faith in כה אמר ה', in relying on what Hashem said, adds the Sifsei Daas.
We must always wear our Jewishness proudly, even when we appear different from everyone else, writes Rabbi Fordsheim in Lefonov Naavod. Every morning when we recite the morning blessing thanking Hashem for not making me a goy/a gentile, we should feel the gratitude in being the chosen nation and instill that pride in our children.
Now we can move on to the Greeks' idolization of the human body and of all things physical. There is merit in beauty, but external beauty must be connected to something spiritual. That was the essence of Noach's blessing to Yafet, the forefather of Greece, " May Hashem beautify Yafet, and may it reside in the tents of Shem." Without the spirituality of Shem, beauty alone is ephemeral and meaningless. The name יון/Greece itself proclaims that there is no reality to it. It remains one dimensional, three parallel lines, without the ability to have anything fill it and give it substance, writes Rabbi Zev Leff in Festivals of Faith. This was the flaw in Bnei Yisroel that left them vulnerable to the Greek culture. Bnei Yisroel observed the mitzvoth of the Torah lackadaisically, a mitzvah here, another mitzvah there. But the people did not connect their observance to a totality of service to Hashem, keeping their observance as the empty, unconnected lines of the Greeks. While we were still connected physically to the Land, we remained disconnected to its spiritual quality. This disconnection from Hashem is the essence of exile.
The Greeks, exalting physicality above all else, believed only in the present condition. There was no room for change or renewal. But the symbol of continuity for Bnei Yisroel was the moon, the orb that changes and is reborn and renewed each month. Its very name screams renewal, for chodesh /month and chodosh/new are the same word with slightly different vocalization, writes Orot Hamoadim. That is why when Bnei Yisroel were reborn as a nation after the exodus, the first mitzvah they were commanded was to sanctify the New Moon and use it to set the entire calendar and life cycle. Our worldview is also to see the world as in a constant state of renewal, freshness and vitality, to observe each mitzvah, even having performed it daily for years, with the same sense of excitement as the first time we performed the mitzvah or recited that prayer. The Beit Hamikdosh itself validated that belief, for the show breads never turned stale and the meat never rotted. The Greeks wanted us to write, "We have no connection to the God of the Jews" on the horns of an ox. Why on the horn of an ox? Because that is the very shofar that is meant to awaken us and to renew our connection to Hashem.
The Chanukah candles become the focus of renewal. The flame is never the same, for it is reborn each moment with new fuel. If it were static, it would continue burning even when the fuel was exhausted. The message for us, writes Rabbi Reiss is to take the habit, the rote, out of our service to Hashem and infuse it with renewal and dimension. Leave the world of seven and enter the world of eight, the world of Chanukah.
The world of seven is the world of nature -- the colors of the rainbow, seven distinct notes in music [the eighth note of the "octave" is a repeat of the first note on a different level]. On Chanukah, ask to enter the world of eight, the world of miracles, expect the miracles, recognize the miracles, writes Rabbi Biederman. Just as Hashem performed miracles then, He continues to do miracles today. Chanukah is a time of chaninah, when Hashem looks upon us with favor.
The events of Chanukah show Hashem going against the natural order He created. When we serve Hashem by going beyond our nature, by subjugating our natural will to His will, with mesiras nefesh, writes Rabbi Ausband zt”l, then Hashem breaks nature and performs miracles for us. Maintain the passion in mitzvoth even if by nature they would become rote.
When we light the menorah, we are not lighting candles on or of Chanukah. We are lighting the Chanukah candle itself, the candle of salvation in heaven, and bringing down that Divine grace, writes the Sifsei Daas.
The oil that fuels the flame is a symbol of חכמה, of wisdom. The olive, the smallest measurable amount that can be considered food,[k'zayit] has the potential to ignite many candles and spread the light from its one drop of oil. חכמה itself is an anagram of כח מה, strength in humility and smallness, writes Orot Hamoadim. Who is a חכם, a wise person? He who can see the potential greatness in the smallest things. Hashem Himself created the world first in potential, and then it grew with each passing day of creation.
Everything starts in smallness. Both sanctity and impurity begin with one small step, a model the yetzer horo uses constantly. This was also the plan of the Greeks and the pitfall the Hellenist Jews fell into. They started with a small acceptance and enjoyment of Greek culture, and slowly slid down, step by step, into the abyss of rejecting Hashem. The descent is clearly depicted in the Hebrew letters that spell Greece, י ו ן. It begins as just a small dot, completely above board. Then descends to "street culture" level until it sinks below, into the abyss.
On Chanukah we celebrate a tiny jar of oil whose potential grew and manifested itself through a full eight days. We see that potential in our children, and so many families have the tradition that each child lights his own menorah, absorbing the lesson of his own potential.
We can each take on a small resolution, and only Hashem knows the greatness to which that can lead. Rabbi Biederman cites the Torah verses we read on Chanukah, the offerings each prince brought to inaugurate the Mishkan, "...כף אחת /One gold ladle of ten [shekels] filled with incense..." Rabbi Biederman interprets the word כף not as a ladle, but as כפיפה, bowing one's head in humility, in making oneself small. One small act may become golden. We do not know what one spin of our life's dreidel will become.
In Sichot Eliyahu, Rabbi Roth zt”l juxtaposes the important word in the command to sanctify the New Moon with its other appearance, hachodesh hazeh/this month with zeh keili veanvehu/This is my God and I will glorify Him that Bnei Yisroel proclaimed at the splitting of the See moon is teaching us, posits Rabbi Roth, that Hashem is always there, even when He is concealed from us as He is in other phases of the moon. Therefore we need to dedicate ourselves to Him in גוף, in נפש, and in שכל, in all, in הכל.
The miracles Hashem did in those days were to teach us that the miracles continue in our time, that Hashem is in our lives today even if we do not see Him. When we recite Al Hanissim, we thank Hashem for salvation from the purkan, the burdens that weigh us down. But, writes Rabbi Fishel Schacter in Why We Rejoice, we are asking Hashem to relieve us of our personal burdens that prevent us from enjoying life where we are. We light the candles in our homes to appreciate what we have. We bless Hashem over the light, the candles we see even if we ourselves have been unable to light them. As Rabbi Biederman notes, when we can thank Hashem for everything we are going through, for our struggles as well as for our rejoicing, we can then ask Hashem to help us our challenges.
Rosh Chodesh always falls within Chanukah. Perhaps the deepest lesson of Chanukah is that "I become a candle of God, continuously moving upward." I dedicate my body, my soul, and my intellect to His service and to appreciate His presence in my life.