Thoughts & Teachings
Rabbi Ron Shulman
Hanukkah isn’t about the oil. Hanukkah is about the light! We symbolize that light of God’s presence on Hanukkah when we kindle our Hanukkiyot, celebrating our Festival of Lights. The legend about the oil is but that, a legend. No where is it recorded or remembered in the actual texts and histories of the Maccabees or the Bible. Told only in the Talmud hundreds of years later to embellish upon Hanukkah’s spiritual potential.
Before there was Hanukkah there was another festival at this time of the year. At the time of winter solstice, when the days reach their shortest duration and the nights their longest, our earliest ancestors lit bonfires, fearful that their days might dissolve forever into darker nights. We find this memory echoed in a Talmudic legend explaining why Hanukkah lasts for eight days.
“When Adam saw the day gradually diminishing, he said, ‘Woe is me! Perhaps because I acted offensively, the world around me is growing darker and darker, and is about to return to chaos and confusion…’ He then sat eight days in fast and prayer. But when winter solstice arrived, and he saw the days getting gradually longer, he said, ‘Such is the way of the world,’ and proceeded to observe eight days of festivity. The following year he observed both the eight days preceding and the eight days following the solstice as days of festivity.”
The ancients offered up lights from the earth hoping to rekindle the light above them that shone down from the heavens. Fearful of the evils that might lurk among them in the dark; they would revel on the longest night of the year, huddled around blazing hearths. In the long and fearsome darkness of solstice they sought the protection of communal lights.
This memory known to our rabbis became an attractive symbol. Years after the Maccabean victory, rabbinic tradition was less afraid of physical darkness, but found in the solstice darkness a potent symbol of spiritual darkness. How prevail while wrestling alone with those who would extinguish the light of Torah from the world?
The story of a small cruse of oil that burned eight days is a parable. A small amount of light can dispel a great deal of darkness. Eliyahu KiTov confirms this vision in his collection of rabbinic texts about our holidays. “Wherever oil is mentioned in the Torah or in the words of the Sages, with reference to lighting the Menorah, an allusion is intended to the wisdom of the heart and the thoughts of the mind. Despite all the Greeks had done to mar the thoughts of the people of Israel, there still remained a light in their hearts, lone thoughts of true wisdom.”
Hanukkah isn’t about the oil. Hanukkah is about the light! As you gaze upon the lights of Hanukkah this year seek those lone thoughts of true wisdom. Sense the religious ideals by which you can and do live. Express them to your children and grandchildren. In a world not always bright and happy, as you stand before your Hanukkah Menorah each night ask one another what you see in the light.
