Mitzvot and Mindfulness: The Little Nes that Wasn’t

By Rabbi Elyse Winick
KOACH Director

As the days grow shorter and the velvet nights deepen, we are given to crave warmth and light. It comes as no surprise that so very many religious traditions confront the darkness with winter celebrations which try to banish the shadows.

While Hanukkah has been elevated unnaturally by its proximity to Christmas, that’s not the only way in which we’ve lost sight of its true meaning and purpose. Its origins are shrouded in fairy tale, canonized for eternity. And though I’ll soon shatter your cruse of oil, what remains may well be far more powerful, in real terms, than any miracle.

We all learned as children that Hanukkah, celebrating the rededication of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, lasts for eight days because a single intact cruse of oil remained following the Temple’s desecration by the Syrian-Greeks. We were awed by the notion that this small vessel could bear enough fuel for the Menorah to burn for eight full days.

But when we check the historical record, there is no cruse of oil. The retelling of the Maccabean revolt in Maccabees 1 and 2, though not part of our biblical canon, tells a story of military prowess and the determination to preserve identity. The success of the Maccabean revolt, a scraggly band of guerilla warriors against a mighty army may well qualify as a miracle, but that is not the miracle which gets our attention.

Whence, then, our stalwart cruse of oil? The rabbis, in Tractate Shabbat 21b, ask the question, "Mai Hanukkah?" – What is Hanukkah? There, in a mere seven lines, they tell the story. Only one cruse of oil remaining and bearing the seal of the High Priest, rendering it fit for use. They created, it appears, a miracle. We might then ask, in response, in the absence of this story, why eight days? Why should a military victory be marked by an eight day celebration?

Again, the historical sources fill in the blanks. While dwelling in caves and fighting the enemy, the Maccabees were unable to celebrate the holiday of Sukkot, a festival lasting eight days. With a rededicated Temple under their sovereignty, they were able to mark a deferred Sukkot celebration with an extra layer of joy.

The plot thickens. The Talmud’s version of the Hanukkah story omits any mention of military victory. The Book of Maccabees gives no reference to a miracle. Yet the liturgical marking of this holiday, the recitation of Al HaNisim in both the Shmoneh Esreh and Birkat Hamazon, synthesizes the two, identifying the military victory as nothing short of miraculous, a moment in which God fought our battles on our behalf.

"No man is an island...," wrote the poet John Donne. If we are to have a transformative power on the world around us, it will be power born of partnership, partnership with those around us and, just as importantly, with the Divine. It’s more than the idea of sharing a burden or building coalitions. It’s about seeing ourselves as tinged with divinity, about elevating the work of our hands and the labors of our hearts to a place of holiness. Then, like the twined wicks of a Havdalah candle, or the full and burgeoning hanukkiyah of the eighth night, our light will shine strong and bright, an unmistakable sign of who we are and who we yearn to be.

[Posted 11/27/11]