Written by: Erin Parfet

Chanukah

On the 25th of Kislev are the days of Chanukah, which are eight. These were appointed a Festival with Hallel [prayers of praise] and thanksgiving. (Shabbat 21b, Babylonian Talmud)

Our rabbis taught the rule of Chanukah: on the first day one [candle] is lit, and thereafter they are progressively increased... [because] we increase in sanctity but do not reduce. (Shabbat 21b, Babylonian Talmud)

They entered the sanctuary and found only one jar of ritually pure oil that was sufficient to burn only for one day, but they lit the lights of the Menorah from it for eight days, till they pressed olives and extracted additional pure oil.” (Rambam, Hilchot Chanukah, Chapter 3)

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Chanukah (“dedication”) refers to the well-known and beloved festival celebrating the purification and re-dedication of the Temple after the Greek government and military defiled the Temple with Greek idols and pig sacrifice. The term “Festival of Lights” seems to have been first attributed to Flavius Josephus, who described the events of Chanukah about 250 years after the miracle first occurred and referred to Chanukah as the Festival of Lights for the first known time. The name has stuck ever since.

Some scholars and historians believe the first Chanukah celebration may have actually been a belated Sukkot celebration, as many of the Jewish people at the time of Sukkot would have been engaged in the revolt and had not had an opportunity to celebrate the beloved holiday of Sukkot. The Jewish people, however, continue to celebrate Chanukah not only in remembrance of this historical victory but also as a way of keeping the flame of their faith lit and the message of being a people seeking to be a light to the nations going out to the next generation and to the world.

As for the history of the holiday:

When Antiochus III, the Seleucid king of Syria, came into power around 200 BC, Jews who lived in Judea, which was under Seleucid rule at the time, were allowed to freely practice Judaism. Relationships between Greek and Jewish cultures have vastly improved compared to times past, with each sharing their culture with the other. Greek culture at the time was primarily based on scholarship in language, literature, philosophy, and the arts, but also had some distinct ideas on social norms and political structure. Greek culture also, of course, included worship of Greek gods and other religious aspects that were not compatible with the Jewish faith or the teachings of the Torah.

Many Jewish people started embracing aspects of Greek culture at the expense of their own. Some of whom went so far in their assimilation process as to start eating pork, attempting to reverse their circumcision, revering dols, and, in some cases, supporting enemies of the Jewish people. Yet there were no crackdowns on the Jewish faith, just much crossover between the Greek and Jewish cultures co-existing at the time in the same place.

However, when Antiochus III stepped down from power and his son Antiochus IV Epiphanes ascended into power, the situation changed as the Jewish religion was outlawed. This situation continued to evolve and escalate around 190 BCE, when the Seleucid army invaded Israel. No longer did the Jewish people want to take on the culture of an invading army, but many of them wanted their own culture and religious freedom back.

The Jewish people of Judea did not want to pay taxes to fight Greek wars. They did not desire to quarter Greek soldiers in their homes or have Greek soldiers demanding to live with women on the night before their weddings, resisted the statue of Zeus Olympios and other Greek idols defiling the city’s holy Second Temple courtyard, detested the sacrifice of pigs within the walls of the Temple, and desired to observe Shabbat without death threats. The Jewish faithful basically wanted the freedom to worship the Torah as they saw fit without the restrictions on religious liberty being imposed by the Seleucid army.

Maimonides wrote on the topic of Chanukah, “During the period of the Second Temple, the Greek kings issued harsh decrees against Israel; they outlawed their religion, forbade them to engage in the study of Torah and their practice of mitzvot, laid hands upon their money and their daughters, entered the Sanctuary and ravaged it, and defiled all that had been ritually pure. They caused Israel great anguish, until the God of our Fathers granted them mercy and delivered them from the hands of their enemies.”

As the Book of First Maccabees describes it, "lawless men came forth from Israel and misled many, saying, ‘Let us go and make a covenant with the Gentiles round about us.’…They built a gymnasium in Jerusalem, according to Gentile custom, removed the marks of circumcision, and abandoned the holy covenant. They joined with the Gentiles and sold themselves to do evil. They organized an army and struck down sinners [which also included the Jewish people who had assimilated into Greek culture] in their anger and lawless men in their wrath; the survivors fled to the Gentiles for safety.”

Around the year 166 BCE, Matisyahu (Mattathias) and his family, a priestly family (kohanim) who lived in the town of Modin, to the northwest of Jerusalem at the time, had absolutely enough at the time that a Greek soldier came into town and demanded all the Jewish residents sacrifice a pig to Zeus at a makeshift altar. When a local Jewish resident voluntarily stepped up to the altar to sacrifice the pig, Matisyahu stabbed the individual to death. The Greeks were obviously unhappy about the mayhem starting to break out.

Following that incident, Matisyahu and his five faithful Jewish sons retreated to some local caves and decided to plot some type of rebellion against Antiochus IV and the Greek army. When Matisyahu died early in the conflict, his son Judah Maccabee was appointed the general of this renegade army, with the term “Maccabee” being derived from Exodus 15:11 (“Who is like You, God?”). The Jewish army of maybe upwards of 12,000 at best was vastly outnumbered by the Syrian-Greek Army. It was largely guerrilla warfare tactics executed by Judah Maccabee’s army of fed-up Jewish countrymen.

Yet, the Jewish people ultimately prevailed at the Battle of Antonius, and the Jewish people were able to reclaim the Temple and drive the Greek-Syrian Army out of Jerusalem. As per Judah Maccabee’s directives, the statue of Zeus Olympios was destroyed, and the best attempts to clean and purify the temple were performed. Any Jewish priest working in the Temple who had any association with the Greek military, government, or culture was either exiled or killed.

Jews who had assimilated into Greek culture were considered traitors. Many of such individuals fled to Caesarea after the Maccabean revolt. Caesarea, at the time, still had some Greek influences and had not yet been occupied by the Romans. Therefore, the “traitors” culturally felt at home while essentially being banished from the Jewish community.

Judah Maccabee also requested the menorah in the temple be re-lit. Within the temple, the Jewish people recovered one vial of olive oil that was intended to light the candelabrum (menorah) in the temple, which was theoretically supposed to be lit every night. The amount of oil recovered would have only been sufficient for one day theoretically, and it would have taken eight days to generate more oil. Yet, the Jewish people went ahead and lit the Temple menorah with the one vial of oil they had, and as the story has it, the oil, by God’s grace, lit the menorah for eight days. Therefore, when the rabbis later established the Festival of Chanukah, the holiday lasted for eight nights. “Not by the army, not by power, but through My Spirit, says God” (Zechariah 4:6).

Unlike many Jewish holidays, Chanukah does not appear in the Torah because the events of Chanukah occurred after the Torah was written. The only Biblical reference to Chanukah would be in John 10:22–23, where Yeshua attends a “Feast of Dedication.” Primarily, the history of Chanukah is depicted in Maccabees I and II, written later in the Apocrypha, but is not considered part of the Hebrew canon.

First Maccabees 4:52–59 reads, “Early in the morning on the twenty-fifth day of the ninth month, which is the month of Kislev, in the one hundred forty-eighth year, they rose and offered sacrifice, as the law directs, on the new altar of the burn offering that they had built. At the very season and on the very day that the Gentiles had profaned it, it was dedicated to songs, harps, lutes, and cymbals. So they celebrated the dedication of the altar for eight days and joyfully offered burnt offerings. Then Judas and his brothers and all the assembly of Israel determined that every year at that season, the days of dedication of the altar should be observed with joy and gladness for eight days, beginning with the twenty-fifth day of the month of Kislev.”

Second Maccabees 10:5–9 reads, “It happened that on the same day on which the sanctuary had been profaned by the foreigners, the purification of the sanctuary took place, that is, on the twenty-fifth day of the same month, which was Kislev. They celebrated it for eight days with rejoicing; therefore, carrying ivy-wreathed wands and beautiful branches, as well as fronds of palm, they offered hymns of thanksgiving to him, who had given success to the purification of his own holy place. They decreed by public edict, ratified by vote, that the whole nation of the Jews should observe these days every year.”

Neither Maccabees I nor II mention the vial of oil that miraculously lasted eight days. It was not until nearly 600 years later that the miracle of the oil became associated with Chanukah and appeared in the Talmud as the Jewish people re-established ner tamid in the Holy Temple. Thus, the rabbis at the time of the Talmudic writing associated the eight days of Chanukah with the one vial of oil that kept the menorah lit. This contrasts with those who believe the eight days of Chanukah parallel the eight days of Sukkot and function as a belated Sukkot celebration.

Antiquities of the Jews 12.7.323–326 reads, “Now Judas celebrated the festival of the restoration of the sacrifices of the temple for eight days and omitted no sort of pleasure thereon; but he feasted them upon very rich and splendid sacrifices; and he honored God and delighted them with hymns and psalms. Nay, they were so very glad at the revival of their customs when, after a long time of intermission, they unexpectedly regained the freedom of their worship that they made it a law for their posterity that they should keep a festival on account of the restoration of their temple worship for eight days. And from that time to this, we celebrate this festival and call it Lights. I suppose the reason was because this liberty beyond our hopes appeared to us, and that thence was the name given to that festival.”

The Talmud says little about Chanukah. Many Jewish holidays have an entire volume in the Talmud dedicated to each holiday. However, Chanukah has a few lines here and there scattered across various Talmudic volumes. Furthermore, the few lines there are about Chanukah seem to be open to different interpretations and not the clearest to understand.

What the Jewish people have taken away from the Talmud almost universally, as one of the more clearly made points that the Talmud makes about the holiday, is the directive to “advertise the miracle.” In North America, this is often carried out through lighting menorahs and placing them in windowsills. The lights of Chanukah are more universally talked about and depicted today than the ancient military victory.

The only Talmudic requirement of Chanukah is that the candles be lit. Everything else is tradition: driedels, fried foods such as potato pancakes (latkes) and jelly-filled donuts (sufganiyot), with the oily foods representing the oil lasting eight days in the Temple, and gifts. The gift-giving tradition, especially in North America and more affluent cultures, is more a byproduct of the proximity of the holiday to Christmas. Gift-giving is usually limited to “gelt” (chocolate coins or perhaps actual money) and is usually limited to pacify one’s own younger children, who are often jealous of the gifts their non-Jewish friends receive at Christmas.

Chanukah has become recognized in the United States, even outside of Jewish circles. For example, the President of the United States often hosts an annual Chanukah party in the White House and lights a national menorah in Washington, DC. Schools in New York City, for instance, often include Chanukah in their winter holiday celebrations to various degrees. Chanukah has been featured in television shows such as South Park. Chanukah is considered a minor holiday, however, by Jewish standards. There are no restrictions on working, attending school, or participating in any activities during any of the eight days of Chanukah. That said, while it is deemed a minor holiday, it is often considered a favorite holiday in many families and a joyful time of celebration with loved ones.

Even after the Maccabees beat the otherwise mighty Greek army, Antiochus IV remained the ruler of Israel. The light of the first Chanukah was truly a light amidst the darkness of the remainder of Antiochus IV’s reign. May this remind us of the words of John in describing Yeshua, our Messiah, who spent His time on earth navigating darkness and oppression under the Roman Empire: “The light shines in the darkness, and darkness has not overcome it.”

May we seek to live our lives in the light of Yeshua rather than being separated by spiritual darkness. “But your inequities have separated you from God; your sins have hidden His face from you." (Isaiah 59:2). May this season be a beautiful opportunity to renew our relationship with our Messiah and let Him not only bring light to our souls and be a lamp unto our paths, but help us to be lights unto the world within our own sphere of influence. Maybe that does not necessarily mean going on a foreign mission trip to be a light to the world, but being a light of hope and imparting your testimony of Yeshua and the Three Angels’ messages right in your own neighborhood, wherever you may live.

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Erin
1 year ago
Amen 🙌🏾

Thank you for this informative post
Like Like like love 2 Quote

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