Rabbi Seth Grauer
Rosh Yeshiva & Head of School
Among the most famous questions posed for Chanukah each year is the question about the length of the holiday. Why do we celebrate this holiday for eight days when, in reality, the miracle was only seven days? One day’s oil lasted for eight, but there was enough oil to burn for one day. As such, the first day was not a miracle.
I heard a beautiful answer told over in the name of Rav Chaim Druckman z”l, the famed Rosh Yeshiva and leader of the Bnei Akiva Yeshivot and movement for decades. Rav Druckman quotes this answer from the Bnei Yissachar, Rav Zvi Elimelech Spira, of whom I am a descendant.
Rav Druckman suggests that the Temple was a mess after the Greeks fled. The Maccabees couldn’t find anything, not even a little pot of oil to light the Menorah. Hence, Hashem performed a miracle right away and created light from heaven which helped to locate the small jug of oil from which the entire miracle came.
What was this special light from shamayim?
This was the light of the ‘Or HaGanuz,’ the Hidden Light, the first light Hashem created and gave to Adam and Chava. Chazal have been bothered since the earliest days with the question of how Hashem created light on the first day of creation if the luminaries (sun, moon, and stars) were not created until later in the week. What was that first light on the first day? In Chasidut, they often explain that this refers to the Or HaGanuz, the Hidden Light. It is believed that this light was hidden when Adam and Chava were banished from Gan Eden. From then on, Hashem reserves this hidden light to shine where He deems necessary—or, perhaps, where people are seeking it. When the Maccabim needed to find some oil in a rubble-filled Temple, Hashem illuminated their search with this Hidden Light.
As we light the first candle, let us stop to celebrate the miracles hidden in the mundane messes of our own lives. The hope that pierces through the despair. The ‘coincidences’ that happen just at the right time—especially our family and community around us.
It’s a light that’s hidden, but always there. We just need to look.
Mr. Hillel Rapp
Principal
Jewish holidays are replete with references to and commemorations of miracles, yet Chanukah stands alone in obliging Jews to publicize its miracles. What is unique about Chanukah that could explain this additional policy of pirsumei nisa?
A closer look at the Chanukah story paints a less dramatic and more incremental story of victory than one might think. In 164 BCE, with the Seleucid army preoccupied elsewhere, Jewish rebels were able to capture a portion of Jerusalem and rededicate the Beit Hamikdash. But their territorial victory did not extend far. The Akra Fortress overlooking the Temple Mount remained in Greek hands, and it took another 20 years until Jewish forces were able to retake the whole city and establish the Hasmonean Dynasty.
Experiencing that initial Jewish victory would have seemed tenuous and uncertain, ready to be undone at any moment by the Greek armies in the fortress. Yet the message in publically lighting the Menorah was to say this tenuous victory is indeed a miracle. Pirsumei nisa represents a concerted effort to publicize and popularize the concept of nes as being at the heart of Jewish history.
