Chanuka 2011 at GoSephardic

With Chanuka just around the corner (December 20-28), we should try and get ourselves into the proper mindset. The following question begs to be answered: do we not have enough holidays? From Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur to Pesach, Sukkot and Shavuot – we have it all! Why was it necassary for our sages to enact another Holiday?

There is a famous story about Rav Chanina ben Dosa and his daughter that one time she mistakenly bought vinegar instead of oil to light the Shabbat candles. When her father came home he found her crying becuse they would not have candles for Shabbat. He comforted her with these famous words, that  “He who told the oil to light shall tell the vineger to light as well.” This is to say that the reason that oil lights is because Hashem decreed that it is so, and then as a result the molecules and atoms function in a certain manner. Just the same, He may decree the same of vineger, and in fact that is what happened that Shabbat; the lights lit for 24 hours.

The point is clear. Nature is merely a way that Hashem hides Himself. The scene of Chanuka takes place at a time that the Jewish People were going to embark on a long and trying exile. They had to engrain within themselves this concept, that even though the Almighty might seem hidden, He is in fact right here behind the guise of nature. Chanuka became the holiday that teaches us this; a small group of warriors winning a decisive battle and the miracle with the oil all occurred in a “normal” fashion, without any fancy seas splitting or ten plagues.

Our job on this holiday is to prepare ourselves for this messsage, that the light of the Almighty is with us everywhere, even in times of darkness.

Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Chaim Levy

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