Enlightened by the ‘unknown’ festive miracle
GO INTO any Jewish school and ask the children what we are celebrating on Chanukah and you will hear two answers: the military victory of the Maccabees and the miracle of the oil which burned for far longer than expected. But might there also be a third cause for celebration?
I have heard it said that the simple fact we mark the festival is cause for celebration. And here is why.
In a way it is surprising that, alongside various Jewish holidays with biblical basis, we mark a festival that does not appear anywhere in the Bible. Some may say this undermines the holiday’s importance but there is a convincing case for saying it actually underscores its significance.
At the time of the Chanukah story, the Jewish People were in transition — from an era where prophecy had been authoritative in guiding people on religion and how to observe the Torah. The Maccabees’ victory happened less than 300 years after the end of prophecy and after the momentous events, there were no prophets to tell the people how to commemorate them.
Did the nation really have the authority, without a biblical verse instituting a festival and without a prophet telling them to do so, to initiate the celebration of Chanukah? Even Purim, which is not in the chumash, made the wider biblical canon.
Rabbi Jeffrey Woolf, a professor at Bar Ilan University, says Mattathias the Maccabee, along with others in his generation, “had to courageously step forward” to meet new challenges and move Judaism into a post-prophecy world. After the end of prophecy, Rabbi Woolf notes, Judaism became devoted
to the interpretation of the record of the Torah, as a way of knowing what God desires of man.
This rationale worked well at first but, around the time of the Maccabees, “questions arose and decisions had to be made for which there was no precedent, no obvious verse and no Divine guidance”.
When Mattathias and his generation declared there would be a new festival, they “were well aware of the risks involved,” Rabbi Woolf writes. “They yearned for the appearance of
a true prophet in those unparalleled, troubled times. Yet, they knew they must be courageous and act for Torah, out of the conviction that the Torah must have an answer for each new circumstance. To deny that would be blasphemy.”
Their decision about Chanukah was not, says Rabbi Woolf, their only bold move. Another was to tell the many Jews of the day who were convinced they could not fight a war on Shabbat that it was permitted to do so, which had the effect of saving many lives.
He concludes: “The unknown miracle of Chanukah, then, is the spiritual courage of the sages of that generation to stand up and be counted. They didn’t cower in the batei midrash [study halls] and say they can’t, they aren’t worthy and so on.
“The times demanded heroism. God and His Torah demanded heroism. So they stood up and acted heroically, all the while aware that the True Prophet might disagree. In his absence, though, they would do their best for fear of God and love of God.”