Introduction
The Festival of Hanukkah is a holiday determined by the sages of Israel during the Second Temple period, as a ‘memorial sign’ for the following events:
- The great victory of the ‘Hasmonean forces’, few and weak, in a war with the giant and strong Greek army.
- The dedication of the house and the altar of the Temple, which was held after the Greeks desecrated it.
- The miracle of the small oil jug, which miraculously lasted for eight consecutive days of lighting candles in the Menorah of the Temple.
The holiday lasts eight days and falls between the dates of the 25th of Kislev to the 2nd or 3rd of Tevet (depending on the number of days in the month, sometimes Kislev has 29 days and sometimes it has 30 days).
This holiday is not mentioned in the Torah, and therefore is not considered as a “holiday” like Passover, Shavuot, Rosh Hashanah, and the like. There is no obligation to sanctify the wine and eat a holiday meal, and it is permitted to work because it is not defined in the Torah as a “day of rest”.
However, we commemorate it by saying “Hallel”, a special reading in the Torah – during the morning prayer, by mentioning it in all “Amida” prayers and in “Birkat Hamazon”, and of course – by lighting the Hanukkah candles.
Holiday name
The name “Hanukkah” comes from the dedication event – “The dedication of the altar” – of the Temple and the altar, in the Second Temple which was conquered and purified by the Maccabees during that period, after the Greeks had defiled and desecrated it.
After the Greek forces ruled the Temple for a long time, did as they wished, halted the work of the Creator in the Temple and placed idols and other symbols of idolatry in it, the Maccabees took control again over the Temple Mount, purified it from the idols and the idols that were scattered in it, and rededicated it by lighting candles in the special Temple Menorah. Hence, therefore, the name of the holiday: Hanukkah.
This explanation is actually embedded in the word itself: “Hanukkah” = “They rested (chanu) here (kah)”.
In other words, the name of the holiday is rooted in the fact that the Jews ‘rested’ – from the language of camping and resting – on the 25th of Kislev of that year, after defeating the formidable Greek army, and turned to rest and rededicate the Temple.
Did you know?
Although in the order of the Hebrew calendar Hanukkah is located before Purim, historically, the miracle of Purim occurred about two hundred years before the miracle of Hanukkah.
So Mordechai and Esther did not light a central menorah in the streets of Shushan the capital, but the Hasmoneans read the scroll of Esther and ate, probably, Hamantaschen…
The Holiday Story
The story of Hanukkah happened over two thousand years ago, during the time of the Second Temple, around 140 BCE. During that time, the Seleucid Empire, which had a Hellenistic Greek nature, ruled in the land of Israel, and was led by King Antiochus IV, also known as ‘Epiphanes’.
Antiochus began to enact harsh decrees against the Jewish religion: He forbade the observance of fundamental Jewish commandments such as circumcision, the observance of Shabbat, the offering of sacrifices in the Temple and more, and even tried to force the Jews to eat pork.
Also, by the wicked king’s command, the Greek army took over the Temple and ruthlessly disrupted the holy service that took place there. The Greeks desecrated the Temple by building altars for idol worship, bringing in idols, and offering unclean animals, in the holiest place for the people of Israel.
The Greeks were joined by Jews who abandoned their people and called themselves ‘Hellenists’. At a certain stage, backed by the foreign army, the Hellenists tried to force the residents of Modi’in to renounce their Judaism by bowing to an idol they had placed there.
In this city lived the Hasmonean family – Mattathias and his five sons, and when Mattathias heard about the ‘Greek oppression’ taking place in his town, he came out without hesitation from his house and killed those Hellenists and soldiers who were involved in it. This strong act was a signal for the outbreak of the ‘Hasmonean revolt’.
Hasmoneans’ was the name for the family of Mattathias the High Priest, who lived during the time of the great rebellion against the Greeks, and was indeed the father of the Hasmonean dynasty.
Later, when the Hasmonean family adopted the declaration “Whoever is for God – Join me!” and went to the ‘War of Light’ against the Greek army, many people joined them who also believed in this verse, and following the initials of it, all the warriors of that time were called “Maccabees”.
Judah Maccabee, the eldest son of Mattathias, was the strategist who led the battle against the mighty Greek army, which was armed among other things with formidable war elephants. A great miracle happened to the Jews, and the Hasmoneans – the few and the weak, defeated the massive and strong Greek army.
On the 25th of Kislev, the Maccabees recaptured the Temple from the Greeks.
In ‘good times’, a golden menorah used to be lit regularly in the Temple by one of the priests every day. When the Maccabees arrived at the Temple, they wanted to light the menorah that had been extinguished since the Greek occupation, but all the oil jars in the Temple were defiled by the Greeks.
Finally, the Jews found a small jar of pure oil that was sealed with the seal of the High Priest, but the joy was soon replaced with concern: the jar had such a small amount of oil, enough to light the candles for only one day, and the production of new oil would take about eight days!
Here, the Creator of the world ‘intervened’, and the small jar of oil lasted for eight consecutive days, until the arrival of the new oil.
From then on, every year on the 25th of Kislev, we celebrate Hanukkah and light candles for eight days, in memory of those eight days of the great miracle that happened to our ancestors in those days.
Question : Why do we celebrate the holiday of Hanukkah for eight days? After all, the oil that was in the small jar was enough for one day for sure, so on the first day the menorah in the temple was lit with ‘natural’ oil (and not ‘miraculous’) that was sufficient between so and so?
Answer : On this question there are over a thousand (!) answers, opinions and explanations. Here are some of them:
- On the first day, the priests filled all the cups of the menorah with oil, and the miracle was that not even a drop of oil was missing for the entire first seven days, and the oil ended only after eight complete days in which the menorah was lit.
- Given that the priests knew that the process of producing new pure oil would take at least eight days, then in order to save oil, they used an eighth of the oil each day. The miracle was that the menorah burned every night – all night, despite the minuscule amount of oil that was in it.
- Every day, the priests poured all the contents of the small jar into the cups of the menorah, but miraculously, only an eighth of the amount that was poured was missing from the jar each time.
- On the first day of Hanukkah, we celebrate the commemoration of finding the jar of oil, which was a miracle in itself.
- We celebrate seven days in memory of the miracle of the jar of oil, and an additional day to remember the military victories that the Hasmoneans achieved in the war with the Greeks.
The feminine side of the holiday
The holiday of Hanukkah is ‘decorated’ with stories of the bravery of the Jewish women who lived at that time, and because they also took an active part in the campaign against the Greeks – they stood on principles from the “sanctification of the name”, and they by clever war strategies – women are also obligated in the commandments of Hanukkah, although it is a commandment that is ‘dependent’ on a certain time (and usually women are exempt from these commandments).
Here are two of the heroic stories of the women of the Hanukkah period:
Judith and Holofernes
The story of Judith happened – according to tradition – in the time of the Hasmoneans, and this is its connection to the holiday of Hanukkah. At that time, the general Holofernes conducted a conquest campaign from Persia to Sidon, and was on his way to the Land of Israel with the intention to conquer it.
When Holofernes arrived in the country, he laid a heavy siege on one of the Jewish hills named Bethulia, with the intention to depress the spirits of the residents, to prevent them from supplying water and food and thus to exhaust them and easily defeat them. After a prolonged siege, the water in the city of course ran out, and the Jews, who were already weak, tired and thirsty, were already thinking of surrendering and handing themselves over to Holofernes.
In that city lived a God-fearing widow woman named Judith, the daughter of Yohanan the high priest, and she decided to save her Jewish brothers from the imminent disaster.
Accompanied by a loyal maid, and with the blessing of the sages of Israel, Judith slipped out of the wall and reached the nearby army camp. The woman, who was dressed in her best clothes and was beautiful, attracted the attention of the soldiers and they immediately arrested her. When asked what she was doing, Judith replied that she had a message for the distinguished general Holofernes.
When she arrived at Holofernes’ tent, Judith told him that the situation inside the city was very difficult. The Jews’ faith and their adherence to the laws of kashrut were the ‘secret’ that kept them alive, but within a few days, they would no longer be able to stand and would be forced to eat non-kosher food due to lack of supply, then Holofernes could defeat them.
The commander, fascinated by this meeting, ordered his guards to let her freely enter and exit the city, and asked her to come every evening to update him on the city dwellers’ situation. On the third night, Holofernes invited Judith to a ‘festive dinner’ in his tent and commanded that no one else should enter. He offered her a variety of dishes that were there, but Judith refused and said she had brought her own food.
Holofernes was curious and wanted to taste the ‘special recipe’ of the Jewish and unique woman, and Judith indeed honored him with homemade cheese, which was very salty and thirst-inducing. After he finished the tasty cheese, Judith quenched his thirst with plenty of milk and wine, and after a short time, Holofernes sank into a deep and heavy drunken slumber.
Judith, who stayed with him, took his heavy sword that was hanging above his bed, and while whispering a prayer from the depth of her heart, she swung the sword with great force and cut off Holofernes’ head. She hid the head in her bag, and left the tent giving off a ‘business as usual’ vibe. To the soldiers, she clarified that the commander was currently asleep and one should not enter the tent until the following morning.
Judith returned to the city, showed her ‘spoils’ and advised the city leaders to immediately launch a surprise attack on the army. Indeed, when the attack started, the soldiers hurried to Holofernes’ tent to wake him up, but found his dead body lying on the floor. This put a great fear and panic in their hearts, and they retreated in terror.
Hannah and her seven sons
During the time the Greeks ruled the land of Israel, they tried to force the Jewish people to deny the Creator of the world by worshipping Greek idols and eating pig meat, which is forbidden by Jewish law.
One day, the king’s soldiers arrested a Jewish woman named Hannah, along with her seven sons, and brought them before the wicked King Antiochus.
The king turned to Hannah’s eldest son and commanded him to bow to the idol. The boy firmly refused, and not even the king’s threats of execution swayed him from his refusal. “I will not deny my God,” he replied calmly. The king was very angry and ordered him to be executed.
When the king turned to Hannah’s second son, he thought the boy would be ‘broken’ by the sight of his older brother being killed before his eyes. However, to his surprise, the second son also vehemently refused to bow to the idol, and the wicked Antiochus ordered his execution as well.
In the same way, the four remaining brothers acted, and the king did not hesitate to execute them one after the other.
In the end, only Hannah’s youngest son was left, and the king, assuming that he too would refuse to bow to the idol, decided to be lenient on him. He took off his ring and threw it to the ground. “Bend down and pick up the ring, dear boy,” the king instructed the little boy. To his astonishment, the child – all his brothers were killed – refused to do so, stating he did not want to bow down to the idol placed before him.
“Persuade your little boy, woman, to do as I command,” the king instructed Hannah, “or else I will kill him too”! But Hannah lovingly turned to her youngest son and emotionally said, “My son, follow in the footsteps of your older brothers.”
The king was furious and ordered the execution of Hannah’s youngest and last son as well.
The pitiful Hannah, who saw with her own eyes her seven sons die one after the other, kissed their bodies, and when she left the king’s palace, she went up to a high roof. Before she jumped to her death, Hannah announced in a loud voice: “Go to Abraham our father, and tell him ‘I am greater than you, because you indeed sacrificed one son (Isaac), while I have ‘sacrificed’ seven children,’ ” and upon finishing her words, Hannah in her sorrow jumped to her death.
The story of Hannah and her seven sons became synonymous with the uncompromising self-sacrifice of the children of Israel, who preferred death over the renunciation of Judaism and denial of the God of Israel.
