Solo Act or Partnership?

One of the oddest questions posed by the Talmud asks, “What is Hanukkah?” 

Why does it ask such a question?  Is it not self-evident what Hanukkah means?  Doesn’t every six-year old know the reason for Hanukkah?

The Talmud provides an answer to its own question by describing the miracle of oil.  While kosher oil, unearthed by the Maccabees, was enough to last one day it burned for eight days.  Some say it burned brighter with each passing hour, yet another miracle.

Yet the initial question remains, why does the Talmud not assume we know why Hanukkah is observed?

Here are four possibilities:

1.     One of the underlying messages of Hanukah is that righteousness can triumph over numerics.  Despite the overwhelming odds against them posed by the militant Greek power, the Maccabees through sheer determination won a long and hard battle.  This message certainly resonates with modern Israel, the beleaguered Jewish state founded in ashes, forged in fire, and continually assaulted on all sides for all the years of its brief life.

2.     Hanukkah is meant as a symbol of hope, when, in the darkest hours of the long winter nights, we kindle flames a s a bulwark against the encroaching darkness around, we learn a powerful message about keeping hope alive even when everything else in life would seem to indicate the despair.

3.     Hanukkah is a metaphor for the internal and ongoing struggle each human engages in day-to-day.  It is the battle for goodness that is continually waged against the internal dark forces (yotzrot) urging us to embrace our worst impulses.  Hanukkah comes with the message that we can triumph over our most implacable foe, the internal enemy.

4.     Perhaps Hanukkah is nothing more than a childhood dream of safety; good warm tasty food, laughter and love?  If that is its message it too is worthy.

Maybe the Talmud poses the question about Hanukkah’s meaning because it has so many overlays, so many variant meanings.  Why then did they opt for the simple miracle of oil outlasting its normal life?  To show that God is the apex of all life.  It is too easy to dismiss God from Hanukkah, or Purim, or any other human event.  In fact if you read the tale of Hanukkah it is not unusual to miss the God part altogether.  The war was won though perseverance and strategy by the wily Maccabees.  Just like the rest of our lives.  Who wrested the big sale from the client?  Me or God?  Who won the court case?  Who raised our children?  Who is the breadwinner? 

It is simple to exclude God from the realities of daily living.  Maybe this is the real genius of the rabbis: it is not so much about writing our story but recognizing the glorious nature of even the tiniest event.