Chanukah: How Do We Get it So Wrong?

 Here's another surprise from our member Rabbi Steven Ettinger, who asks if we have missed the point of Chanukah completely. 

Since our early childhoods we all have a special fondness for Chanukah. What a joy! Presents – perhaps on all eight days, and maybe even more from grandparents and aunts and uncles and friends – an absolute bonanza. Then there are the latkes and sufganiot. Add on high stakes games of dreidel, parties, and festive meals and we have a holiday quite different from the typical “shul-fest.” Even the sole ritualistic element, lighting the menorah, in many homes where each child regardless of age participates with their own, is not a burden but an expression of love and appreciation.

If we dig deep enough, we can find many reasons, not a single uniform one, for each of these practices; the gift giving and dreidel game, the particular foods and even the many aspects of lighting the menorah itself.  However, unlike on Pesach when our various practices are intended to provoke questions that lead to opportunities to teach – or more importantly, to educate through an experiential process – on Chanukah all we seem to do is indulge ourselves and the children.  What is the source for all these practices?  What is the real story of Chanukah?  What happened?  Why is it so important?

Perhaps one of the issues for us, as adults, regarding Chanukah, is that we still approach it with the eyes of our childhoods. For us it is still the story of the brave Yehudit defying the Greek general and the seven sons of Hannah refusing to bow to Antiochus; of Matityahu calling out “mi la’Hashem e’lai” to rally the Jews to fight the Greeks who had defiled the Temple, and of the Maccabees who led Judah and waged a guerilla war to defeat them with a handful of men. Then, of course, there is the miracle of the one jug of oil lasting eight days. In our minds, this all led to the declaration of the annual holiday that we celebrate with our menorah lighting and all the other wonderful, meaningful and joyous customs.

However, history and reality do not quite match this narrative.

At that time Antiochus IV, the Seleucid king, was enthusiastically welcomed by many Judean Jews. He installed a man named Yeshua (Jason) as Kohen Gadol (in place of his older brother). He incorporated Greek culture into Jerusalem. A more assimilated Jew, named Menelaus, bribed his way into the position and introduced idolatrous practices into the Temple – including sacrificing unclean animals. The first day the mizbe’ach was used for such worship was…. 25 Kislev! It is doubtful that the date is a coincidence.

About two years later, Matityahu, with the family name Hashmonai, instigated a rebellion against NOT the Greeks (Yevanim) but against the assimilated Jews/Hellenizers (Mityavnim). After Matityahu died, his son Yehudah assumed leadership.  Since he was a great warrior, he was given the nickname Makabee, the Aramaic word for hammer. The rebels were never called Maccabees.  That name became attached to these heroes when the two books of the Maccabees were canonized as a part of the Christian Bible!

When the Hashmonaim regained control of Har Habayit and the Temple from the Hellenizers, they were not concerned with the menorah. The mizbe’ach had been defiled.  If you recall, the mizbe’ach is constructed from stones and the mityavnim rendered the current ones unfit. On 25 Kislev, the same day that two years earlier the actions of Menelaus disqualified it, they rebuilt it with new stones. This is the actual Chanukah the “chanukat hamizbe’ach” (rededication of the altar). Once they rebuilt the mizbe’ach, they made a strategic decision. Since the most recent chag for which they had not brought korbanot was Succot/Shmini Atzeret, they decided to celebrate for eight days and to compensate those offerings (this is actually expressly written in II Maccabees 10:5-8, although I hesitate to rely on it as the definitive source. However, I do note that Beit Shammai explained that the order of candle lighting corresponds to the korbanot brought on the eight days of Succot/Shmini Atzeret).

So, have we gotten Chanukah all wrong? In fact, the Rabbis did not institute the mitzvah of lighting the menorah on Chanukah for another two centuries, which was well after the destruction of the Beit Hamikdash.

Fundamentally, as with many other aspects of our religion, the Sages faced a nearly insurmountable challenge: how to provide the foundation and structure for our faith and ritual, to provide hope for future generations and to assure survival and continuity after the destruction of the Temple and the devastation wrought by the Romans. They wove the fabric of today’s Judaism – daily prayer, the written teachings of the oral tradition, the superstructure of Rabbinic ordinances, and holiday rituals such as how to utilize the arbah minim the fifteen aspects of the Pesach seder, and the mitzvah and mystique of Chanukah.

Bringing light into the home and stressing the primacy of traditional Judaism over Hellenism and paganism, during the darkness of exile, was a most important and appropriate symbol. Moreover, by adding an eighth branch to the seven of the traditional Menorah, the Sages were commemorating past glory and foreshadowing future salvation.  The number seven represents the natural, teva. Eight is beyond nature, le’maala min hateva. Thus (i) they needed to highlight a miracle narrative (the one jar) and (ii) they needed to move the focus away from the mizbe’ach and the korbanot and direct it toward the Menorah. As we can see, they succeeded.

Bottom line, we do not get Chanukah wrong. The Rabbis simply wanted us to celebrate a different version: Chanukah 2.0.

The Two Stories of Chanukah: How a Military Victory Became a Spiritual Revolution

The following is a Devar Torah from our member Rabbi Paul Bloom, abstracted from videos by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks and Rabbi Yitzchak Breitowitz.

As Chanukah is here, it is worth revisiting a story many Jews think they know well—but which, in truth, exists in two very different versions. One is almost entirely absent from Jewish liturgy; the other is the one that shaped our festival for more than two millennia. To understand this transformation, we begin with a surprising historical fact: the story of Chanukah is not recorded in Tanakh. 

I. What Didn’t Make It Into the Bible 

The Tanakh—was canonized by a group of Sages during the Second Temple era. They decided which books were “in” and which were “out.” Some books that nearly didn’t make it in include Kohelet, whose existential gloom troubled the rabbis, and Esther, which some feared might provoke antisemitism. Conversely, some works that might have seemed obvious candidates did not enter the canon. 

Among these were I Maccabees and II Maccabees—the two principal sources of the historical Chanukah story. These books do appear in Catholic Bibles, but not in ours. Why not? We will return to that question. First, what do these books actually say? 

II. The Chanukah Story According to the Books of Maccabees 

If you read I Maccabees, you find

• ·       A detailed narrative of military triumph.  
• ·       The decrees of Antiochus IV Epiphanes, who banned Jewish religious practice and desecrated the Temple.
• ·       The revolt led by Mattathias and his sons—most famously Judah the Maccabee.
• ·       The defeat of the Seleucid Empire, one of the greatest military powers of the ancient world.
• ·       The purification and rededication of the Temple.
• ·       The establishment of an eight-day celebration.

It is a stirring account of courage against overwhelming odds. But one thing is missing.

 There is no mention—none at all—of the miracle of the oil.

II Maccabees, meanwhile, explains the eight days differently: that year, the Jews had been unable to celebrate Sukkot in Tishrei because of war and defilement. Therefore they celebrated a delayed Sukkot in Kislev—an eight-day festival marking the Temple’s rededication. 

In the entire Apocrypha, no oil miracle appears. 

III. The Earliest Rabbinic Source: Suddenly, the Oil Miracle 

The first text to mention the miracle is Megillat Ta’anit, an ancient scroll listing days on which fasting is forbidden because of national joy. There we read: 

When the Greeks entered the Temple, they defiled all the oil. When the Hasmoneans prevailed, they found only one cruse sealed by the Kohen Gadol enough for one day. A miracle occurred and it burned for eight days. The next year, they established an eight-day festival of praise and thanksgiving. 

Here, remarkably, the great military victory is reduced to a single subordinate clause.

The spotlight has shifted. The emphasis is no longer on military triumph but on the miracle of the light. What happened? 

IV. Why the Books of Maccabees Were Excluded 

History offers an answer. After the Maccabees won their independence, they founded a ruling dynasty—the Hasmonean kings. At first heroic, over time they became: 

•       Politically overreaching: They made themselves both kings and high priests—violating the ancient Jewish principle of separating religious and political authority.
•        Culturally Hellenized: Ironically, the very people who fought Greek domination gradually adopted many Greek practices.

 The rabbis were deeply troubled. A dynasty that began with purity and faithfulness ended with corruption, internecine conflict, and assimilation. Within a century of independence, Roman general Pompei marched into Jerusalem (63 BCE), and Jewish sovereignty ended. For the Sages, the military victory—once glorious—had become tainted. They refused to canonize the self-written chronicle of rulers who ultimately strayed from Torah values. Thus I and II Maccabees remained outside Tanakh. 

V. The Destruction of the Temple and the Attempt to Abolish Chanukah 

Fast forward to the year 70 CE, when Rome destroyed the Temple. Some rabbis argued that Chanukah should be abolished.  Chanukah commemorates rededicating the Temple, but now the Temple lay in ruins.  Would celebrating its rededication not be painfully ironic? In the town of Lod, a public fast was even declared on Chanukah, effectively canceling the holiday. Two great Sages—Rabban Gamliel and Rabbi Yehoshua—rushed to protest. They publicly violated the fast (by bathing and taking haircuts) to demonstrate that the decree was invalid. And Chanukah was saved. But why? Because by then, the Jewish people no longer saw Chanukah as primarily a military celebration tied to the Temple’s physical fate. Its meaning had shifted. 

VI. From Military Victory to Cultural and Spiritual Triumph 

The rabbis realized that Chanukah contained two victories: 

• The Military Victory. This was a brave but short-lived period of political independence, lasting less than 100 years. 
• The Cultural-Spiritual Victory. This was a victory of Jewish identity, Torah values, and stubborn spiritual light over the seductive brilliance of Hellenistic culture. 

The Greeks were extraordinary: masters of art, philosophy, mathematics, athletics, architecture. Their culture shaped Western civilization. But Judaism was something different: verbal rather than visual, spiritual rather than physical, ethical rather than aesthetic. Chanukah became a celebration of Jewish distinctiveness—the refusal to disappear into the surrounding culture. Once the military victory faded from relevance, the miracle of the oil emerged as the perfect symbol: a single flame of Jewish identity that refused to be extinguished. 

VII. What Makes Chanukah Unique 

Chanukah is the only Jewish festival: 

•       That is recorded in extensive non-Jewish historical sources, because it marked the beginning of the Greek Empire’s decline and Rome’s rise.
•       That survived because its essence transformed from political to spiritual meaning.
•       Whose central miracle is not in the earliest sources—but became the core of the holiday for millennia.

 VIII. The Enduring Message 

The Hasmonean military victory lasted less than a century. But the spiritual victory has lasted over two thousand years. Empires rise and fall; cultures flourish and decline. But the tiny light of Jewish faith—often fragile, often challenged—endures beyond all historical turbulence. Chanukah teaches us that the real battle is not on the battlefield but in the realm of the soul: 

•  To remain who we are.
•  To resist cultural erasure.
•  To embrace our mission even when the world pulls us elsewhere.
•  To keep the flame burning. 

And that flame—against all odds—still shines today.