By RABBI M LIEBENBERG
Jews have a tendency to rank mitzvoth, with Torah obligations at the top of the list and rabbinic enactments quite low on the ladder. Often one will hear, “Why should I do this mitzvah – it’s only a man-made law?”
Chanukah goes against this trend. Of all the chaggim, there is none so dependent on the teachings of the rabbis than Chanukah. Chanukah does not have its own book in the Tanach or its own tractate in the Talmud. The Chanukah miracle took place after the period of Prophecy. Rather, it appears as a tangential discussion in the passage dealing with Shabbat lights.
If not for the oral law, Chanukah would have faded from memory, and most Jews would not observe it. Yet this is not true. If anything, Chanukah is celebrated by more people and with more enthusiasm than most festivals, especially in Israel. You simply cannot escape the chag there. Every bakery produces sufganiyot. There are Chanukah menorahs or chanukiyot. Almost every store carries an assortment of wicks, oils and candles, and bookstores offer a range of Chanukah literature. There are public menorah lightings, concerts and other festival programmes, and the roads leading to Jerusalem are decorated with lights.
Why do all sectors of the population, religious and secular, identify with Chanukah? Perhaps it is the relative ease with which the basic mitzvah of Chanukah, the lighting of the menorah, can be fulfilled. Everyone can afford a box of candles or a little bit of oil. There is no requirement to kasher your home or build a temporary structure or come to shul for a long service. Perhaps the fun aspects of the chag appeal most: eating sufganiyot, latkes and blintzes; playing dreidel and receiving Chanukah gelt.
As valid as these reasons might be, I believe there is something more at stake. Chanukah speaks to the heart of a Jew, to his indomitable spirit. It reminds him that, even when the world wants to take away his faith, somehow he will find a way – through miracles if necessary – to preserve it. Even when the odds are against him, the Jew will put up a good fight. This sentiment is expressed in the ‘al hanissim’ prayer recited for the duration of the festival: “In the days of Matityahu, the son of Yochanan the High Priest, the Hasmonean and his sons, the wicked empire of Greece arose against Your people Israel, to cause them to forget Your Torah and to transgress the laws that You desire. And You, in Your great mercy, stood up for them in the time of their suffering; You fought their fight…took vengeance on their behalf, delivered the powerful into the hands of the weak, the many into the hands of the few, the impure into the hands of the pure and the wicked into the hands of the righteous…”
Chanukah is a celebration of what seems impossible. It is the festival that connects the Jew to a history that should have come to an end many times but did not. And that is something every Jew can relate to. ●
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