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Mai Chanuka: The Multiple Origins of Chanukah
(thanks to a lesson by Prof.Ishai Rosen-Zvi, Tel Aviv University)
We learn in Talmud Shabbat 21 b–
"מאי חנוכה, דתנו רבנן: בכ"ה בכסליו יומי דחנוכה תמניא אינון [=שמונה הם], דלא למספד בהון ודלא להתענות בהון [=שאין להספיד ולהתענות בהם]...
What is it Chanukah that our sages taught “on the 25th of Kislev there would be eight days in which no eulogies and no fasting in them? When the Greeks oppressed us they entered into the Temple and defiled all the jars of oil and when the Hasmoneans won they entered the precinct and found one small cask that still had the seal of the Priesthood intact on it but it was only enough to last for eight days. In the ensuing year(s) they established these eight days as a festival time of praise and thanksgiving.
We have seen this explanation and it’s the story that all our children are told. The eight days of Chanukah are based on the eight days of the miracle of oil. Naturally many have looked to the Book of Macabees, which is in the Apocrypha, translated from a Hebrew account from Eretz Israel, for a fuller idea that it’s a holiday based on the victory of the few over the mighty who had the miraculous endurance to fatigue the Greek armies. Their endurance is also symbolized in that little cruz of oil. The rabbis weren’t thrilled with the rule of the Hasmoneans by their time, however, because they became very Hellenized.
But a real question, which is at the core of this issue, is why an eight-day festival? The war took a few years. Holidays mentioned in the Bible were generally not eight days. The oil lasting eight days was a solution given by the Talmud Bavli some 400 years after the fact. But there were other suggestions. A skolion, an Alexandrian parchment, mentions that Chanukah marks the dedication of the altar (which is what gave the holiday its name as, it was a ‘chanukat Hamezbeah’ –a dedication of the altar) that was done in Moses’ time in seven days, and that was done in Solomon’s temple in seven days. Why does the holiday need to be eight days? Because, the author of the parchment says, “the Hasmoneans made new staves for the menorah of wood and metal from their spears (shipudim) and they fashioned its seven branches and built it anew in a period of eight days! And other sources mention that the Hashmoneans were reestablishing a holiday of Sukkoth that had not been celebrated for some years, and they made the holiday retroactively. Sukkoth is a holiday with a fire festival and that lasts through Shemina Atzeret for eight days. Perhaps this is why.
Maccabees 2 (NRSV), a century or so after the Maccabees, found in the Apocrypha, gives an alternative reason for why it is called a festival of light. In a “letter to Aristobulus” the author notes that while they were rededicating the sanctuary, they looked to find the ‘fire of the altar’, which, according to Jewish legend, is never extinguished… and it was hidden away a great distance, in a cistern. When they went to the cistern it was filled with a thick fluid. They brought it in a bucket and poured it on the altar and behold, it combusted! This transformed back to the “perennial fire of the Altar.” Maybe this why it took eight days and was a ‘festival of light.’ Josephus, in his Judaen Antiquities, writing about the cask of oil well before the legend offered in the Talmud, knows of Chanukah being a “Hag Urim,” a holiday of light. He speculates that it is metaphorical. Perhaps, he writes, “it is the holiday that marks the moment that the Jews emerged from the darkness of pagan influences, and rededicated themselves to the light of national independence and monotheism.”
Our sages may have been aware of an additional reason for eight days–It was because Chanukah may have covered over an earlier phenomenon with their historical cultural layer; a phenomenon that had its moorings, like so many cultures, in nature. After all, Shavuot began as a first fruits agricultural festival that became the time of the giving of the Torah. Sukkot was a harvest festival initially, and Pesach was a spring rite festival, which were layered with the idea of sitting in shaded booths in the desert wandering, and being released from bondage, respectively. What about Chanukah? It may well have been the layered application to a holiday popular in the ancient world that celebrated the winter solstice. Talmud Avodah Zarah gives us this story (TB Avoda Zara 8a). Since, according to the Mishna, we are not allowed to do commerce with the pagans within three days of their holidays, it was important to discuss those holidays. The Talmud shares that among them were the holidays that preceded and followed the winter solstice. The first was an eight day holiday called Kalantes, and the second was an eight day celebration that followed it called Saturnalia. The two holidays were a total of 16 days and were observed from Dec. 13- Dec. 29.
The following story is told in the Talmud passage there: What are the origins of these pagan rites? Adam, the first man, became very concerned (as he was born on Rosh Hashanah) and noticed as the days went by, that they were shorter. “Oy!” says Adam, “it’s because of my sin that God is returning the world to darkness to Tohu vaVohu, to its chaotic state!” He became more and more vexed, until he began to notice that the days began to lengthen once again after the solstice, and he realized that these diurnal periods were cyclical. He was so ecstatic and relieved that in the ensuing year(s) he established these eight days before and eight days after, and dedicated them to heaven, but the pagans came later and made it into astral worship.
Note, here, the Talmud maintains that this festival was first a holy time dedicated to God. Only after does it become a pagan rite. Note, also, that the only place we find this phrase “in the ensuing year(s) he established these eight days” in all of the Talmudic literature is here, in the description of these festivals, and the festival of Chanukah in TB Shabbat! Clearly, then, the rabbis are aware of this connection to the eight-day festivals marking the decreasing and increasing light of the sun! This is likely seen in one of the comments that discusses the debate between the schools of Hillel and Shammai in Mishna Shabbat with regard to what one does in lighting the menorah. Do we begin with one candle, and work our way up each day, reflecting the expansion of light in the miracle of the oil, or do we begin with eight candles and work our way down each night, reflecting the diminishing amount of miracle oil? A sage in the Gemara there notes: according to one, Shammai’s view reflects the days coming in (nichnasim); according to Hillel’s school’s opinion, it reflects the days branching out (yotzim)! This seems to be exactly the process of days before and after the solstice that the festival of Kalantas and Saturnalia mark! Perhaps another reason the Hillel school opinion prevailed is that it stressed the joy of expanding light, rather than shrinking light!
Now it is an excellent thing that the Talmud came along and told us the eight days are due to the miracle of the oil that lasted eight days! Because of all the other explanations–of the menorah, Sukkot in the newly dedicated Temple and the miracle of the altar fire being found–evaporate when the Temple is destroyed in 70 CE and Jews exiled into the diaspora. And the solstice, after all, is celebrated by every culture. A solstice festival would not have preserved Jewish people in the diaspora. Nor is the solstice tightly connect to Chanukah, which is based on the rather mobile Jewish calendar, making it in early or in late December. The little cruz of oil and the miracle of light it shed, and the Pirsuma denisa, the need to broadcast this miracle by a home ceremony of dispersing light in our windows or on our doors, helped this holiday and our people endure. It also made it, like all of the Jewish holidays, which at first were based on natural cycles, before each received a spiritual/ theological/ historical layer. Chanukah may not have survived without the little cruz of oil! However, it is also ironic that we, in our modern era, diminish and rue the fact that Chanukah has been taken off its spiritual moorings, and made into a homogenized version of simply another festival of light, so common among all cultures at the time the short days in winter. Jews may well have been enamored of these universal festivals of light, and our sages wisely decided to give it a “distinctly Jewish twist” so as to draw them away from potential pagan influences. May we be mindful and grateful for Chanukah’s uniquely Jewish and historical aspect as a holiday that sealed our Jewish identity, even as we swam in a sea of Hellenism. But we should also be mindful of Chanukah’s universal aspect of celebrating and marking, in its own way, the increasing light after the solstice. Our season’s “turning toward morning, spring and increasing light” is also a cause for our celebration.
Chag Chanukah Sameah!!! May all of us have a frailiche and lustiger Chanukah, a joyous luminous Chanukah, and may our winter be a short one with a quick return to spring.