Hanukkah: A Miracle of Trust | ReformJudaism.

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02/12/2015, 13:29

Hanukkah: A Miracle of Trust

BY: ALAN MORINIS
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What is the real reason we celebrate Hanukkah

There are really two answers. We commemorate t

Temple after the Maccabees defeated the Syrian G
As the letters on the four sides of the dreidel
Nes gadol haya sham, A great miracle happened
What was this miracle? Was it the military victory
occupying poweror something else?

When the rabbis established the Hanukkah festiva

Hanukkah: A Miracle of Trust
of the Temple in 165 B.C.E., they acknowledged t
was a very important historical event (Babylonian
Maccabees victorious military strategy and prowess in battle alone did not merit a religious holid
entirely due to human action, without any aid from the Divine. Only if Gods intervention had turne
outnumbered Jewish fighters would there have been a miracle worthy of celebrating with a Jewish

Moreover, the rabbis did not view this battle as a war of ultimate necessity. In contrast to Purim
tyranny when the existence of all the Jews in the kingdom was threatened by royal decree, the Ma
to a dire physical threat. True, the Syrian Greek occupiers prohibited Jews from oering sacrifices
the people were not imperiled by annihilation.
What, then, was the miracle that warranted the creation of a new Jewish festival?
A miracle of the spirit.

As it is told in the Talmud (Shabbat 21b), when Judah Maccabee entered the desecrated Temple,
which had the seal of the Kohen Gadol (the High Priest) certifying it was sanctified for ritual use. T
night, and yet it burned for eight.

And that is why, three times daily during Hanukkah, we add the Al Hanisimfor the miraclespra
speaking of the military victory but ends by saying: Your children came to Your holy abode and
lights in the courtyards of Your holy place. And they established these eight days of Hanukkah in
Your great name.

In short, this prayer makes a distinction between the means and the end. The military victory was
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