What is Chanuka?
Our review of the prophecies of Chaggai and Zekharia has led us to a double conclusion:
a. The date of Chanuka is not coincidental, and its roots go back to the beginning of the Second Temple period, many years prior to the Hasmonean rebellion.
b. The central place of oil and the menora in this festival transcends the context of the Hasmonean victory.
This connection is highlighted by the mishna (Bikkurim 1:6) that specifies Chanuka as the end of the period for bringing bikkurim (first fruits) to the Temple: “From Shavuot until Sukkot, one brings [bikkurim] and also recites [the special recitation for the occasion]. From Sukkot until Chanuka, one brings but does not recite. Rabbi Yehuda ben Beteira says: One brings and also recites.” Apparently, while the holiday of Chanuka is a later development, this time of the year is agriculturally significant.
Period of darkness and the beginning of light
There is an additional element that is relevant to the time of Chanuka. This period of the year marks a turning point between darkness and light. The end of the month of Kislev is a time of diminishing light. At this point on the solar calendar, the days are at their shortest while the nights are at their longest, with the winter solstice (in late December) always falling very close to Chanuka, just as the spring and autumn equinoxes fall around the festivals of Pesach and Sukkot. (The Torah commands that this be maintained, and this is a determining factor for leap years in the Hebrew calendar.) To this diminishing sunlight we may add the effect of the lunar cycle, whereby the light of the moon diminishes to the point of disappearing at the end of every Hebrew month.
Therefore, the final week of the month of Kislev is a period strongly characterized by a diminishing of light: there are short days, along with the gradual disappearance of the light of the moon. Together, these conditions make for the week with the lowest natural level of light in the whole year.
This low point in the natural light of the world calls for an increase of light on the part of man – for there is a special need for illumination during the long, dark nights. This need exists throughout the winter months, but during the last week in Kislev the necessity is emphasized, on both the practical and the symbolic level, through the deficiency in both sources of light. The ancient pagans were aware of this natural fact, and they celebrated a cosmic festival of light and fire at this season. As the Talmud describes it (Avoda Zara 8a):
“These are the festivals of the idolaters: The New Year and the Saturnalia…” Rav Hanan bar Rabba said: The New Year takes place eight days after the solstice; the Saturnalia – eight days prior to the solstice…. The Sages taught: When Adam saw that the days were getting shorter, he said: “Woe to me; perhaps it is because I sinned that the world is getting dark and is returning to its primal chaos; perhaps this is a Divine death sentence.” And so he spent eight days in fasting and prayer. When he saw the beginning of [the month of] Tevet, with the days growing longer, he said: “This is [simply] the way of the world!” So he went and made an eight-day celebration. The next year he celebrated both the earlier [eight-day] period and the later period. He [Adam] instituted [these celebrations] for the sake of Heaven, while they [the pagans] commemorate these days for idolatry.
The Talmud is aware of the similarity between the respective winter solstice holidays. However, the conclusion that it draws is opposite that of scholars of comparative religion. Chanuka is not a monotheistic festival that grew out of a pagan one. Rather, the festival started out as a cosmic, universal one, established by Adam, who “instituted them [the eight-day periods] for the sake of Heaven.” Only afterwards did it become a pagan festival (see Rambam, Hilkhot Avodat Kokhavim, chapter 1).
The Talmud depicts Adam as lacking astronomical knowledge, but possessing impressive religio-intellectual profundity. First he notes the gradual shortening of the day, relative to the time of his creation (in Tishrei, when day and night are of equal length), and interprets this as a punishment for his sin – a slow death that has been decreed upon him. However, when he realizes that the days are once again growing longer, he does not become arrogant. He does not boast that God has accepted his prayer and commuted his verdict. Such a religious view (so familiar in our times) has no place, according to the Talmud, and it cannot imagine such a thought entering the mind of Adam, who was a religious believer. There could only be one explanation for the lengthening of the days: there are laws that govern nature, and Adam discovered, through his observation of nature, the law of periodicity according to which the world operates: “It is the way of the world.” The stars proceed in their heavenly paths – all according to the laws of nature. If the world operates according to its way, then it will not be influenced by prayers and fasting, or even by man’s sins. Seemingly, the jump from this perception to all-out heresy would not be a long one. But Adam is not a heretic, and therefore he celebrates eight festive days, “for the sake of Heaven.”
It is worth comparing the story in Massekhet Avoda Zara with the well-known explanation in Massekhet Shabbat for the miracle of Chanuka and the institution of the festival. The “eight festive days” celebrated by Adam, specifically at the time of month and the time of year with the least amount of light, obviously hint to Chanuka, though the name of the festival is not mentioned, since “Chanuka” did not yet exist.
The clearest expression of the connection between the story of Adam’s festival and Chanuka are in the Gemara’s statements that “the next year he made both (eight-day periods) into days of celebration,” and “He established them for the sake of Heaven.” These parallel the statements in Massekhet Shabbat, concerning Chanuka: “The next year they established them as days of celebration, with praise and thanksgiving.” This parallel leaves no room for doubt as to the connection between the two festivals, and the clear intention of the discussion in Massekhet Avoda Zara is to explain Chanuka as a cosmic, primal “festival of Adam”; a festival of light, at the time when the light is most restricted. It was the idolaters who defiled this festival, turning it into a pagan one that is celebrated at the same time of year.
As such, the agricultural aspect of bikkurim serves to purify the cosmic festival which had become a pagan celebration. The natural agricultural cycle of Eretz Yisrael is such that the end of the olive season (and thus the end of the bikkurim season) falls in the last week of Kislev. This creates a situation in which the celebration of the bikkurim with olive oil coincides with the natural, universally-recognized need to create light at this time of darkness. Thus the light of pure olive oil, from the produce of the land brought as bikkurim to the Temple, replaces the impure, pagan “light and fire,” thereby illuminating the world with purity emanating from the holiness of the land and of the Temple.
Here we arrive at a surprising and thought-provoking parallel. The Temple, built for the glory of God, was defiled by idolaters, transforming it into a place that would combine Israelite faith with a universal, Hellenistic vision. For this reason they placed their idol in the Temple, choosing specifically the twenty-fifth of Kislev as the day for this desecration, so as to correspond with the original day of the laying of the foundation of the Second Temple. This was a deliberate attempt to offend the religious public, which they defined as a group of zealots.
Three years later, Yehuda Maccabee and his brothers planned the rededication of the altar and of the Temple as a whole for the anniversary of its defilement – the day of the oil – and they celebrated the festival of Sukkot in the ninth month, “with myrtle branches and citron branches and palm branches, for eight days, with joy and festivity (Hasmoneans II 10:5-7). They thereby instituted for all generations the parallel between the dedication of the Temple in the days of Shlomo, on Sukkot (Melakhim I 8:2; ibid. 65), and its rededication in Kislev in the days of the Hasmoneans, with a further parallel between the ingathering of the grain and the wine and the ingathering of the olives, as celebrations of equal weight.
“The next year” they instituted these days as holidays, with praise and thanksgiving, preserving the custom of kindling lights with oil, and the eight-day duration, so maintaining the parallel between Chanuka and Sukkot. This parallel was noted explicitly in letters that were sent out to all of Israel (Hasmoneans II 1:18; 2:16).
Similarly, the festival which had existed from the beginning of time as a universal, cosmic celebration was defiled and became a pagan holiday, until it was once again restored to purity by the Hasmoneans. This, then, is the link through which the Gemara explains Chanuka on the basis of Adam, presenting a model that is similar to but different from the more familiar one from Massekhet Shabbat.
According to what we have said above, the olive season – the ingathering of the oil – is the focus of the prophecies of Chaggai and Zekharia, which establish the date of the 24th of the ninth month as the day when the foundations were laid for the House of God, since this represents the conclusion of the previous cycle (the year of produce and bikkurim which has just ended) and the beginning of the new cycle (the new year of produce and bikkurim).
The first foundation of the festival of Chanuka is the end of the olive harvest, which in fact parallels Sukkot, which is the end of the ingathering of the grain and the wine. This idea is hinted at in the aforementioned Mishna in Bikkurim, which mentions both Sukkot and Chanuka as concluding dates for bikkurim.[6] This mishna is not some sort of appendix that happens to make mention of Chanuka, the festival of the Maccabees. Quite the opposite: it is the first and most ancient expression of this festival, in the sense of the end of the season of bikkurim, with the conclusion of the time for bringing an offering of oil from that year.
The statements in the Books of the Hasmoneans and the hints in rabbinic literature that link Chanuka with Sukkot,[7] presenting Chanuka as a sort of “Second Sukkot” in the ninth month, are all based on this parallel, which is an essential feature of the agricultural year in Eretz Yisrael, and is given such clear expression in the prophecies of Chaggai and Zekharia.
Likewise, the name given by Josephus (Antiquities XII 7,7) - “the festival of lights,” a name which he was unable to explain - testifies to the essence of the festival being connected with the kindling of lights using oil at the conclusion of the period when it could be brought to the Temple as bikkurim. Eventually, the historical event, with the fulfillment of the prophecies of Chaggai and Zekharia – the victory of the Hasmoneans – led the festival to be instituted officially for all generations.
One final observation relates to the nature of the celebration of Chanuka. Most interpretations in rabbinic literature for the celebration of the eight days of Chanuka are connected to oil and kindling.[8] All of these have their sources in ancient traditions and teachings, which connect the theme of the festival with its source – oil and kindling. Only during this part of the year could the miracle of the olive oil, with its strong connection to nature, have taken place, and all of the stories that are told around it are well suited to this season. Even after Chanuka had been established as a festival with a strongly historical character, it continued to be associated with the olive oil and the lights that were kindled, in addition to the recent historical event – the Hasmonean victory. Thus was established a “rabbinically ordained festival” (Rambam, Hilkhot Megilla ve-Chanuka 3:3), reminiscent of the three biblically-ordained pilgrim festivals. Its root is a religio-agricultural “season” - the conclusion of the ingathering of the olives, which is not a festival, but to it is added the dedication of the Second Temple, during the time of Zerubavel, followed by the rededication by the Hasmoneans, as national historical events.
In this sense, Chanuka resembles the festivals in the Torah which link the Exodus from Egypt with the spring (barley harvest), the wheat harvest with the giving of the Torah on Shavuot (hinted at via the third month – Shemot 19), and the ingathering of the threshing floor and of the vineyard with the sukkot in the desert (and perhaps also the great sukka of peace and redemption at the End of Days – see Zekharia 14). The event of Chanuka, however, took place during the Second Temple period, and therefore it is not mentioned in the Torah, nor does it have the same status as the biblical festivals (no prohibition of labor).
Following the destruction of the Second Temple, there was no tangible remnant of the achievements of the Hasmoneans, but the festival of Chanuka could not be abolished because of its unique character, which was far broader than the historical event from the time of the Hasmoneans. Therefore the Gemara emphasizes the commandment of kindling and the miracle of the cruse of oil as the essence of the festival. The real meaning of the question that the Gemara poses – “What is Chanuka?” – is that following the destruction, the festival of Chanuka no longer has sufficient justification based on the Hasmonean victory alone, and that the continued observance of the festival is mainly related to the oil and the kindling. The miracle of the oil, the tale that has inspired generations of Jews, is the most faithful expression of the original, fundamental, agricultural reason for the festival. Sefer Chashmonaim I, which was written during the time of the Hasmonean dynasty, focuses – naturally – on the military victory, ignoring the matter of the oil, while it is specifically the rabbinical sources that reflect the festival’s primal, ancient, complex significance.
The Hasmonean victory imbued Chanuka with its dual nature – religio-agricultural and historio-national, and thus it was instituted as a festival for all future generations.
We began our discussion with a multi-faceted puzzle surrounding the prophecies of Chaggai and Zekharia, and we have concluded with a comprehensive reconstruction of the history of Chanuka, which illuminates the festival with the olive oil – the “yitzhar” – of Eretz Yisrael, and restores the tales of the oil to their rightful place.
It is amazing that the prophecies of Chaggai and Zekharia, which were clear and relevant in the eyes of the Hasmoneans, disappeared from the consciousness of later generations (despite the fact that Zekharia’s central prophecy serves as the haftara for Chanuka), to the point where all the concepts of Chanuka became entangled in a knot of riddles. Only Rabbi Yaakov Emden and the Sefat Emet were able, with their sharp intellects, to discern the direction in which to seek the solution. Had these prophecies not been preserved throughout the generations, we would not even be able to imagine this complicated development behind the festival of Chanuka.
May its lights continue to illuminate our way with the dual light of Am Yisrael who are saved by the miraculous light shining from within nature, in Eretz Yisrael with its grain, wine and oil.
(The unabridged version of this article, “The Day of Laying the Foundation of God’s Sanctuary According to the Prophecies of Chaggai and Zekharia” can be found here: http://www.ybn.co.il/mamrim/PDF/Hannukah1.pdf.
Additional articles by Rav Yoel Bin-Nun can be found on his website, ybn.co.il.)
Article from 2009
[1] This dispute may be related to the controversy concerning the dates involved and the identity of Artaxerxes; the scope of the present article does not allow for detailed discussion of the respective views on this issue.
[2] For a full treatment and development of this notion, see the original version of this article in Megadim 12.
[3] The term “menora” refers specifically to the central pillar; see Shemot 25:31-35.
[4] It has its origins in the introduction to the section of rebuke in Sefer Devarim (28:1): “And it shall be, if you will diligently obey the Lord your God…,” see also Devarim 7:12; 8:19; 11:13; 28:15.
[5] The menora in the Sanctuary, and the “keruvim” (cherubs) in the Holy of Holies, were the only vessels of the Mishkan and the Temple that were made of a single piece of gold. The keruvim expressed God’s Kingship and His Presence in His House, in the midst of Israel, as a supernal fire that appears from the heavens. Correspondingly, upon the destruction of the First Temple, the chariot of the Divine Presence returned to the heavens, as described by Yechezkel (chapters 8-11). The menora, in contrast, has lights that are kindled by the kohen who performs the Divine service “before God”; this is epitomized in the Second Temple and its special illumination. The return of the Divine Presence to the Second Temple is therefore expressed in the menora rather than in the keruvim – all subject to Israel’s behavior. This explains why the menora became the most important Jewish symbol for all generations, up until its eventual adoption as the symbol of the modern State of Israel – which, of course, was designed on the basis of the lights in Zekharia. May we be worthy of it.
[6] By Sukkot it would usually be possible to bring an offering of the first of the oil, but so long as the olive season continues, one can certainly bring more. This would appear to be the source of the controversy concerning the recital. The question here is whether it is desirable (le-khatchila) that a person bring an offering from the olives harvested later in the season, in which case he should certainly recite the special speech over the bikkurim, or whether oil from later on in the season (after Sukkot) is acceptable but not preferable (bedi’avad), in which case he should not recite.
[7] See Sefat Emet on Chanuka – 541, 544, 536.
[8] The eight skewers from which they fashioned a menora (Megillat Ta’anit, cited in Pesikta Rabbati chapter 2, and Rosh Ha-shana 24a; Menachot 28b; Avoda Zara 43a); the eight days that the pure oil lasted (Megillat Ta’anit, cited in Shabbat 21b); as well as most of the explanations for the well-known question of why the festival lasts eight days, while the miracle of the oil was only really seven days (since there was sufficient oil for the first day) (Beit Yosef, OC 670).
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