The Miracle and the Maccabees

December 18, 2009
Rabbi Seymour Rossel

     A true miracle occurs every time Chanukah begins on a Friday evening. We are then granted the privilege of worshiping together both on the first and the last night of Chanukah. Last week, I spoke about Chanukah and the missing Temple menorah, a story you can still read at our web site. But this week, I want to discuss the miracle of the oil. There are many ways to understand the miracle that most Jews believe lies at the heart of Chanukah. No matter which way you choose, the miracle itself is only a nice story. Here is how it goes:

     In the midst of cleansing the Temple and preparing it for rededication, a Jew supposedly finds only a single juglet of consecrated oil. He says, "Behold! Here is enough oil for lighting the menorah, but only for one night." They pour the oil into the menorah, light it, and miraculously the oil burns for eight days and eight nights while they send a messenger off to find some more consecrated oil.

     The first problem with the legend is the menorah itself. We know from the First Book of Maccabees that, when they finished cleansing the Temple and went to rededicate it, there was no menorah! The menorah was missing, probably carried off as booty by Antiochus in the year 168, three years before the Temple was recaptured by the Maccabees. To provide light, seven Maccabee soldiers grabbed iron spikes, put something that they could set aflame on the tops, and stood to form a human menorah for the rededication. Therefore, number one, there was no menorah to fill with the little jar of oil. And it is highly unlikely that any Maccabee soldier would stand for eight nights and eight days to let oil burn on one iron spike.

     Another problem concerns the messenger. Let's say that there was a menorah and only enough consecrated oil in the Temple to light it for one night. Where would they send a messenger to get more consecrated oil? Of course, the legend of the miraculous oil comes from Babylonia and in far off Babylonia, people might think that consecrated oil would be hard to find. To be fit for use in the Temple, oil had to be made from trees tended by Jews, from olives pressed by Jews, in containers packaged by Jews and sealed by the priests -- with no gentile hands involved. There is some chance that in Babylonia it would take a messenger eight days to find more consecrated oil. But in the Land of Israel at the time of the Maccabees, almost all olive oil was produced by Jews and there was no problem finding suitable oil. And, if a messenger was sent by the Maccabees in search of consecrated oil, where would he disappear to for eight days? In eight days, he could search nearly the entire country ruled by the Maccabees. And the war had hardly touched most of the country. Therefore, number two, it is highly improbable that a Maccabee messenger would have any difficulty finding consecrated oil. And, number three, it is more improbable that the search would require eight days.

     And, number four, if the messenger did find more oil after only a couple of days, it is most unlikely that the priests would have waited to see how long the original oil would last. If they were really concerned about keeping the menorah lit, they would have added more oil as soon as possible.

     So we can assume one of two things about the miracle of the long lasting oil: Either the person who originally estimated that it would last only one night and one day made a very bad estimate or else the miracle never occurred and it is just a legend.

     Now let's go back to sometime after the year 200 when the Mishnah, the first law code, was finally released and work began on the two versions of the Talmud -- one in the Holy Land and one in Babylonia. In the Mishnah itself, there is no mention of the miracle of the oil and only a few mentions of Chanukah in passing. In the Talmud of the Holy Land, there is no mention of the miracle of the oil.

     The Talmud of Babylonia, however, contains a debate between Hillel and Shammai about how we should light the lights of Chanukah. The School of Shammai wants us to begin with eight lights on the first night and decrease the number of lights by one each night. The School of Hillel says we should increase the number of lights each night until we reach eight lights. Obviously, Hillel's side won the debate. And here the Babylonian Talmud records for the first time the miracle of the oil as the reason for Chanukah. But why doesn't it say that the original reason for Chanukah was the rededication of the Temple by the Maccabees?

     In truth, the Maccabees were heroes for only a very short time. Soon after they took power, they began to behave like the Greeks they had opposed. They gave themselves a new name, Hasmoneans. They established a dynasty like the Greek dynasty. They seized control not only of the kingship but also of the Temple priesthood. And they made a treaty with Rome that soon led to the end of Jewish independence and eventually led to the disastrous Jewish wars against the Romans. To the Babylonians, to the rabbis in both Israel and Babylonia, and to most believing Jews, the Maccabees were not heroes any more. It is even doubtful whether Chanukah was observed by the Jews for nearly two hundred years.

     But in Babylonia, the festival of Chanukah seems to have fallen in the same season as an older, traditional Babylonian celebration of lights. So the Jews of Babylonia revived the old Chanukah festival, dusted it off, and began to celebrate it again. From the discussion in the Talmud, it is clear that they had few hard and fast traditions about how to celebrate Chanukah.

     Some celebrated it by lighting one light each night. Others lit one light for each member of the household each night. And the rabbis of Babylonia added the debate between the Schools of Hillel and Shammai about decreasing or adding light almost as an afterthought. But most of all, the Babylonian rabbis wanted to separate the Chanukah celebration from the glory of the Maccabean victory, so they published the legend of the oil and Jews liked the legend so much that it stuck.

     Legends have a life of their own. I often wonder what advertising genius linked orange juice to breakfast, as if orange juice and the rising of the sun had something in common. And I wonder why so many people accept this as gospel. In the same way, I often wonder at how the legend of the oil became so well-established. These things have little to do with truth, but they have everything to do with popular faith. In fact, the rabbis said that the point of putting the Chanukah menorah in a place where it could be seen had to do with "publishing the miracle." What miracle? Why, the miracle of the oil, of course. And that is the story behind the story as we know it. Because of the legend, we can go on celebrating Chanukah as our Festival of Lights without reminding ourselves too much about the good that the Maccabees did or the evil that they eventually brought on our people. And let us say: Amen.