Chanukah is a holiday to celebrate a military victory. That’s fairly common, across cultures and stuff. It’s interesting to me that America doesn’t have such a holiday. Well, and some of us celebrate Patriot’s Day (April 19th), and some of us celebrate Bunker Hill Day (June 17th), or even Evacuation Day (March 17th), but outside of Boston Proper, the American holidays are not commemorations of military victories. Or defeats, I suppose, as technically the Battle of Bunker Hill was a defeat, largely I suppose because everybody was on the wrong hill.
\n
England celebrates a law-enforcement victory. Australia observes a total military disaster. Egypt celebrates a revolution and a successful attack. The Italians celebrate the eventual resistance to the Nazis. The Mexicans celebrate victory over the French. The French celebrate the fall of the Bastille, Vietnam celebrates the fall of Saigon, Estonians celebrate the defense against the Hun, the Maltese celebrate their victory over the Turks, the Turks celebrate their victory over the other Turks. The Irish, well, let’s leave that one. Some Jews do celebrate Jerusalem (Re-unification) Day, but I don’t, and I know anyone who does (as far as I know). Other than that, Chanukah is our only military holiday.
\n
It’s a minor holiday. I say that all the time, I know. It is. For one thing, it isn’t mentioned at all in Scripture. Scripture lays down a calendar of holidays and observances, and Chanukah isn’t mentioned. Well, fine. The events it commemorates hadn’t happened yet. Compare it to Purim, for that. Oh, right, there’s an entire freaking book<\/i> in the Tanach<\/i> about Purim. There are the books of Maccabees, yes, but they were left out of the canon. And not by accident.
\n
In the Oral Tradition, then, there must be a lot of stuff about Chanukah. After all, there’s a whole tractate<\/a> on Purim, so what does the Talmud say about Chanukah? Well, in Tractate Shabbat Chapter Two<\/a>, there’s some stuff about the lamps: Shammai says we should go from eight lights down to one, but we do it the way Hillel preferred, starting with one and going up to eight. Take that, Shammai! Hah! Then they get around to this: Nothing about the military victory. The Rabbis then go on to discuss the details of the lamp-lighting obligations. If your house has only one door, you are obligated to light only one menorah, but if your house has two doors, then you must light two menorahs, unless both doors come out onto the same street. Also, what if, for the Shabbat that falls during Chanukah, you only have enough money for either<\/I> the lamp oil (or candle or whatnot) or<\/I> the Kiddush wine, but not both? Which takes precedence? Rabha says it’s the menorah. That sort of thing. And that’s it. Oh, there’s one other mention in Chapter III about handling an extinguished menorah, as an extension of handling the Shabbat candles, but that’s it. What I’m saying, minor holiday. Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus<\/I>, O Chanuka O Chanuka, come light the menorah, although Rabbi Kahana said that Rabbi Nathan ben Manyomi used to say in the name of Rabbi Tanhum that a Chanuka lamp becomes disqualified if it is put higher than twenty ells (from the ground), just like a Sukkah and like the side beam of an alley.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[207],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-scripture"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10777"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10777\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18183,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10777\/revisions\/18183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nWhat is 'Hanukah? The rabbis taught: \"On the twenty-fifth day of Kislev 'Hanukah commences and lasts eight days, on which lamenting (in commemoration of the dead) and fasting are prohibited. When the Hellenists entered the sanctuary, they defiled all the oil that was found there. When the government of the House of Asmoneans prevailed and conquered them, oil was sought (to feed the holy lamp in the sanctuary) and only one vial was found with the seal of the high priest intact. The vial contained sufficient oil for one day only, but a miracle occurred, and it fed the holy lamp eight days in succession. These eight days were the following year established as days of good cheer, on which psalms of praise and acknowledgment (of God's wonders) were to be recited.<\/blockquote>
\n
\n
\n
\n
-Vardibidian.
\n<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"