Ahaliba StudioThe Hanukkah story we all know from kindergarten goes something like this: Once, there was a wicked Greek king named Antiochus who decreed that Jews could not observe the Sabbath, circumcise their sons, or study Torah. Then, the heroic Maccabees went to war against the Greeks, though they were few against many, and miraculously defeated them. Following their victory, the Maccabees purified the Temple and found only a small jug of oil to light the menorah, which was supposed to last just one day. But a miracle occurred, and the menorah burned for eight days. That’s why we celebrate Hanukkah for eight days every year.
But no, that’s not the real reason for Hanukkah.
Anyone who thinks the entire holiday of Hanukkah revolves around the miracle of the oil jug should ask themselves a question—one that Jewish sages have also pondered: Why don’t other miracles warrant a holiday? The Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) describes greater miracles than the oil jug, yet no holiday was established for them, not even for a single day, let alone eight. The Gemara (Talmud) tells the story of Rabbi Hanina ben Dosa’s household, where his daughter mistakenly used vinegar instead of oil for the Sabbath candles. Rabbi Hanina said, “He who commanded the oil to burn can command the vinegar to burn.” A miracle happened—the candles burned with vinegar. Yet no holiday was established for that.
Some might argue that the miracle of the oil jug was a public miracle for all of Israel, not just a private one, or that the holiday celebrates the victory of the few against the many. But even that isn’t a sufficient reason to establish a holiday. The Book of Judges describes Gideon’s miracle, where he defeated 20,000 Midianites with just 300 fighters, and no holiday was established for that. In the Book of Joshua, the story of Joshua bin Nun conquering the Land of Israel is told—a battle of the few against the many, with enormous miracles, like the walls of Jericho falling from the sound of trumpets—and no holiday was set for that either. Hanukkah is the longest holiday on the Jewish calendar, lasting eight days, while Passover and Sukkot last only seven, even though they are biblically ordained (while Hanukkah is rabbinically instituted). So, why was a holiday of eight days established in Israel for the relatively minor miracle of the oil jug?
To answer this question, we need to take a historical and spiritual overview of the Jewish people at the time of the miracle. This will help us address the big question: What are we really celebrating on Hanukkah?
The First Temple was destroyed in 586 BCE by the Babylonians, and the Jewish people went into a 70-year exile in Babylon. In 539 BCE, Nebuchadnezzar died, and another Babylonian king, Belshazzar, took his place. He threw a grand party to celebrate his victory over Israel, mistakenly believing that the 70 years of exile prophesied by Jewish tradition had passed without redemption (he thought the 70 years were up, but it hadn’t happened). To mock the Jews, he brought out the Temple vessels he had looted and used them in his celebration. According to the Book of Daniel, mysterious writing appeared on the wall in the middle of his lavish party: “Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin.” Belshazzar, not understanding the words, summoned Daniel, who was then in the royal court. Daniel translated: “Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin—your kingdom has been weighed, measured, and divided; it will be given to the Persians because you mocked Israel.” That same year, 539 BCE, Persian forces, including the Jewish community, conquered the Babylonian Empire.
A year later, Cyrus, king of Persia, issued a declaration allowing Jews to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the Temple. Out of 1.5 million Jews in Persia at the time, only 50,000 responded to the call and returned to the Land of Israel under the leadership of Zerubbabel in 538 BCE. They began to rebuild the land. After great efforts, in 516 BCE (exactly 70 years after the destruction of the First Temple), Zerubbabel completed the Second Temple. Between Zerubbabel’s return to Israel and the building of the Second Temple, the Purim miracle occurred in Persia. After Cyrus’s death, Ahasuerus ascended the throne, and at the urging of Haman, he halted the construction of the Temple. The entire struggle between Haman and Mordecai, as described by our sages, revolved around the redemption of Israel and the rebuilding of the Second Temple.
After Ahasuerus’s death, his son Darius (some say he was Jewish, the son of Queen Esther) renewed permission for Zerubbabel to continue building the Temple. In 458 BCE, there was another major wave of Jewish return to Israel led by Ezra, followed by a second wave in 454 BCE under Nehemiah. The Jews who returned in these waves rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem and ushered in the era of the Second Temple. Ezra founded the council of sages known as the “Members of the Great Knesset.” At that point, 1.5 million Jews remained in Persia under Persian rule. In comparison, 100,000 Jews were in Israel, also under Persian rule, enjoying a form of autonomy and managing the Temple and its sacrificial services.
In 333 BCE, Alexander the Great conquered the Persian Empire within a few years and took control of Jerusalem. The Jews transitioned from Persian to Macedonian Greek rule. After Alexander’s death, his generals divided his empire among themselves. Initially, the encounter between the Greeks and Jews seemed promising, but Antiochus IV shattered that utopia by imposing decrees on the Jews, sparking the Maccabean Revolt.
The revolt broke out because it was a war of religious persecution, or “shmad.” The Jews had no issue with being ruled by the Greeks, as Israel had been under foreign rule for centuries—first by the Babylonians, then the Persians, and now the Greeks. The fact that Jews were governed and had to pay taxes was something they lived with peacefully. But Antiochus took it a step further, attempting to eradicate Judaism and Hellenize all Jews, which was termed a time of “shmad.” The Hasmoneans launched a war of “no choice,” and the Maccabees revolted, fully aware that it was a suicidal mission. They understood they had no chance against the Greek army and declared that they preferred to die, sanctifying God’s name in defense of Judaism. The Books of the Maccabees describe how, at the outset of the revolt, the Maccabees refused to fight on the Sabbath, believing that even if they were going to die, they would do so while observing Torah laws.
From the Maccabees’ initial mindset of launching a suicidal war for the Torah, something unexpected happened: to their great surprise, they began to win. This wasn’t part of the plan—they were certain they would all die. Judah Maccabee started to achieve victories. The Greeks, stunned, sent the first army to battle—Judah won. They sent a second, larger army—Judah won again. They sent a third, even larger army—Judah defeated them too. By 164 BCE, he conquered Jerusalem. Judah hadn’t planned for this when he started the revolt; he had anticipated a suicidal battle, but to his astonishment, he won and pressed forward with his victories until he swiftly recaptured Jerusalem. During Jerusalem’s liberation and the Temple’s purification, the miracle of the oil jug truly occurred, lasting for eight days.
Judah Maccabee’s war, which began as a war of no choice and turned into a victory for Jerusalem, would later be repeated in Jewish history during the Six-Day War of 1967. When all Arab armies attacked the young State of Israel, Israeli Jews embarked on what seemed like a suicidal battle, few against many. In Tel Aviv, mass graves were dug because they believed they had no chance against the Arab forces and were preparing for another Holocaust. Yet, within six days, Israel defeated them all and recaptured Jerusalem, astonishing everyone, including themselves.
Even Judah Maccabee was shocked by his victory over Jerusalem, so much so that it’s written that the holiday was set for the following year after the victory—the Maccabees themselves hadn’t fully processed the win that year. But the story didn’t end there; it had just begun. While Judah Maccabee sat in Jerusalem, still absorbing the victory, messengers from Jewish villages in the south came to him, saying that although the Greeks had left, they faced other problems: there was a lack of governance in the Negev, with gangs wreaking havoc in the south, and they asked Judah, as the new leader, to do something. Judah took his brother John and sent him with soldiers to fight in the south. Then, messengers from villages in the north arrived, reporting that Jews there were also being attacked, so Judah sent his brother Simon with an army to fight in the north. Thus, the Hasmonean family seized the monarchy—the first time since the destruction of the First Temple that Jews began to rule the Land of Israel.
In 162 BCE, another Greek army from Syria, led by the Greek general Nicanor, arrived. Nicanor sent a delegation to Jerusalem, requesting a meeting with Judah Maccabee and members of the Sanhedrin council. Nicanor told them that Antiochus was retracting the decrees against the Jews and would allow them religious freedom, but only on the condition that the Land of Israel remain under Greek rule, meaning no Jewish political independence. Members of the Sanhedrin and the people convinced Judah to accept the offer, arguing that their entire war from the beginning was about preserving the Torah, not about political independence. Here lies the essence of Hanukkah: Judah Maccabee stood up and declared that this war was no longer a war of persecution (“shmad”) or a desperate struggle of a few pitiful Jews begging a local governor for the right to live. Instead, they were now fighting for the independence of Israel.
The Sanhedrin council disagreed with Judah and went to meet with Nicanor. Nicanor, who had lured them under pretenses with no real intention of peace, murdered all 60 members of the Sanhedrin on the spot. Judah and his fighters then went to battle Nicanor. It took the Hasmoneans 26 years of bloody warfare to achieve political independence. Along the way, all the Hasmonean brothers died heroically, and only the last of them, Simon, lived to inherit the monarchy and establish the Jewish Hasmonean kingdom, which lasted about 100 years.
This is what Hanukkah celebrates—the return of sovereignty to Israel. As stated by Harambam (Maimonides) in the Laws of Megillah and Hanukkah, Chapter 3:
“Section 1: In the Second Temple era, when the kings of Greece imposed decrees on Israel, abolished their religion, and prevented them from engaging in Torah and mitzvot; when they extended their hands to their property and their daughters, entered the Temple, breached its walls, and defiled its sanctity; and when Israel suffered greatly under them and was severely oppressed—God, the God of their fathers, had mercy on them, saved them from their hands, delivered them, and the sons of the Hasmonean high priests prevailed, killed them, and saved Israel from their hands. They established a king among the priests, and the monarchy returned to Israel for more than 200 years until the Second Destruction.
Section 2: When Israel prevailed over their enemies and destroyed them on the 25th of Kislev, they entered the Temple and found no pure oil in the sanctuary except for one jug, which contained only enough to light for one day. They lit the menorah from it, and it burned for eight days until they could crush olives and produce pure oil.”
So how did the story of the miracle of the oil jug come to dominate the consciousness as the reason for Hanukkah?
After the Hasmonean kingdom and the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, the Jewish people entered a nearly 2,000-year exile. For almost two millennia, Israel lived in diaspora, scattered across the world as a persecuted, humiliated, and oppressed minority. The discourse of Hanukkah about Jewish political independence, a Jewish army fighting for its freedom, and the salvation of Israel felt disconnected from a people whose spirit was so broken in exile. Over time, the spotlight shifted from the true focus of Hanukkah—Israel’s salvation—to the smaller story of the miracle of the oil jug because the contemporary Jewish-exilic discourse couldn’t grasp the connection to the redemption of all Israel. Thus, Hanukkah became a holiday with a children’s fairy tale. In the diaspora, foreign customs unrelated to the holiday’s origin crept in, like “Hanukkah gelt” (giving gifts to children during Hanukkah). Where did this custom come from? In Ashkenazi communities in Europe, when Hanukkah coincided with Christmas, Jewish children saw Christian children receiving gifts and wanted the same, so it was adopted. In other words, Hanukkah gelt is essentially a non-Jewish custom.
In summary, Hanukkah is celebrated for the national salvation of Israel. Although the Hasmonean kingdom was complex and riddled with many problems, several kings strayed from the right path, ultimately destroying it. Hanukkah marks the restoration of Israel’s sovereignty and independence. The miracle of the oil jug doesn’t stand alone; it’s an expression of what happened in Israel—a national salvation where a little pure oil triumphed against all odds.
Credit: Adapted from the lectures of Rabbi Hagai Londin.
Read here for the full story of Hanukkah
