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The observance of nearly all the holidays, including
Shabbat, is centered around festive meals. The only exception is Chanukah, where
by rabbinical decree, the lighting of the candles is not only the primary
celebration, it is the only celebration unique to the holiday. This
serves to focus our attention on the miracle of the oil staying lit for 8 days,
and not on the military victory over the Greeks. The reason for this is that the
Greeks did not seek to kill us, but to make us forget our Judaism (see the
paragraph "al hanisim" ["on the miracles"] that is added in the Amida
and in Grace After Meals) and accept their philosophies and approach to life.  | | " No thought can contain the Almighty" | | |
What is the difference between the Jewish way and the
Greek/western civilization one? Man-made philosophies accept only those ideas
that make sense to human intelligence. Anything that can not be understood by
the intellect is out. Therefore, the Greeks accepted, for instance, the
existence of G-d, His unity, His first-ness and His eternalness, but they denied
G-d's "micro-management" and the Torah commandments, asking what does the
Creator care if we eat meat with milk or not? A Jew, on the other hand, believes
that G-d is higher than any level of wisdom and knowledge, that no thought can
contain the Almighty at all, even the loftiest. Even more, one challenge of our
G-d-given ability to think is to understand that we and our intellect are
limited, and to believe and have faith in the basic foundations of the Torah.
The miracle of Chanukah is an expression of G-dly wisdom overpowering human
intellect.
This is the message of the Chanukah candles. Just as
the number of candles increase night by night - more light dispelling the
darkness, goodness excelling over evil - so also we are empowered to use our
intellect at its maximum potential to be a candle dispelling darkness. Just as
we light the candles to shine outwards, to be seen by others, so also each of us
in our lives should also be like candles to shine outwards, examples of positive
action to others.
Happy Chanukah!
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