The Significance of Chanukah - Rabbi Isser Springer shlita

00:02 Speaker 1 You’re listening to the “Lema’an Yishme’u” podcast from Machon Halacha Chabad.

00:09 Speaker 2 We are in the month of Kislev, the month of Geulah, and with Hashem’s help we will discuss the redemption of the Jewish people in those days. May we merit the Geulah in our own time this very year, immediately, right now, and in these days go up together to the third Beis Hamikdash. In this class, with Hashem’s help, we’ll discuss two fundamental aspects of Chanukah. The first is: Why is Chanukah called Chanukah? What does the word mean? What is its significance? We’ll look at the different opinions and what follows from each of them. The second topic is the great, enormous question: Why do we celebrate Chanukah for eight days? We’ll begin with the first topic and then move on to the second. So why is Chanukah called Chanukah? The first explanation, found in several of the early authorities, is that the festival is named for the dedication of the altar and the Beis Hamikdash. Chanukah comes from the word meaning “to dedicate”: to begin the service in the Beis Hamikdash and at the altar. Some emphasize the Beis Hamikdash more, while others emphasize the altar. In a letter, the Rebbe explains why the altar is emphasized. After all, all the vessels of the Beis Hamikdash needed to be dedicated. We know about the menorah. What was special about the altar? The Rebbe offers two explanations. One is that it says the Greek kings specifically defiled the altar; apparently, they made a particular effort to defile and destroy it. Another reason for emphasizing the dedication of the altar follows from the well-known words of the Rambam. The Rambam says that the primary purpose of the Beis Hamikdash is for sacrifices to be offered there and for people to make pilgrimage to it three times a year. The altar is central to the Beis Hamikdash. So when we speak about beginning the service anew, we speak mainly about the altar, because it is central to what takes place in the Beis Hamikdash. Let’s add two more points about the name Chanukah in connection with the dedication of the altar and the Beis Hamikdash. There is a work called Mor Uketziah, a commentary arranged according to the Shulchan Aruch,

02:31 Speaker 2 the Tur and the Shulchan Aruch. Its author was one of the most prominent Torah scholars of the period shortly before the Baal Shem Tov: Rabbi Yaakov Emden, known as the Yaavetz. Rabbi Yaakov Emden was a great original thinker, a fighter, a zealot, a genius, and an expert in every field. He was a man of wide-ranging knowledge who wrote on every area of Torah scholarship. He also wrote about his own life and his father’s life. He is known for his dispute with Rabbi Yonasan Eybeschutz. He was a very distinctive person, and on this subject he offers a highly original insight. At the beginning of his commentary on Shulchan Aruch, section 670, he writes in Mor Uketziah: Why is Chanukah called Chanukah? Because they dedicated the Beis Hamikdash, the altar. When was the altar dedicated? He says: Pay attention to a verse in Chaggai. Chaggai was one of the prophets who came up with the Jewish people from the Babylonian exile and arrived in the Land of Israel at the beginning of the Second Beis Hamikdash. Chaggai is a very short prophetic book, one of the shortest among the Twelve Prophets. The Twelve Prophets is a collection of twelve short prophetic books, and Chaggai is one of the shortest of them. In chapter 2, verse 18, I believe, it says that 24 Kislev was the day when everything was ready for the service in the Beis Hamikdash. This implies that 25 Kislev was the day they dedicated the altar. Rabbi Yaakov Emden says: What are we marking on Chanukah? What is the dedication here? It is the dedication of the altar at the beginning of the Second Beis Hamikdash. This is a major innovation of his. He writes that no one before him had pointed it out, but nevertheless, he considers the insight correct. The Rebbe writes that it is difficult to say that for all the generations until the Chashmonaim, this day was not marked, and then the Chashmonaim suddenly decided to mark something that had happened two hundred years earlier. That would be remarkable. Another question is found in the responsa Knaf Renanah. In any case, the Rebbe cites it—we won’t go into what that collection of responsa is—

04:41 Speaker 2 but the Rebbe cites a question that some ask: What do we mean by marking the dedication of the altar? The altar was dedicated at the beginning of the Second Beis Hamikdash. Even if it was subsequently destroyed, its site remained holy. And if its site remained holy, there was no need to dedicate it again. This relates to the laws governing the dedication of the vessels of the Beis Hamikdash. There are laws about how to dedicate the menorah, which lighting can serve as its first lighting, and how to dedicate the altar. There are laws for dedicating each vessel. Later authorities, including Knaf Renanah, ask: How can we say that the altar was dedicated on Chanukah? It had already been dedicated. They needed to resume the service, but they did not need to perform the procedures for dedicating the altar. In that same letter, the Rebbe explains that we can indeed say there was no halachic dedication here, no halachic requirement to dedicate the altar. Rather, it was a dedication in the plain sense of the word. For a period of time, sacrifices had not been offered, and now they were beginning to offer them again. Since they were beginning again, the word “dedication” applies—not dedication in the halachic sense, with its rules about exactly which sacrifices are used and how, perhaps only with the morning daily offering, but dedication in the sense of a new beginning. That is the first explanation of Chanukah: the straightforward meaning of the dedication of the altar. This explanation also teaches us something about serving Hashem. The general theme of Chanukah is education and initiation, and from Chanukah we learn that education must be carried out with mesirus nefesh, as it was in the time of the Chashmonaim, when the Maccabees fought for Torah and mitzvos with mesirus nefesh. That concludes the first explanation: Chanukah refers to the dedication of the Beis Hamikdash and the altar. The second explanation is well known: Chanukah can be read as “chanu bechaf-hei”—“they rested on the twenty-fifth,” meaning 25 Kislev. There are two opinions about what that means.

06:43 Speaker 2 The main opinion is that “they rested” means that on that day they rested from the war. They had been at war, traveling from place to place, fighting and shooting; on the twenty-fifth, they rested from the war. The Bach offers another opinion. What does “they rested” mean? The Bach writes that it is difficult to say it means they rested from war. He says it means they rested from doing work. Our Sages said—the Bach cites the Maharil—that there is a custom not to do work while the Chanukah candles are burning. He gives several details there. Generally, this custom is observed more by women, but the Bach cites the Maharil as extending the custom of not doing work more broadly. The Bach writes that “they rested on 25 Kislev” means resting from work at that time. This explanation is less commonly accepted. The more common explanation is that on 25 Kislev they rested from the war, from their enemies and from their exertions. On this point there is an interesting dispute among the early authorities, explained in Chassidus and in the Rebbe’s sichos a number of times. According to the Meiri, one of the early authorities, “they rested on 25 Kislev” means that this was the day they rested. The day of victory was the twenty-fourth. On 24 Kislev, the Jews defeated their enemies. The twenty-fifth was the first day they woke up in the morning feeling at rest, without the burden of war. They had already begun to rest at some point on the twenty-fourth, after they won, but it was still a day of battle—the decisive battle, but a day of battle. The twenty-fifth was a day of rest. The Rambam, by contrast, says the day of victory was 25 Kislev. Chassidus primarily explains the Meiri’s view. There is also an explanation of the Rambam’s view, but let’s now review a point from a sicha of the Rebbe concerning the Meiri’s view. It is based on the Alter Rebbe’s words, with additional explanation. The question is why, on both Chanukah and Purim, we celebrate the day after the victory, the day when there was complete rest, whereas on Pesach we celebrate the day we left Egypt. At the beginning

09:12 Speaker 2 On the first of Nissan, we were still in Egypt, right up until we left. Why is it that on Chanukah and Purim we celebrate the day after the victory, the day of complete rest, whereas on Pesach, which day do we celebrate? The day they left—a day during part of which they were still under Egyptian bondage. The Alter Rebbe explains: On Chanukah, things followed the usual order. The light was memalei kol almin, light that descends in accordance with the capacity of the recipient. For the recipient, the battle first has to end, the enemies have to be defeated, and then the next day can be a day of rest, a day of holiness. You can’t have both together. That’s not how things normally work within the recipient’s capacity. But Pesach is a transcendent light, a light that comes from above to below, a revelation that does not follow an orderly progression. The word Pesach means “skipped”: Hashem skipped over the doorway. This is sovev kol almin, a light beyond the order of creation, and therefore both things can happen at the same time. The day of the plague of the firstborn is the day on which we celebrate the Seder night. The day of the battle against impurity is the day of the victory of holiness. They are one and the same; they happen together. This is a light beyond the worlds. Chanukah and Purim involve a lower light, the light of memalei kol almin, and so there has to be a separation between the battle, the war, and the day of victory and Geulah. But the Rebbe adds that, on the other hand, the days of Chanukah have an advantage. Why did Chanukah involve a light suited to created beings, the light of memalei kol almin? Because Chanukah came about through a war. Jews worked for Chanukah; Jews received it. Pesach, by contrast, was a revelation from above. Since Chanukah came about through effort from below, the G-dly light was, on the one hand, the light of memalei kol almin, but on the other hand, that has an advantage. When a Jew puts in the work,

11:17 Speaker 2 the light penetrates him more deeply. It is also not nahama d’chisufa, “bread of shame”—not something we received as a gift, but something we worked for, so it becomes more a part of us. That is the advantage of Chanukah: although the light is less lofty, it penetrates us more deeply, along the lines of the advantage of the First Beis Hamikdash over the Second. So we discussed the second explanation of the name Chanukah: “They rested on the 25th.” We saw the view that they rested from work and the view that they rested from war. Within the view that they rested from war, we saw the disagreement among the early authorities and the Chassidus explanation of the Meiri’s view: the victory was on the 24th, and the 25th was the day of complete rest. There are also explanations of the Rambam’s view according to Chassidus, and the Rebbe further explains it according to Nigleh, but we won’t go into that here. The third explanation is simple. The Abudraham—Rabbeinu David Abudraham, from the end of the period of the early authorities, who wrote a very fine book explaining the prayers and blessings—writes that Chanukah is an acronym for “eight candles, and the halachah follows Beis Hillel.” On Chanukah we light eight candles, but the way we light them follows Beis Hillel: we start with one on the first day, move to two, and keep adding. We do not follow Beis Shammai, who said to start with eight candles and then decrease, like the offerings of the festival. The halachah is not to decrease but to keep adding, as Beis Hillel holds: “eight candles, and the halachah follows Beis Hillel.” This explanation is plainly an allusion, not the actual reason the festival was named Chanukah. So we have two main reasons the festival was given this name: either the dedication of the altar and the Beis Hamikdash, or the resting from war or from work. And we have one further explanation by way of allusion: “eight candles, and the halachah follows Beis Hillel.” That concludes the first central topic concerning the nature of the day that we wanted to discuss in this class. The Beis Yosef’s question is the biggest question

13:18 Speaker 2 in the Torah. Not that it is the hardest question—I assume there are harder questions—but it is the question with the most answers. A book was published not long ago with a thousand answers to this question. There is nothing else like it: a thousand answers to one question. We won’t go through all thousand answers now, only some of the main ones, to better understand the nature of the day. The Beis Yosef’s question concerns what the Gemara says. The Gemara asks, “What is Chanukah?” There was a war with the Greeks, and when the Jews won and entered the Beis Hamikdash, they found only one flask of oil. It contained enough to light for just one day. A miracle occurred and they lit for eight days, and in commemoration we celebrate Chanukah for eight days. The Beis Yosef asks a major question: The flask contained enough oil for one day, so the miracle lasted another seven days. The celebration, then, should last only seven days. Why do we celebrate Chanukah for eight days? We should celebrate it for only seven, since the miracle lasted seven days. It’s a very intriguing question. And by the way, when you meet people on mivtzoim, if you open with this question, it will intrigue them too. They also know the story of the flask of oil. They also know it held enough for one day and that a miracle made it last eight days. Almost every Jew knows that. So why do we celebrate Chanukah for eight days rather than seven? As we said, this is the question with the most answers in the Torah. It seems the answers can be divided into two groups. One group says that the miracle of the flask of oil happened in a way that justifies celebrating eight days. The other group says the Beis Yosef is right: the miracle of

15:24 Speaker 2 the flask of oil does not justify an eight-day celebration. It justifies seven days, but we celebrate the first day for a different reason. We’ll discuss both kinds of answers. Let’s start with those that focus on the miracle—the miracle of the flask of oil, according to the views that the flask itself justifies eight days, as the Beis Yosef himself already suggests. The Beis Yosef writes that one can explain that the miracle was in the quantity of oil: new oil was created. What does that mean? One possibility is that on the first day, when they poured the oil from the flask into the menorah, they finished pouring, looked at the flask, and the person who was supposed to put it away found it was still heavy. He looked inside and saw that it was still full. New oil had been created. That is one way to say new oil was created: oil remained in the flask even after they poured from it. Another possibility is that, after the menorah burned all night, they came in the morning and saw that it was full. Those are two ways of explaining the miracle as one of quantity: new oil was created. According to both explanations, we celebrate the first day too. Why? Because new oil was created on the first day. The Beis Yosef offers another explanation: the miracle was not in the quantity of oil. It wasn’t that new oil was created; rather, the oil already there was transformed and acquired entirely different properties. We know that even today, higher-quality oil burns longer. What was the miracle? The oil became many times better—eight times better. The Beis Yosef says that on the first day they poured only one-eighth into the menorah, and it burned all night. The oil had become much better, oil capable of burning much longer. Broadly speaking, these are the explanations given in the Beis Yosef: either they concern the quantity of oil, with new oil being created, or the miracle concerns the quality of the oil, whose properties

17:30 Speaker 2 The properties of the oil improved and became much stronger, so it could burn for much longer. But there are difficulties with these explanations, so the Rebbe offers a new explanation with a powerful message for serving Hashem. Regarding the explanation that new oil was created, the commentators ask: If new oil was created, could it be used to fulfill the Torah’s command? The Torah specifies olive oil. This newly created oil may have resembled olive oil and had all its properties, but it did not come from olives. How could the Torah’s command to use olive oil be fulfilled with miraculous oil that was not actually olive oil? There is also a question according to the view that the miracle changed the quality of the oil. If the miracle was in its quality, and each day they poured only one-eighth of the oil into the menorah, then they did not fulfill the law concerning the menorah. Our Sages said about the menorah, “Give it its measure, so that it burns from evening until morning,” and the Sages established that measure as half a log. Sacred vessels must also be full. There is a required quantity to pour into the menorah, and they did not pour in that quantity, even though they should have. So both explanations involve a difficulty. In the first, how could they use oil that was not olive oil for the menorah? It resembled olive oil and was almost identical, but it did not come from olives. And regarding the explanation that the miracle changed the oil’s quality, how can we say they poured in just a little each day? The vessel had to be full: “Give it its measure, so that it burns from evening until morning.” Sacred vessels must be full. The Rebbe therefore offers a new and original explanation, based on something that took place in the Holy of Holies. There was a remarkable phenomenon called nimna hanimna’os: nothing is impossible for Hakadosh Boruch Hu. What does that mean? That Hakadosh Boruch Hu is not subject to limitations. Even things that seem utterly

19:35 Speaker 2 illogical to us are not beyond Him. Nimna hanimna’os means that nothing can be impossible for Him. What did this mean in the Holy of Holies? The Ark of the Covenant was there. The Ark measured two and a half cubits, yet when they measured the Holy of Holies from the Ark to the wall, they found ten cubits. They measured on both sides of the Ark, and each side was five cubits. The Ark took up no space. If you measured the Ark itself, it did take up space; it had a definite size, yet that size took up no space. That is nimna hanimna’os—being entirely beyond the concept of limitation. The Rebbe says that, along these lines, we can understand the extraordinary miracle of Chanukah. What was that miracle? On the one hand, the oil burned, yet as it burned, it was not consumed. The original oil remained. Since the original oil remained, it was olive oil. Since it remained throughout, the menorah was always full. On the other hand, the way a flame burns is by consuming the oil. So the Rebbe says that the oil was consumed and not consumed at the same time: nimna hanimna’os. Both were true at once. This was a miracle beyond nature, and it explains why we celebrate the miracle of the flask of oil as we do. It also answers why we celebrate all eight days: this miracle began on the very first day. That is the Rebbe’s original explanation—an explanation in nigleh with a Chassidic flavor. But the Rebbe says it also has great depth in our service of Hashem. Consider the explanation that new oil was created: the miracle happened in a single instant, when the new oil came into being. From then on, there was no further miracle. The oil now burned naturally, and no miracle was visible. You saw oil; everything looked ordinary. According to the view that the quality of

21:42 Speaker 2 the oil changed, the miracle also happened in a single instant, but it remained visible throughout. People could always see that the oil was burning more slowly. So the miracle happened once, but it was constantly apparent. The Rebbe says that according to the explanation given in the sicha, there is something new here: the miracle took place continuously. Every second, the oil had to burn and yet remain, burn and yet remain, burn and yet remain. The miracle had to be renewed at every moment. It was not merely visible throughout; it had to happen anew at every moment. The Rebbe says that a miracle represents serving Hashem with mesiras nefesh, beyond limitations. A miracle is beyond nature, and so is serving Hashem beyond limitations. That is why, the Rebbe says, the Chanukah miracle took precisely this form: it continued constantly. At that time there was such profound spiritual darkness. To counter such darkness, serving Hashem—the light—had to be with mesiras nefesh, beyond the bounds of nature. That is why the Rebbe explains the Chanukah miracle specifically as a continuing miracle: the oil was consumed and not consumed at once. So we have discussed several answers that explain the miracle of the flask of oil in a way that justifies establishing eight days, because the miracle began on the first day. Let us now look at several answers from our early Sages that explain why the first day was not connected to the miracle of the flask of oil at all. Some say the first day commemorates the rededication of the Beis Hamikdash and the resumption of the service—not

23:44 Speaker 2 the miracle of the flask of oil. Some say it commemorates the very discovery of the flask. Some say it commemorates the victory in war. And some say it is not connected to the events of that day at all. According to one explanation, the Greeks had prevented the Jews from fulfilling the mitzvah of circumcision, as is well known. So the Jews established an eight-day festival in remembrance of that mitzvah, since circumcision takes place on the eighth day: “The flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised.” Or they established eight days to match the length of the longest festival in the Torah. That festival is Sukkos, which, including Shemini Atzeres, lasts eight days; Pesach lasts seven. Since the Greeks had prevented them from observing the festivals, they chose the length of the longest one. Some add that a Midrash tells us the Greeks prevented the Jews from offering the sacrifices of Sukkos, so they particularly commemorated Sukkos by celebrating Chanukah for eight days. In this class, then, we learned essential points about the meaning of the day. The main topics were: first, the name Chanukah. We saw explanations connecting it to the dedication of the altar, drawing on the early and later authorities and the Rebbe’s words. We also discussed Chanukah as meaning that they rested from the war, or rested from work. Regarding the explanation that they rested from the war, we surveyed the views of the early authorities, through to the Chida’s explanation and the words of the Avudraham: eight candles [?], and the halachah follows Beis Hillel. In the second part of the class, we discussed the Beis Yosef’s famous, major question and mentioned about ten answers over the course of the class. The question is: Why do we celebrate eight days when the miracle lasted only seven? We saw several answers that understand the miracle of the flask of oil differently, culminating in the Rebbe’s explanation and its important message for serving Hashem: in a time of darkness, we must fight with mesiras nefesh. That was precisely the Chanukah miracle—a continuous miracle. We also saw several approaches not directly connected to the miracle of the flask of oil, such as commemorating the victory in war

25:45 Speaker 2 and the like, or commemorating other events of that period—circumcision, Sukkos, and the sacrifices. With Hashem’s help, we will celebrate this Chanukah in the Beis Hamikdash, after the dedication of the Beis Hamikdash and the altar—a complete dedication. The third Beis Hamikdash will certainly need to be dedicated, and its vessels put into service anew. With Hashem’s help, may we merit to see it immediately, now. A happy Chanukah, and the true and complete Geulah immediately, now.