The Rabbis Create Hanukkah

The “miracle of the oil” is first found in the Talmud.

By Lesli Koppelman Ross

Excerpted from Celebrate! The Complete Jewish Holiday Handbook. Reprinted with permission of the publisher. Copyright 1994 by Jason Aronson Inc.

 

Unlike I and II Maccabees, the Talmud barely touches on the armed struggle, never mentions the word Maccabee, and of the leading rebels, names only Mattathias. The Mishnah (on which Talmud commentary is based) makes no reference whatsoever to Hanukkah, and the few relevant passages in the commentaries begin "What is Hanukkah?" (Mai Hanukkah?) as though its significance had been forgotten. The response redirected the holiday.

 

The rabbis said that when they reclaimed the Temple, the Hasmoneans found a single cruse of pure oil still bearing the unbroken seal of the high Priest. Although only enough to last one day, it miraculously burned eight days, the amount of time needed to secure a new supply of oil to keep the menorah lit. In the following year, the holiday, to be observed with songs and praises, was ordained, a distinction that presented Hanukkah as a rabbinic, and not Hasmonean, proclamation.

 

Lesli Koppelman Ross is a writer and artist whose works have appeared nationally.  She has devoted much of her time to the causes of Ethiopian Jewry and Jewish education.