Excerpted from Rabbi Norman Lamm’s Festivals of Faith
Half the Hanukkah Story*
Two themes are central to the festival of Hanukkah which we welcome this week. They are, first, the nes milhamah, the miraculous victory of the few over the many and the weak over the strong as the Jews repulsed the Syrian-Greeks and reestablished their independence. The second theme is nes shemen, the miracle of the oil, which burned in the Temple for eight days although the supply was sufficient for only one day. The nes milhamah represents the success of the military and political enterprise of the Maccabees, whilst the nes shemen, the miracle of the oil, symbolizes the victory of the eternal Jewish spirit. Which of these is emphasized is usually an index to one’s Weltanschauung. Thus, for instance, secular Zionism spoke only of the nes milhamah, the military victory, because it was interested in establishing the nationalistic base of modern Jewry. The Talmud, however, asking “What is Hanukkah?” answered with the nes shemen, with the story of the miracle of the oil (Shabbat 21b). In this way, the Rabbis demonstrated their unhappiness with the whole Hasmonean dynasty, descendants of the original Maccabees who became Sadducees, denied the Oral Law, and persecuted the Pharisees.
Yet it cannot be denied that both of these themes are integral parts of Judaism. Unlike Christianity, we never relegated religion to a realm apart from life, we never assented to the bifurcation between that which belongs to God and that which belongs to Caesar. Religion was a crucial part, indeed the very motive, of the war against the Syrian-Greeks. And unlike the purely nationalistic interpretation of Hanukkah, we proclaim with the prophet (whose words we shall read next Sabbath), “For not by power nor by might, but by My spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts” (Zech. 4:6). In fact, the Maccabean war was, to a large extent, not a revolution against alien invaders as much as a civil war against Hellenistic Jews who wanted to strip Israel of its Jewish heritage. Hence, Hanukkah symbolizes a victory through military means for spiritual ends. That is why Rabbinic sources tell of both themes, the Pesikta speaking of the nes milhamah (Pesikta Rabbati 6) and the gemara speaking of the nes shemen.
It is interesting that the dual themes adumbrated in the Hanukkah narrative are anticipated in the sidrah we read today. Young Joseph has two dreams (Gen. 37:5–9), the first of these equivalent to the nes milhamah, and the second reminiscent of the nes shemen. In the first dream he sees himself and his brothers me’almim alummim, binding their sheaves in the field, and the sheaves of the brothers bow down to his sheaf. This is clearly a materialistic dream; he wants to take over the food industry and corner the grain market. The second dream is a more spiritual and cosmic one: it is a dream of shemesh ve-hakokhavim, the sun and the stars and the attainment of spiritual preeminence.
Even more interesting are the reactions that these dreams evoke. When Joseph tells his brothers about his dream of the alummim, we read: va-yosifu od seno oto, they hated him even more. When he tells them about his dream of the sun and the stars, we read: va-yekanne’u bo ehav, his brothers were jealous of him. The material dream evokes sin’ah, hatred; the spiritual dream arouses kin’ah, jealousy. We Jews are hated for our nes milhamah, and we are envied for our nes shemen.
Throughout the ages non-Jews have circumscribed our areas of endeavor. They gave us no farms for our alummim, and then hated us when we overcame these limitations nevertheless. They pushed us into moneylending, and detested us when we became bankers. They allowed only the very uppermost echelons of our young people to get themselves a university education, and then they declared their hatred for us when this group succeeded in producing the world’s leading financiers and scientists, doctors and men of culture. They confined us to squalid ghettos and expected to crush our dignity—but they were furious when we emerged with our dignity intact, when, in the words of Joseph’s dream, ve-hinneh kamah alummati ve-gam nitzavah, “our sheaf stood upright, unbent, unsubmissive.” Their hostility was boundless when all their oppression resulted in our possessing a fabulously noble religion, a cultural level second to none, and a superb moral life. Definitely, in general, we are “elite, sure of ourselves, and dominating.” No people that has had to endure what has been wished upon us, and has survived with our quality, is anything less than “elite” and “sure of itself.” Hence our heritage of sin’ah, the ill-will we have “provoked” in so much of the world.
But now that Israel, for itself and all the Jewish people, has fulfilled the first dream, the time has come to realize the second, the vision of shemesh vekokhavim. Now, just as we have earned the world’s sin’ah, we must deserve its kin’ah.
The miracles of Hanukkah are sequential: first there was the nes milhamah, and then later came the nes shemen. This is reflected in our Al HaNissim prayer which we recite all through Hanukkah. We thank God for the miracle of our victory, for having given over gibborim beyad halashim, rabbim be-yad me‘attim, “the strong in the hands of the weak, and the many in the hands of the few,” veahar ken, “and afterwards,” ba’u banekha lidevir beitekha, “Thy children came into Thy holy habitation,” cleansed Thy Temple, purified Thy sanctuary, and kindled lights in Thy holy courts.
I submit that those two little words veahar ken, “and afterwards,” define the position of world Jewry today. We have finished one half the Hanukkah story. We have accomplished the nes milhamah, the miracle of military victory, and now we must proceed to the nes shemen, the miracle of the conquest of the Jewish spirit. We have realized the dream of the alummim; next we must proceed to the inspiring vision of the shemesh vekokhavim.
Can it be done? Most certainly! It becomes our sacred duty, the sacred duty of all religious Jews, to give the “words,” the spiritual wherewithal to continue to the next glorious chapter in the Jewish history of our times. Let us give the Sabras, and our American Jewish youth, the stuff with which to finish the second half of the Hanukkah story, with which to perform the second miracle, that of the nes shemen; with which to realize Joseph’s second dream; with which to excite mankind’s envy, its creative kin’ah of our spiritual and moral success, and not only be afraid and hostile because of our material and martial conquests.
Then, having made this second dream a miraculous reality and having provoked the world to emulate our moral attainment, will we be able, with complete justification, to conclude the Al ha-Nissim prayer with the words le-hodot u-le-hallel le-shimkha ha-gadol, now we may thank and praise the great name of Almighty God for ever and ever.
*1967
