Chanukah (חנוכה) — Dedication

Core definition

Chanukah ("dedication") is the eight-day festival commemorating the rededication of the Beis HaMikdash after the defeat of the Greek decrees. Its mitzvah is the kindling of lights: "the Chanukah light (נר חנוכה): it is a mitzvah to place it on the door of his house, outside" (Shabbos 21b) [31669/maamar_012 :: עב׳ 5]. Unlike Purim, whose remembrance is the Megillah, Chanukah is remembered with lights specifically — "from the formula of the lighting's brachah — 'to light the Chanukah light' — it is understood that the miracle's remembrance is on the lights, and not on the Tamid's bringing" [31669/maamar_012 :: עב׳ 64].

How the Rebbeim develop it

The Greeks' decree was spiritual, not physical. "The Greeks did not want to touch Yisrael's bodies; but their decree's whole matter was that they wanted to make them forget Your Torah — the Torah of Havayah — and to pass them from His will's statutes (חוקי רצונו). For the Greeks were wise heretics (חכמים פוקרים), denying Torah from Heaven and the mitzvos of chukim; and they agreed only to the intellectual Torah and the mitzvos of mishpatim" [31669/maamar_012 :: עב׳ 308]. They "decreed many decrees to nullify the Mikdash's avodah; and they defiled all the oils in the Mikdash; and they said, 'write for yourselves on the ox's horn (קרן השור) that you have no portion in the Elokim of Yisrael'" [31669/maamar_012 :: עב׳ 309]. In contrast to Purim — where Haman's decree was on the bodies and the salvation was physical, "all from Heaven, not through Yisrael's war-action" — the Chanukah miracle "came after a war, with mesirus nefesh" [31669/maamar_012 :: summary].

Yisrael were aroused in Matisyahu the Kohen Gadol's arousal and went out to fight; "He delivered the mighty into the weak's hand, and the many into the few's hand" [31669/maamar_012 :: עב׳ 310, 313]. When they defeated them, they fixed the miracle on the lights specifically, "since the lights' matter is to illuminate even in the mountains of separation (טורי דפרודא). And the placing is on the left mezuzah: to indicate the right's strengthening over the left line" [31669/maamar_012 :: עב׳ 310].

The maamar develops the mezuzah/Chanukah-light comparison: both are outside, on the door — but mezuzah is on the right and the Chanukah light on the left; mezuzah is a constant Torah mitzvah for the house/courtyard, while the Chanukah light is a seasonal rabbinic mitzvah (כעין דאורייתא); the courtyard's mezuzah does not exempt the house, but the courtyard's Chanukah light does exempt the house's door [31669/maamar_012 :: עב׳ 29–33, summary]. The difference in essence: "mezuzah is for the house/courtyard — before the courtyard/house begins — while the Chanukah light's essence is to illuminate the outside — the public domain" [31669/maamar_012 :: summary]. Mezuzah proclaims that the house and courtyard belong to Divinity; the light fixes the public domain itself [31669/maamar_012 :: overview].

The main chiddush: the Chanukah light has a double function — fixing the left line (severing the chitzonim's yenikah, which draws both from excessive tzimtzumim and from the encompassing light above hishtalshelus) and illuminating the public domain — the outer darkness — with Torah-ohr, uprooting the kofrim's false dei'os [31669/maamar_012 :: overview].

The Chanukah light is "for the generations": "so it is in every generation: at the hour when the kofrim darken Yisrael's eyes with their denials — through strengthening Torah learning and mitzvah fulfillment with the strength of mesirus nefesh — the Holy One, blessed be He, gives strength to the few and the weak to overcome the mighty in their chutzpah toward Heaven, and to illuminate the world's darknesses with the ohr of Torah and the lamp of mitzvah (נר מצוה)" [31669/maamar_012 :: עב׳ 314].

Key distinctions

Related concepts

The Greek decrees, Matisyahu's mesirus nefesh, the Mikdash oils, the left line (the Greeks' line), pirsumei nisa, the chitzonim's yenikah, Purim.

Sources