Growing up, I never really understood Hanukkah. Why exactly did it matter so much that the lamp had burned for eight days instead of just one? I had Jewish friends, but I was afraid to ask – I thought the question might sound disrespectful.
I still don’t know if I understand the story properly, but as I learned more I realized something personal and humbling, which I decided to share. Here is my understanding of the story, followed by my personal reflection. I welcome comment & correction.
So you’ve won the war. At last, the foreign invaders have been expelled and you are free to worship again as your forefathers did. But first you must deal with the (literally) unholy mess that was left in the Temple. It needs to be cleaned and consecrated and you know that the very first step is to restore the altar and light the lamp that must burn perpetually on it. And you can’t use just any oil in the lamp – it must be specially prepared, as laid down in the Law.
And that’s the problem. In the whole city, you’ve only found a single day’s supply of the necessary oil, and it will take eight days to prepare more. Oh well, what’s an extra week after years of war? It’ll be OK to wait a week to start, won’t it? Certainly that’s better than lighting the lamp and then violating the Law by letting it go out again.
Except... the whole point of the war was to re-establish Temple worship. You know that it could never have been won by any purely human effort. So you know that you MUST honor G*d by immediately starting to restore the Temple. You MUST light the lamp now. All you can do is to pray to be excused for your inevitable failure to keep it lit.
But then something amazing happens: the light does not go out! G*d does not let you fail – and in doing so reminds you of just who it is who owns the world and all the oil in it. It was your job to fight the war and to restore the light on the altar. Then it was your job to trust G*d for the rest once you had done all you could.
Reflecting on this story, I realized how very natural it is for me (and I assume most of us) to react to the call (of G*d, of conscience, of doing what is right, however each of us sees it) by first considering what I am capable of. Can I really do it? If not, maybe I should wait for a better time!
How often, I wonder, have I responded to the call by saying, in effect: “I want to, but you know I can’t do that right now. Ask me again next week, when I have enough oil”.