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THE LIGHTS OF THE

Light Michael Ricks

Hanukkah, THE LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS

We celebrate Chanukah as every year. Every year, our homes and our synagogues will fill each night a little more light. Like every year, the faces of our children will light the flames they will cover the candlestick, and also by the gifts they receive.

Chanukah is a festival rabbinical like Purim. The rabbis added the solemn feasts of the Bible, whereas these events and their lessons were to remain etched in Jewish memory.

Do not forget, again and again. Memory future needs at all times.

' Hanukkah lasts eight days.

Eight, the figure of the supernatural, the figure of infinity, the figure of the Messiah.

the eighth day transcends nature circumscribed in the weekly cycle.

The Berith Milah affix the sex of the child mark the completion of the body of the descendants of Abraham.

the eighth day, the divine covenant is sealed to the member of the generation. The life of the Jew is therefore marked by the demanding service of the Lord.

Already, the pilgrimage festivals are marked with the figure eight.

Sukkot, which ends on the eighth day by rail Atséreth.

But it is not wrong to say that Shavuot is also the eighth day of Passover, with forty-nine days of preparation. The eighth day requires preparation.


Rabenou Behaye remarked that each object has a relationship of holiness with the number eight.

Chanukah is the festival of the inauguration of the Temple. Chanukah celebrates a place for supernatural supernatural.

Chanukah is also the first Yom Ha'atzmaut of Israel. Indeed, with the Hasmonean victory, a new Jewish state was proclaimed, which will last for decades, until the invasion of Pompey - 63.

For our sages, Chanukah is marked by a double miracle, the miracle of military victory and the miracle of the cruse of oil. The two go hand in hand.

For Judaism, spiritual life is not disembodied, it is expressed in concrete reality, sometimes through the pain of the fighting are still brothers.

In the prayer of Al Hanissim , recited in the Amidah and Birkat HaMazon, we mention only the miracle of the victory of Judah Maccabee: the small number overcomes the many. But the armed struggle was not meant to conquer territory. Jerusalem would not displace Athens.

Jerusalem would be Jerusalem, the capital of monotheism, the capital of the divine light that shone symbolically the seven branches of the menorah in the heart of the Temple, on the navel of the world. Jerusalem wanted to be face to Athens to bring the world of values and that of science, to ensure that science is not more developed out of moral conscience.

Umberto Ecco wrote in one of his works that the twenty-first century has hints of middle age, and more sophisticated weaponry.

Jerusalem over Athens : Japhet for remains in the tent of Shem, for science to be fettered by conscience. Ligation of science, that the new test of Abraham's son.
Judah Maccabee was probably the first surprise of his victories. This stimulated his arm, was the flame of Judaism. If Antiochus had succeeded his assimilationist project, there would be more than Judaism, because more Torah, more religious service in the Temple, over circumcision, Sabbath over, over public reading of the Torah.

In the Temple, the survivors of war lit the menorah in the emergency. They were in a state of impurity, but had no oil stain. No flags were hoisted. By filling the bucket perhaps they sang, with tears in his eyes: "Who is like You among the gods, O Lord."
What was to burn one day burned for eight days.

Israel's enemies have often said, "Jews do not have more than one day," wanting to seize the Warsaw Ghetto, for example, in 1948 too. But now, the Jewish people is like oil Temple shining miraculously for eight days, beyond nature, beyond logic, "beyond reality".

And so we must turn the 'hanoukia for eight days, and recite the text of Hanéroth Hallalou . And in this liturgy of gratitude to the Lord, the mention of military victory is absent.

By cons, we affirm that these lights are holy.

They must be contemplated.

Military victory is meaningless by the flames of Chanukah.

Light shall triumph of barbarism, the barbarism that reveals in our contemporary time the ugly face of a bloodthirsty god. "It is forbidden to use these flames" sings there, "only the look is required." Light of the Lord is not in our service, we are serving the Lord.

What other use could we make those flames? Enlighten us for private use. Again: The Light of the Lord is not in our service, we are serving the Lord. We could have used the flames to the fire, lighting a cigarette, lighting a gas stove?

The flames of the Lord shall enlighten and not burn. That the meaning of Chanukah, this is the meaning of religion: illuminating the faces and never scorch men.

Rabbi Philip Haddad