Parshat Vayigash - 5764

“Arousal from Above” on Chanukah and “Arousal from Below” in the Chumash

Last Shabbat was the climax of the Holiday of Chanukah, the Jewish Festival that celebrates two events. The first is the very surprising military victory of a small band of dedicated Jewish fighters, led by Yehudah HaMaccabee, whose namesake Yehudah the son of Yaakov some 1,370 years earlier was the hero of this week’s Parashah, Vayigash. That victory was achieved over a much larger and well-equipped army of Greeks and Greek-sympathizers; it took place in 165 BCE, following which the Jewish People returned to and rededicated their Holy Temple that had been desecrated by the Greeks. The second is that in the course of that rededication, the Jews found a single cruse of oil sealed by the High Priest, with oil sufficient to burn for only one day – yet miraculously, it burned for eight days, until more oil could be produced with sufficient ritual purity that it could be used in the Temple.

The question is, which event is the true focus of Chanukah, the military victory or the burning of the oil?

Jewish sources seem split on the subject. On one hand, we find in Masechet Shabbat 21b, the following: “What is Chanukah?...When the Syrian Greeks entered the Sanctuary, they contaminated all the flasks of oil that were there. When the dynasty of the Chashmonaim grew strong and conquered them, they searched and found only one flask of oil that was emplaced with the seal of the High Priest, and there was oil sufficient to burn for only one day. A miracle occurred with respect to that oil, and they burned it for eight days. The following year, the Sages established these eight days as a Holiday for praise and gratitude to HaShem.” Thus we see that the Talmud focuses on the miracle of the oil. On the other hand, in the “Al HaNisim” Prayer, we find, “When the wicked Greek kingdom rose up against Your People Israel to make them forget Your Torah ... You in Your great Mercy ... delivered the strong into the hands of the weak, the many into the hands of the few, the impure into the hands of the pure...” Thus the Jewish liturgy focuses on the military victory.

I found a nice solution to this paradox in the ArtScroll Chanukah booklet, as follows: In Jewish History we find many instances of Jewish victories over much stronger enemies. Sometimes, as when HaShem split the Red Sea for the Jewish People and closed it upon the pursing Egyptian Army, there is no room for doubt whether the victory was miraculous or not. Other times, there is some ambiguity. At the time of the Six-Day War, there was a terrifying buildup of tension as Egypt and Syria, later joined by Jordan, beat the drums of war. And I remember waking up on the morning of June 5, 1967, to the sound of machine-gun fire in Jerusalem, possibly signaling the beginning of yet another holocaust, G-d Forbid. And yet, Israel had in effect already won the war by destroying the entire Egyptian Air Force on the ground. Was that great victory miraculous, or attributable to the courage and dedication of the Israel Defense Forces? Or a combination of both? Who knows?

But on Chanukah, there was a coupling of historical incidents by which HaShem signaled, as it were, that He was responsible, over and above the heroism of the Jewish fighters, for the military victory. And that signal was the undeniable miracle of the oil!

The Torah begins the description of Yehudah ben Yaakov’s downfall after the sale of Yoseph in Parashat Vayeshev with the following words: “It was at that time that Yehudah went down from his brothers...” (Bereshit 38:1) Then the incident involving Er, Onan and Tamar is recounted, ending with the death of Er and Onan and the banishment of Tamar to her father’s house, due to Yehudah’s misunderstanding of the cause of his sons’ deaths. Tamar, desperate to be a wife in the family of Yaakov, tricks Yehudah by pretending to be a harlot. When Yehudah learns that she is pregnant, he pronounces her sentence to be burnt. Tamar, not wishing to identify Yehudah directly as the man responsible for her pregnancy, instead displays the items that Yehudah had left with her as payment, and says, “By the man to whom these belong I am with child;...” (Bereshit 38:25) And Yehudah, in turn, rises to the occasion and admits, “...She is right; it is from me...” (Bereshit 38:26) Where we initially saw ambiguity and incomprehensibility in the relationship of Yehudah and Tamar, it is Yehudah himself who signals his rise from degradation by sparing Tamar. Yehudah displays here his great honesty and willingness to take responsibility, necessary ingredients for kingliness. We will see again these attributes in Yehudah when he rises from the degradation of the sale of Yoseph to offer to substitute himself as a slave to the viceroy of Egypt, and allow Binyamin to return to his father.

In the light of the miracle of the oil, we see that Yehudah HaMaccabee, following his father, Matityahu under the banner of “Who is for HaShem – follow me!” miraculously led the Jewish People out of degradation and defilement to holiness.

By the light of the Torah, we see that human beings, such as Yehudah ben Yaakov, can by acts of “Teshuvah,” Repentance, raise themselves from degradation to levels of holiness and kingliness.

Rabbi Pinchas Frankel
Rabbi Frankel is an Educational Coordinator at the OU

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