Parshat Vayeishev, December 24th

Chanukah is just around the corner, when we will celebrate the miracle that was performed when the Chashmona’im (aka the Maccabees) successfully overthrew their Greek oppressors. The Talmud explains that in addition to the miraculous military victory of the few over the many, a second miracle took place after the war.

When the Chashmona’im were cleaning the temple, which had been defiled by the Greeks, they found only one remaining flask of ritually pure oil for lighting the menorah. That flask of oil, which should have lasted only one day, burned for eight full days; the time needed to retrieve more oil.

It is strange, perhaps that these circumstances warranted a miracle. Had the pure oil run out, leaving us unable to kindle the menorah, we would have been exempt from fulfilling the mitzvah of lighting the menorah in the temple until more oil could be procured–no great tragedy in the grand scheme of things. R. Eliyahu Kitov in his Sefer Hatoda’ah, suggests that the absence of sufficient oil is symbolic of an absence of proper preparation, both practical and spiritual, by the priests whose job it was to light the menorah. They took the little preparedness they had, however, and went ahead and lit the menorah anyway, and with God’s help the little spark of preparedness they had left was able to suffice.

The miracle of the oil on Chanukah serves to teach us that if we are feeling unready or inadequate to do what God really wants of us, we just have to find the one little sliver of ourselves that is pure and ready to serve, and to act with the courage and the faith that it will be enough. If we do, with God’s help, whatever preparedness we did have, whatever piece of us was pure and undefiled, will prove to be adequate for the task.

I pray that at this darkest time of the year, during a dark time in history, when terrorism, racism and anti-Semitism are flourishing, that we are each able to connect with the part of ourselves that is ready and willing to serve God, however small it may feel, and that we have the courage to act from that place.

May God grant us the same miracle that He granted the Chashmona’im, that our little bit of preparedness should prove to be sufficient for the great task of lighting up the darkness.

Rabbi Garth Silberstein