The First Chanuka- Was it Just a Late Sukkot? |
In the Book of Maccabees II, 10:1-8 we read: “The Maccabee
and his companions, with God leading them, recovered the We see from here that the first Chanuka was celebrated to make up for the fact that they were unable to celebrate the holiday of Sukkot that year due to the war. This explains why the holiday was eight days, why they carried palm branches (lulav), offered sacrifices and sang Hallel. At the end of this first Chanuka (late Sukkot celebration) it
was decided that they would continue to celebrate at that time each year in
honor of the rededication of the Beit HaMikdash ( In the Talmud, Shabbat 21b we see the famous dispute between Beit Hillel and Beit Shannai. Do we increase the amount of candles that are lit each night (do we light one on the first night, two on the second etc. following the philosophy of Beit Hillel) or do we light all eight candles the first night and then decrease by one candle each night (seven on the second, six on the third etc. following the philosophy of Beit Shammai)? We follow is Beit Hillel’s approach, “maalin bakodesh vilo moridin”, “in sacred matters we elevate and do not lower the degree of sanctity”. Why is Beit Shammai’s view also valid (even if we don’t follw it)? Beit Shammai’s view was that we should have a continual decrease from eight lights to one to correspond to the bull sacrifices of the Sukkot festival (on Sukkot a total of seventy bulls were sacrificed: thirteen were sacrificed on the first day, twelve the next day etc.). Beit Shammai’s thought was to include another parallel between Sukkot and Chanuka. It is interesting that today throughout the world Chanuka is celebrated more than Sukkot even though Sukkot was the Biblical holiday that Chanuka was derived from. This Chanuka, let’s take the opportunity to teach about what Chanuka and Sukkot have in common and bring Sukkot into the consciousness of the entire Jewish nation. After all who would turn down another holiday? |