You all think you know the story of Hanukkah, don’t you? You think it’s about that little vial of oil that was only supposed to be enough to keep the temple menorah lit for one night and yet lasted for eight. Or perhaps you say, not so fast that’s the myth of the rabbis; the real story of Hanukkah is about those upstart maccabees who managed to overcome the oppressive Greek-Seleucid regime of Antiochus epiphanes, which had banned the practice of judaism and whose army far outnumbered the outmatched Maccabees. Well you’re both wrong. Or right. Either way, there is a third origin story of Hanukkah, much less known, and it begins all the way back with the first man, Adam.
One day, ראה אדם הראשון יום שמתמעט Adam, the first man realized that each day was getting… shorter. אוי לי, he said. Woe is me.. שמא בשביל שסרחתי Perhaps because I sinned, acted wrongly, עולם חשוך בעדי the world around me is growing darker וחוזר לתוהו ובוהו and is returning to tohu vavohu, to chaos. Because of my actions the creation of the world is unwinding. And this is the death that was sentenced upon me from Heaven, as it is written: “And to dust shall you return.” He arose and spent eight days in fasting and in prayer.
But, when he saw that Tevet, the month of tevet when the winter solstice takes place, had arrived and the days were getting longer, he said, “ohhh.” מנהגו של עולם. This is the minhag, this is the custom, this is the manner of the world. The days grow shorter and darker, but then they become longer and lighter. הוא הלך ועשה שמונה ימים טובים
He went and made a festival of eight days.
Upon the next year, he observed both these eight days on which he had fasted the previous year, and these eight days of his celebration, as days of festivities. He, Adam, established these festivals לשם שמים for the sake of Heaven.
I love this story from the Talmud, for a number of reasons.
For starters, I love the sheer entertainment value of it. I love Adam’s humor and pathos. His humanity. He is experiencing the first ever winter in earthly, human history. He doesn’t know what’s going on. The sky is falling—in a sense, literally. There is a chicken little quality to this story. He is experiencing something that he has never experienced before, and his response is all too human. Harboring the guilt and shame he has been harboring since the incident in the garden of eden, he interprets the darkening of the world as his doing, his fault—as flowing from him.
How many of us respond in that way: when something goes wrong, we make it about us, for better or for worse, we say, “oh shoot! How did I mess this up? What did I do wrong and how can I fix it?” That egocentric, but at the same time touching, pitiable response to challenges with which we’re confronted. That all-too-human depiction of Adam is one of the reasons I love this hanukkah story.
The second reason I love that story is because of the contrast it presents between the frantic human response and the steady ebbs and flows of the universe. Yes, the experience of life includes darkness—but it also includes light. Even in the darkest of moments, we can know that things will get light again. In some ways, that is the Jewish and human experience. Life gets dark, but during those times of darkness, we cultivate memories of lightness, knowing they will come around again.
The final reason I love this story is because I love Adam’s response even once he understands that מנהגו של עולם that that steady alternating experience of darkness and light throughout the seasons is the rhythm of the world. Does he say, my fasting, my prayer, my teshuvah, my repentance, and my subsequent celebration was silly, and pack it away for all time? No. He does the reverse.
He says, though the universe has a rhythm to it, that doesn’t mean my actions don’t matter. The very next year, in preparation for what would become Hanukkah, he does it again. He fasts, which was the ancient understanding of teshuvah of penitence, of introspection, and he prays, he works to remove the barrier between what is within and what is beyond, works to establish a connection between himself and the divine. He recognizes that even if the rhythms of the world are sometimes bigger than he is, that he doesn’t always have a discernible effect on them, still he has to his part to begin to effect change from within, steeling himself for those moments when he can make a difference, not daunted by the immensity of the scale of the work before him, looking to be both in tune with it and to wonder about the rippling effects he may be able to have when the time is right. That’s my interpretation at least.
And what does he do when we finishes fasting and praying?
He celebrates. He invites himself to experience joy. He recognizes that life includes calls for celebration, even if we’re just celebrating the revolution of the earth around the sun, the rhythms of the cosmos, continuing their mathematical perfection. We all need an excuse to celebrate.
I wish you all a joyous holiday of celebration. Hanukah Sameach and Shabbat Shalom.
