The Daily Signal - History of Hanukkah: Celebrating Victory of ‘Light Over Darkness’

Episode Date: December 8, 2023

The history of Hanukkah traces back to a military victory for the Jewish people over their enemies more than 2,000 years ago. The Jews defeated the Greek army in the Maccabean Revolt, making way for the Jewish people to also rededicate the temple in Jerusalem to God.  The victory celebrated on “Hanukkah is twofold,” Rabbi Pinchas Taylor says. “On the one hand, it celebrates a military victory, but perhaps [the] even more important victory was this ideological victory, the spiritual victory of faith over nature, of the godly worldview over the Greek natural worldview,” says Taylor, an author, speaker, and faith leader. In the aftermath of Hamas’ attack on Israel on Oct. 7, the rabbi says the message of Hanukkah is a powerful reminder that light does win over darkness.  Taylor joins “The Daily Signal Podcast” to detail the history of Hanukkah and explain the traditions of the holiday, including the meaning of the menorah.  Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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We'd love to talk. Business. There is an ideological war being fought in addition to the military war that is being fought. The military war is confined to Israel at this point. But there is a greater ideological battle, a spiritual battle, if you will, that we see unfolding across the world, something that we're all kind of a part of. This is the Daily Signal podcast for Friday, December 8th. I'm Virginia Allen. And that was Rabbi Pinjas Taylor.

Hanukkah began yesterday and continues through December 15th. And Rabbi Taylor is joining us on the show today to explain the history of Hanukkah. According to Rabbi Taylor, the holiday is a reminder and a celebration that light overcomes darkness. And after the attack on Israel by Hamas on October 7th, that's a reminder that definitely the people of Israel need, the Jewish people, but all of America and the world truly needs right now. the power of light overcoming darkness. And Rabbi Taylor, he's joining us on the show today to bring that reminder and also to share about the traditions of Hanukkah. So stay tuned for our conversation after this.

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I am so pleased that we are joined once again today by author, speaker, and faith leader, Rabbi Pinhaus Taylor. Rabbi Taylor, thank you for being with us today. It's always a pleasure to be with you. You wear so many hats. You've written multiple books, including Pillars of Faith, and a Jewish guide to the mysteries. You have a new book coming out soon. You also serve as a life coach. You're a public speaker.

And we're really excited today to talk about Hanukkah and especially the significance of Hanukkah this year, given what the Jewish people are facing and the events of October 7th. Hanukkah this year is from December 7th through December 15th. How do you prepare for Hanukkah this year? I mean, especially in light of everything that is going on, what have your thoughts been leading into this time as you celebrate Hanukkah? Well, one thing that I've been seeing to my very pleasant, not so much surprise, but I'll say surprise, the amounts of energy, the amount of passion, the amount of enthusiasm for the holiday of Hanukkah as the first sort of holiday. that is widely celebrated post-October 7th has been phenomenal. People are much more. Usually, Hanukkah's an exciting holiday anyway.

People enjoy it. It's very, there's good foods. There's the lights are pretty, and it's a fun and it's got a great message, light over darkness. But the enthusiasm to come participate publicly and do things in a way that they maybe haven't done in the past has been, has been amazing this year. And so people are preparing by getting together with their communities, by having public menorah lightings, by purchasing a menorah or purchasing all of their utensils that would be used for lighting the menorah. And those, even those that I've seen over the years that haven't really participated are making a point to participate this year. It's a great,

it's a great sign of Jewish pride and Jewish unity. And it's very nice to see literally light coming out of darkness. Yeah, that is a beautiful thing and a powerful thing. If you would, explain a little bit of the history of Hanukkah, and you mentioned the menorah. I think whether folks are Jewish or not, we all know that that manora is such a symbol of Hanukkah, but explain its meaning, if you would. Sure.

So just over 2,000 years ago, about 2100 years ago, the Jewish people who were living in the land of Israel at the time were untouched. the rulership of the Syrian Greeks. And Greek ideology was focused on reason, on the natural world, on reason. Even their gods, even their pagan gods, were basically expressions of their own humanistic values and virtues. And so they worship many gods, but their focus was on the rational world and the material world. The Jews who, again, in those days, were the only monotheistic game in town. This

predates Christianity by approximately 200 years and certainly Islam by many, many centuries. So this was, if you were a believer in the one God of the Bible, Judaism was it. And obviously Judaism champions ideas that go beyond the virtues of the human spirit. beyond rationalism, beyond materialism, and our focus is on God and faith. And so in the days of Hanukkah, in those days, 21, 2200 years ago, I use a loose defining mark because of the fact that the events that led up to Hanukkah began closer to 2,200 years ago. And it sort of developed and escalated and was hit on the head during the events of Hanukkah.

In any case, the Syrian Greeks put a lot of pressure on the Jewish community. Many folks in the Jewish community had actually subscribed to the Hellenistic beliefs of the Greeks to sort of adore the physical world and materialism and so forth. And the decree that the Syrian Greeks had placed on the Jewish community were against, fulfilling any of the commandments of the Hebrew Bible that had to do with divinity. In other words, if there was a commandment that incorporated God, that was God-centered, they were against it. And they made special edicts and decrees against it.

So in other words, the Greeks could appreciate wisdom. And so anything that was done out of the sake of wisdom or not the sake of common civility, they didn't have an issue with. So if the Jews didn't want to murder because their Torah said not to murder, okay, that was an acceptable thing. If the Torah said not to steal, okay, that's an acceptable thing.

But when the Torah brings in, when the Hebrew Bible discusses things like circumcision, the observance of the Sabbath and the holidays, anything that incorporated God or covenant with God, our relationship with God, those were the commandments that were attacked. Those were the commandments where they were trying to penalize.

And it basically came to a head and a small group of what we call Maccabees. Maccabees literally means a hammer like tough guys. But Maccabees really is an acronym for Mi Kamoichah Baelim Hashem, which is a Hebrew words, Hebrew verse that says, who is like you, who is like you, Lord our God? And who is like you among the heavenly creatures, God? And this was a war fighting, fighting for God, fighting for the Torah, fighting for the observance of Torah and our faith in connection with God. And this small rag-tag group of Maccabees,

who were a small group of faith adhering Jews, were able to fight off a very large and very aggressive Greek army. Forty thousand soldiers, in fact, were those involved on the Greek army side. And the small rag tag group defeated them. And that was one aspect of the NERGEL, the actual military defeat. And then this group went back to Jerusalem and they reestablish. the temple, the holy temple that stood in Jerusalem, and rededicated the temple. When I say rededicated, I mean to explain that the Greeks in their edicts against the Jewish people were trying

to do things that were taking the faith away from the Jews. And so they would try to put their idols, their pagan idols in the temple. They wanted that the Jews should reject and of their faith-based commitments. Anything that had to do with the temple service was considered something. And they defiled it. They made it dirty. They really just ransacked it. And so when the victors, when the Jews won and made their way back to Jerusalem,

they rededicated the temple to the service of God. They got rid of all the idols. They cleaned it up. And they wanted to reestablish the service that had always gone on there, the way of serving God. In fact, the word Hanukah in Hebrew means dedication, because this was the rededication of the temple for the service of God. Now, the menorah, the seven-branched candelabra,

was part of the temple service in the temple in Jerusalem. It was lit every single day. It was something that was done by the priest, the high priest, and this was part of the service, daily service in the temple. Seven days in a week, seven candles on the menorah. Now, when they got back to the temple, they were looking, they wanted to start the temple services once again, and they were looking for oil that had not been defiled by these Greeks.

And they found a single jar of oil that still had the seal of the high priest on it, and that was something that was able to be used now to start the temple service once again. And there was only enough oil in this particular jar that they found to last for one day, one day's worth of oil. And instead of lasting for only one day, miraculously, it lasted for eight days. Now, eight days, from a practical standpoint, eight days was enough time for them to go procure new oil to make new oil and have it, you know, to be used for the temple service. But eight is also symbolic spiritually. In our tradition, the number seven represents the order of nature, the natural

world, in that there are seven days in a week, there are seven colors of the rainbow, there are seven notes on the music scale, there are seven continents, seven is a number that we constantly see representing the natural world. And eight is symbolic of that which is above nature, because the number eight is actually above the number seven. It's the first step above nature. And so what the symbolism behind it lasting for eight days also symbolized was the triumph of the godly worldview over the Greek worldview.

Remember, the Greeks worshipped, they worshipped the national. the natural world. They worshipped rationalism. They worship their pagan gods. Everything was centered around what made sense, according to the rational mind, according to the materialism. The human body was something that was glorified amongst the Greeks. And so the number eight symbolized the supernatural,

that which is above nature, being the victorious ideology over the natural. ideology the Greeks possessed. In other words, Jerusalem over Athens, the Jewish people had succeeded in the ideological and spiritual war over Greek paganism and rationalism and naturalism. And so the, so again, the victory of Hanukkah is twofold. On the one hand, it celebrates a military victory, but the perhaps even more important victory was this ideological victory, the spiritual victory of faith over nature, of the godly worldview, over the Greek natural worldview. Hmm. Well, I mean, just hearing you talk, I'm thinking, wow, what a powerful time for the Jewish people to be remembering that history, to be remembering how God was with them both in battle, but then also to restore a place of worship and to sustain them with that oil.

as they returned in that place of worship. So for the Jewish people this year, what is their perspective? What is your perspective? Going into Hanukkah, how will Hanukkah this year maybe be different than any other year in the past? So I think there are two things that came out from October 7th.

Number one, there was, there's obviously another military, victory that needs to be won, which is happening as we speak. The Jewish people need to be triumphant over Hamas, those that want to kill the Jewish people worldwide. And there's another layer to that, though, of the exposure of anti-Semitism that was revealed from October 7th, I think was surprising for a lot of people, certainly a lot of people in the Jewish community, where you would think that if a group of barbaric terrorists come on the scene and wantonly just murder

over a thousand innocent people, looking specifically for innocent people, whoever they could get their hands on, to do the most atrocious things that the human mind can fathom, and then not only do it, but celebrate it and glorify it and put videos out and really just make it into something that they say not only were we going to do this on that one day, but any opportunity we get, this is just the beginning, we're coming after, you're coming after you. You would think that

any good and moral person around the world would say, okay, well, that's terrible. These people are terrible, and this is something that obviously has to be eradicated. And what we saw, and don't get me wrong, the vast majority of the American people have stood on the side of the Jewish people. have been backing the victims in this particular case. What we did see, though, across Europe and a bit on the college campuses in particular in the United States was this sort of alliance with Hamas, with just this rabid anti-Semitism, this rabid anti-Judeic worldview siding with that. And it shows very much that there is that there is an idea. ideological war being fought in addition to the military war that is being fought.

The military war is confined to Israel at this point, and I hope that Israel just does what it needs to do, and then we can move on from this. No one wants this to escalate into anything that's larger than that. Let Israel do what it needs to do, let it wipe out those that wish to destroy it, and we move on from there. But there is a greater ideological battle, a spiritual battle, if you will, that we see unfolding across the world, something that we're all kind of a part of, because in this particular instance, you can really see that there are like the good guys and the not good guys, and that there's, there is a godly worldview and a worldview that's principled on Western values versus that which wishes to destroy Western values. And I think

that's a battle that's going to continue to be fought, even long after the military battle. the battles have finished in Israel. And that's something we're all a part of. That's something we're all a part of is this ideological or spiritual battle and something that we can all play a role in. We are all soldiers that can add light in the darkness of the world.

If we're confronted in the world that is espousing evil, espousing darkness, we can be light bearers. We can be torch bearers. We can be the ones that are adding goodness and kindness to the ones. the world that illuminates and gets rid of the darkness in the spiritual sense.

Well, speaking of that illumination, share a little bit about the practices of Hanukkah and how the Jewish community will be celebrating, and specifically the prayers that will be prayed during Hanukkah, both by the Jewish community here in America and in Israel. Sure. So the observance of Hanukkah is celebrated in Israel and around the world in a very similar way. The center commandment, the center practice of the holiday is the lighting of the manara. And again, this emphasizes that the main victory that we commemorate on Hanukkah is, we commemorate, we mark the military victory that is a part of it.

But the main celebration, the main commemoration in action, indeed, is, the celebration, the triumph of light over darkness of the godly worldview over the darkness of the world. So that is the, that is the central practice, perhaps the most important practice of Hanukkah. And we bless God. We thank God for that, who has brought light over darkness in those days and in our days. And God has helped us tremendously throughout the generations to remain a preserved light, a preserved people, and we continued to celebrate that. Many of the customs that accompany Hanukkah are also marking the miracle of the oil. So, for example, one of my favorite foods of Hanukkah, some of the great foods of Hanukkah are Latkas,

which are potato pancakes, and jelly donuts, Sufkaniotz, which are, which mainly predominantly find their place rooted in Israel. Sufganiota, jelly donuts is like the thing in Israel. And Americans are more like, okay, we're potato lank of people. But the common denominator between the two are that these are foods that are drenched in oil. They're like, the oil is like a part of these foods in a very significant way. And that's why they became such staples of Hanukkah is to celebrate the miracle of the

oil. Even when we're rejoicing and we're eating and participating in like, you know, a Hanukkah party, it is celebrating the miracle of the oil, right, through eating very oily foods. I love that. I've been dieting this week just to make up. To get ready. Exactly. Exactly. All this jelly donuts are very hard to resist for eight days. So, you know, I believe that. Got to have some balance in my life. Absolutely. Well, for folks who, um, who are listening, who maybe aren't Jewish, is, you know, Is there a way that we can be a part of celebrating or honoring the folks in our lives who are Jewish and taking part in some way in Hanukkah? Absolutely. You know, the main thing for us always to remember.

First of all, get yourself invited to a Hanukkah party. They're a lot of fun, you know. But from the ideological standpoint, you have, this message is actually quite universal. the message of Hanukah is quite universal in the sense that we all want to celebrate the triumph of light over darkness we all want that goodness and godliness should be that which spreads across the whole world

and that is something that people of all good faith can appreciate can get behind can treasure and so in whatever way that that makes sense for you if you have Jewish friends try to get invited to their Hanukkah party it shouldn't be very difficult everyone wants to include you.

If that's not something, if you're in an area where there aren't a heck of a lot of Jewish people and you don't maybe have a lot of Jewish friends, but maybe check out some information on the holiday. But always remember to be adding in light in your own life, meaning light means adding in goodness and kindness. And so if during those eight days of Hanukkah, you are extra-minded. of the idea of adding in goodness and kindness in your life, then you are participating in the miracle of Hanukkah. You're going against your natural nature, which may be, which for all of us as human beings,

we're biologically, we're animals. You know, so we have this animal instinct as our sort of default, the selfish drives. If we go beyond that, we're celebrating Hanukkah. If we go beyond the natural world, we'll go beyond our natural drives, we go beyond our selfish and things, our selfish inclination.

And we do something selfless, something as small as holding a door for somebody, saying hello to somebody, doing acts of charity for people, praying, whatever light means in your life, whatever getting in touch with the godly aspect of yourself means, that is a way of celebrating Hanukkah, no matter where you are and who you are. Beautiful. Rabbi, thank you for your time today. We truly appreciate it. I want to encourage everyone to check out your website, pinhas taylor.com. That's P-I-N-C-H-H-A-S-T-A-Y-L-R dot com.

You can find all of Rabbi Taylor's books there, his talks, his media hits. But we really want to thank you, Rabbi Pinhaus-Taylor, for your time today. And also say, I hope you have a wonderful Hanukkah and a time that is full of light. Thank you so much, and it's always a pleasure to be with you, and happy Hanukkah to all. That's going to do it for today's episode. Thanks for being with us here at the Daily Signal podcast. Check out our evening show. Around 5 p.m. every weekday.

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