But what's all this about light and candles? What about the heroes who are remembered during Chanukah - Judah Maccabee and his father Mattathias? Are not their deeds the thread that runs through all of Chanukah?
Yes, but not exactly. Their exploits are referred to in prayers and rituals only by indirection. Heroic feats are transmuted in the glow of the candles; they become acts of divine intervention.
The blessing over the candles recited each night of the holiday goes: "Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, King of the universe, who wrought miracles for our fathers in days of old."
Miracles, not victories. As in the Exodus from Egypt, it is He who delivered us. Freedom is a gift from God, not men.
Chanukah isn't mentioned in the Old Testament. The swashbuckling stories of battles and victories have been relegated to the Apocrypha. A mere military victory rates only a secondary place in the canon. The victory is to be celebrated not for its own sake but for what it reveals.
One more violent confrontation has been lifted out of history, and enters the realm of the sacred. A messy little guerrilla war in the dim past of a forgotten empire has become something else, something that partakes of the eternal.
The central metaphor of all religious belief - revealing light - now blots out all the imperial intrigues and internecine warfare. And that may be the greatest miracle of Chanukah: the transformation of that oldest and darkest of human activities, war, into a feast of illumination.
There is more than a single theme to this minor but not simple holiday. One can almost trace the ebbs and flows of Jewish history, its yearnings and fulfillments, its wisdom and folly, its holiness and vainglory, by noting which themes of Chanukah have been emphasized when in Jewish history.
History, as usual, says more about the time in which it is written than the time it describes. The message of Chanukah changes from age to age. And the past we choose to remember becomes the truest reflection of any present.
When Chanukah is celebrated with pride, a fall is sure to come. When it inspires humility, hope is justified.
If there is one, unchanging message associated with this minor holiday magnified by time, it can be found in the unchanging portion of the Prophets designated to be read for the Sabbath of Chanukah. It is Zechariah 4:1-7, with its penultimate verse:
Not by might, nor by power, but by My spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts.
Exactly.