The miracle of the oil can

Rabbi Yoel Ben Nun has a well-founded and serious article called “Yom Yesod Heikhal Ha’ ” in which he attempts to reconstruct the development of the holiday from an agricultural holiday to a victory holiday to its transformation into the story of the jar of oil. It can be found on the Internet.

In the S”d this is Chanukah 5”a

If the testimony of the baraita – cited in the Gm’ Shabbat 21 and apparently originating in the ’Scholion’ the condition for the Megillat Taanit – is doomed to be considered a ’myth’ because of the lack of mention of the event in Makkim 1’ (and Josephus who drew from it) – then we must assume that even Antigonus of Succoth, Yossi ben Yoezer of Tzrida, Shimon ben Shetach, Shammai and Hillel, Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai and his five disciples, all of these are &#8216myth’ Because they are not mentioned in the books of Maccabees, in Josephus, or even in the Evangelion 🙂

Of the entire chain of recipients of the Torah, Shimon the righteous is mentioned in the Book of Ben Sira, Shemaiah and Avtalion are perhaps the Samaiah and Polyeion mentioned in Josephus, and Rabban Gamaliel was remembered both in connection with his former student Saul of Tarsus (Paul) and in connection with Josephus, who says that the R”G appointed him commander of the revolt in Galilee. All other conditions of the Second Temple period and the period of destruction are probably invented "myths" that descended from the moon straight to the vineyards of Yavneh.

And perhaps the lack of mention of the conditions of the Second Temple period in the books of the Jerusalem priestly elite, in Hellenistic Judaism and literature, and in the literature of the secessionist classes (Christians and Essenes) stems from the prosaic reason that the members of the Hellenistic Jewish priestly elite and the secessionist classes did not like the Pharisees, while their successors from the periods of Yahanna Usha, Tiberias, and Zipporah are the ones who mention their predecessors in the chain of recipients of the Torah with great interest?

With greetings, Pharisee Kizai

And if Yossi ben Yoezer was not there, and in his place the president was Yozabad ben Keila the Harmanite (the abbot of the court was Ishtmu'a the Maachite, ben Toho, ben Zuph the Ephrates), what does that matter?

And after we have learned from the Pharisee of Kisau the surprising fact that during the Second Temple period there was a great polarization between the streams of Judaism, to the point that key figures in the Pharisee world are not worthy of any mention by the priestly elite, the Hellenists and the sects - let us try to examine what the attitude of the 'non-Pharisees' will be towards the custom of lighting candles on Hanukkah?

Isn't it obvious that those who reject the authority of the Pharisee sages to interpret the Torah - קודה - will not accept the authority of the Pharisee sages to amend regulations and decrees and certainly to renew the 'commandments of the rabbis'? Wouldn't every non-Pharisee Jew be horrified at the thought that the Pharisee sages would teach that salvation from the Greek decrees should be commemorated by the "lighting of candles" as a "precept of the sages"?

How much more so would it be horrified at the members of the priestly elite, that every ordinary Jew, of the "lower classes", would light a candle at the entrance to his house, as a reminder of the lighting of the candle in the Temple. Isn't it a terrible "profanity" for them to be "like a priest" and light a candle in their home, as if they were privileged priests lighting the candle of the "Heichal" within. A shocking idea!

The Seal of the Priesthood, Samson Zadok the Priest

But the members of the priestly elite had a problem. Much to their regret, the Pharisees had a great influence on the masses of the people, who saw the Pharisees as interpreters of the Torah of Moses, as Josephus himself testifies. And the masses of the people accepted the commandment of the Pharisee sages to light candles on Hanukkah as a ’Torah from Heaven’, and the holiday of Hanukkah began to be called by the people the ‘Festival of Fire’ (As evidenced by Maccabees 2 or the ‘Festival of Lights’, as evidenced by Josephus?

Then the non-Pharisee writers’ must twist so that it is not heard from them that every ‘Prastik’ lights a Hanukkah candle at the entrance to his house.

Then the author of Maccabees 2 calls the holiday ‘Festival of Sukkot and Fire’, ‘Sukkot’ because they surrounded the altar with lulavim and etrogim on Hanukkah (which the author of Maccabees 1 did not know and did not see…), and ’Festival of Fire’ because of the miraculous fire that the exiles found in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah (which the books of Ezra and Nehemiah did not know And they did not see.

But the Pharisee sages, and the majority of the people who follow their light, had no problem lighting a candle at the entrance to their homes, remembering the promptness of the priests who, even without the golden menorah, placed iron skewers and lit them, and remembering the miracle that occurred at that lighting, a single drop of pure oil was enough for eight days (as evidenced by the Baraita in the Scholium of the Fasting Scroll, which are also mentioned in the Talmud.

The Pharisees highly valued promptness and neatness in the laws of purity, and the mention of a miracle that enabled the prompt to light in purity and not rely on “uncleanness permitted in public” was precious to them, in order to express through it the joy of being saved from the decrees of destruction and the liberation and purification of the Temple.

Fighting the Enemies And not every ordinary Jew can win them, but to be as careful as a priest about agility and pure grammar - even the ordinary Jew can and should, according to the Pharisee sages.

With greetings, Yiddish Prosiger