Rabbi Yoel Bin-Nun has a solid and serious article called “The Day of the Founding of the Temple of the Lord,” in which he tries to reconstruct the development of the holiday from an agricultural festival to a victory festival, and then its transformation into the story of the jar of oil. It can be found online.

With God’s help, this is Hanukkah, first day.

If the testimony of the baraita—brought in the Talmud, Shabbat 21, and apparently originating in the tannaitic scholion to Megillat Ta’anit—is to be considered a “myth” because the event is not mentioned in I Maccabees (or in Josephus, who drew from it), then we should also have to assume that Antigonus of Sokho, Yose ben Yo’ezer of Tzereidah, Shimon ben Shetach, Shammai and Hillel, Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai and his five disciples—all of these are “myths,” since they are not mentioned in the books of Maccabees, not in Josephus, and not even in the Gospels 🙂

Of the whole chain of transmission of the Torah, only Shimon the Righteous is mentioned in Ben Sira; Shemaiah and Avtalyon are perhaps “Samaias and Pollion” mentioned by Josephus; and Rabban Gamliel merited to be mentioned both in connection with his former student Saul of Tarsus (Paul) and in connection with Josephus, who says that Rabban Gamliel appointed him commander of the revolt in the Galilee. All the other tannaim of the Second Temple period and the destruction period are apparently invented “myths” that descended from the moon straight into the vineyards of Yavneh.

Or perhaps the fact that the tannaim of the Second Temple period are not mentioned in the books of the Jerusalem priestly elite, in Hellenistic Jewish literature, and in the literature of the separatist sects (Christians and Essenes) stems from the simple reason that the books of the priestly elite, the Hellenistic Jews, and the separatist sects did not like the Pharisees; whereas the tannaim of the periods of Yavneh, Usha, Tiberias, and Tzippori—who were their continuators—do mention with great interest their predecessors in the chain of transmission of the Torah?

Best regards, Perush Kizai

And if Yose ben Yo’ezer never existed, and instead the nasi was Yozavad ben Ke’ilah the Garmite (and the head of the court was Eshtemoa the Maacathite son of Tohu son of Tzuf the Efrathite), so what?

And after Perush Kizai has taught us the surprising fact that during the Second Temple period there was sharp polarization among the streams of Judaism, to the point that central figures in the Pharisaic world were unworthy of any mention by the priestly elite, the Hellenists, and the sects—we may now try to examine what attitude the “non-Pharisees” would have had toward the custom of lighting Hanukkah candles.

Is it not obvious that those who denied the authority of the sages of the Pharisees to interpret the Torah would all the more so not accept the authority of the sages of the Pharisees to enact ordinances and decrees, and certainly to innovate “rabbinic commandments”? Surely every non-Pharisaic Jew would shudder at the thought that the sages of the Pharisees would instruct that the rescue from the Greek decrees be commemorated by “lighting candles” as a “rabbinic enactment.”

All the more would the men of the priestly elite shudder at the idea that every ordinary Jew, one of the “lower classes,” would light a lamp at the entrance of his house as a memorial to the lighting of the lamp in the Temple. Is this not an awful “desecration of holiness,” that the people should be like the priest and light a lamp in their homes as though they were pedigreed priests lighting the lamp of the Lord within the sanctuary itself? A shocking idea…

Signed, in trembling for the honor of the priesthood, Shimshon Tzadok the Priest

But the members of the priestly elite had a problem. Much to their regret, the Pharisees had great influence over the common people, who saw in the Pharisees the faithful interpreters of the Torah of Moses, as Josephus himself testifies. And the common people accepted the commandment of the sages of the Pharisees to light candles on Hanukkah as “Torah from Heaven,” and the festival of Hanukkah came to be called by the people the “Festival of Fire” (as in II Maccabees) or the “Festival of Lights” (as in Josephus).

So the non-Pharisaic writers had to twist themselves into knots so that, Heaven forbid, it should not be heard from their lips that every common fellow lights a Hanukkah lamp at the entrance to his house.

So the author of II Maccabees calls the festival “the Festival of Booths and Fire”: “Booths” because on Hanukkah they encircled the altar with lulavs and etrogs (something the author of I Maccabees neither knew nor saw…), and “the Festival of Fire” because of the miraculous fire that the returnees from exile found in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah (something the books of Ezra and Nehemiah neither knew nor saw…).

But for the sages of the Pharisees, and the majority of the people who followed their lead, there was no problem with every Jew lighting a lamp at the entrance to his house, in memory of the zeal of the priests, who even without the golden menorah set up iron spits and lit them, and in memory of the miracle that occurred in that lighting, when a single jar of pure oil sufficed for eight days (as testified by baraitot in the scholion to Megillat Ta’anit, also mentioned in the Talmud).

The Pharisees placed great importance on zeal and excellence in the laws of purity, and the mention of a miracle that enabled the zealous to light in purity rather than rely on the rule that impurity is permitted for the community was precious to them, because through it they could express the joy over being saved from the decrees of religious persecution, and over the liberation and purification of the Temple.

To fight enemies and defeat them—not every ordinary Jew can do that. But to be careful, like a priest, about zeal and exactness in purity—according to the sages of the Pharisees, that is something the ordinary Jew both can and should do.

Best regards, Yidl Prosiger