Q&A: Publicizing the Miracle?
Publicizing the Miracle?
Question
Hello and blessings,
I thought of a novel idea and would like to present it before the Rabbi, and I would be glad if the Rabbi would share his opinion about it.
It bothered me, because it is explained that we light Hanukkah candles outside the house because of publicizing the miracle, and it is difficult: why did the Sages institute publicizing the miracle? They instituted things to remember it, like Passover or the Sabbath, but what is the connection to publicizing it? What special point is there specifically on Hanukkah to publicize? And to whom is it to be publicized? If to Jews—what is there to publicize? There was a miracle in the Temple and victory in the war; does anyone not know? And if it is to publicize to gentiles, why did the Sages specifically find on Hanukkah a reason to publicize it to gentiles?
And I thought to answer that the publicity is for the Jews—but not publicizing the war, which everyone saw, rather publicizing the miracle of the oil, which not everyone saw, but only the group that was there saw. Therefore the Sages specifically established that the miracle be publicized outside the house, so that people would show one another that there really was a miracle there. For how would they know or believe the stories being told to them? Perhaps it was just the people getting excited about the military victory and imagining things. Therefore the Sages established that one must publicize that there indeed was a miracle there and that it is not a lie.
According to this, the famous question on the Rema is resolved—why he writes that nowadays the custom is to light inside, when it explicitly says to light outside. According to the above, it is resolved well, because nowadays it is no longer relevant to publicize the miracle, since everyone knows about it. [According to this, it still requires clarification why we light candles at all, but perhaps there is still room to suspect that if they would not light at all, people might question whether there really was a miracle there. This requires further study.]
With blessings,
A.Y.A.
Answer
The idea in itself is certainly possible. Especially if one understands that the enactment of lighting the candle is late (and not from the Hasmonean period itself). This is implied by Maimonides at the beginning of chapter 3 of the laws of Hanukkah. It is reasonable that this was also introduced in the days of Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel as part of the desire to shift the miracle from the military victory to spirituality (after the destruction and the exile), and accordingly it makes sense that they wanted to publicize that aspect.
But that is not enough to explain the Rema, because one does not change an enactment because of its reasons. (Though for him it is because of danger, so from the outset it is not difficult there either.) And certainly it is not unclear why we light nowadays.
Thank you.
A. The Rema in section 671 rules that nowadays the custom is to light inside, meaning even not at a time of danger, and so too it is explained in the medieval authorities—the Rosh, the Rashba, the Ritva; see there.
B. It is possible that the enactment from the outset was only for its own time, and according to this it is well explained why so many medieval authorities [and also the Rema in practice] followed the custom to light inside and not outside, since nowadays there is no longer the publicizing of the miracle that originally applied.