Chanukah: The Last Pit-Stop Before Darkness

The Sages taught: When Adam HaRishon, saw that the day was progressively diminishing, as the days become shorter from the autumnal equinox until the winter solstice, he did not yet know that this is a normal phenomenon, and therefore he said: Woe is me; perhaps because I sinned the world is becoming dark around me and will ultimately return to the primordial state of chaos and disorder. And this is the death that was sentenced upon me from Heaven. He arose and spent eight days in fasting and in prayer. Once he saw that the season of Tevet, i.e., the winter solstice, had arrived, and saw that the day was progressively lengthening after the solstice, he said: Clearly, the days become shorter and then longer, and this is the order of the world. He went and observed a festival for eight days. Upon the next year, he observed both these eight days on which he had fasted on the previous year, and these eight days of his celebration, as days of festivities. He, Adam, established these festivals for the sake of Heaven, but they, the gentiles of later generations, established them for the sake of idol worship.

(6) ... From Atzeres [Shavuos] until the Festival [Sukkos] he brings and recites. From the Festival [Sukkos] and until Chanukah he brings, but does not recite. Rabbi Yehudah ben Basera says: he brings and recites.

From where in the Torah can one find an allusion to the hanging of Haman? He replied: The verse states after Adam ate from the tree of knowledge: “Have you eaten of [hamin] the tree..? (Genesis 3:11).

From where in the Torah can one find an allusion to the events involving Esther? "And I will hide [haster astir] My face on that day for all the evil which they shall have wrought...” (Deut. 31:18).

From where in the Torah can one find an allusion to the greatness bestowed upon Mordecai? He replied: As it is written with regard to the anointing oil in the Tabernacle: “And you shall also take the chief spices, of flowing myrrh [mor deror]” (Exodus 30:23); and we translate mor deror into Aramaic as: Mira dakhya, which resembles the name Mordecai.

(4) These are the set times of the LORD, the sacred occasions, which you shall celebrate each at its appointed time: (5) In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month, at twilight, there shall be a passover offering to the LORD, (6) and on the fifteenth day of that month the LORD’s Feast of Unleavened Bread. You shall eat unleavened bread for seven days....

(39) Mark, on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when you have gathered in the yield of your land, you shall observe the festival of the LORD [to last] seven days: a complete rest on the first day, and a complete rest on the eighth day....

(44) So Moses declared to the B'nei Yisroel e set times of the LORD.

(1) The LORD spoke to Moses, saying: (2) Command B'nei Yisroel to bring you clear oil of beaten olives for lighting, for kindling lamps regularly. (3) Aaron shall set them up in the Tent of Meeting outside the curtains [to burn] from evening to morning before the LORD regularly; it is a law for all time throughout the ages. (4) He shall set up the lamps on the pure menorah before the LORD [to burn] regularly.

Why is it said (Leviticus 24:2) "and you should take for yourself refined olive oil" in the (Torah) section of holidays? In order to teach that in the future there will be a new Yom Tov for them involving oil. And what is that? Chanukah.

As it is written: “For the conductor, about the morning hind” (Psalms 22:1); just as the antlers of a hind branch out to here and to there, so too, the light of dawn diffuses to here and to there. In tractate Megilla, the Gemara states that Queen Esther prophetically recited this Psalm in reference to her situation as she was about to come before King Ahasuerus without being summoned.... Rabbi Asi said: Why was Esther likened to the dawn? It is to tell you: Just as the dawn is the conclusion of the entire night, so too, Esther was the conclusion of all miracles performed for the entire Jewish people. The Gemara asks: But isn’t there the miracle of Hanukkah, which was many years later? We mean to say: Purim is the last miracle allowed to be written.

How great are your works Hashem. What is the depth of your thoughts? R. Chanina said on the 25th of Kislev the work was finished for the Mishkan. And he folded it up until the first of Nisan... The whole time it was folded, Yisroel murmured against Moshe, saying, why was it not set up immediately, perhaps some flaw happened (which pasulled it)? [No, Hashen wanted] to mix the simcha of the mishkan with the month that Yitzchak was born... So now, Kislev has lost out? That when the actual work was completed! ... Hashem said: I will repay him (Kislev). How did he pay him? The Chanukah (dedication) of the House of Chashmonai.

Rabbi Yoḥanan says: The Holy One, Blessed be He, made a covenant with the Jewish people only for the sake of the matters that were transmitted orally [be’al peh], as it is stated: “For on the basis of [al pi] these matters I have made a covenant with you and with Israel” (Exodus 34:27).

(Chanukah) In the days of Mattisyahu, the son of Yochanan the High Priest, the Hasmonean, and his sons, when the wicked kingdom of Greece rose up against Your people Israel to make them forget Your Torah and to stray from the laws of Your will