By Mindy Rubenstein, Times Correspondent
Friday, November 26, 2010
It's once again time to remember the miracle of Hanukkah, which this year begins Wednesday at sundown. Since Jewish holidays go according to the Hebrew, or lunar, calendar, the dates vary from year to year.
This year it falls exceptionally early, so the olive crop isn't fully ripe yet, Rabbi Shalom Adler noted last weekend during his olive press presentation at Young Israel-Chabad of Pinellas. He worked hard grinding the wood barrel full of big, black olives, which resulted in a small vial of olive oil.
Pure olive oil was used to kindle the light in the Holy Temple in Jerusalem. After the Greeks persecuted the Jews and tried to eliminate all their spiritual practices more than 2,000 years ago, they destroyed the Temple, along with the precious olive oil. One vial of oil was recovered, which would have been enough to burn for only one day. But miraculously, the infamous little bit of oil lasted for eight days, long enough to gather olives and make more.
"They wanted to do away with the Torah (Bible), what God commanded," said Rabbi Yossi Eber with Chabad Jewish Center of West Pasco.
"They had a problem with the fact that it was God's Torah, that there was stuff in there they didn't understand," he said.
A small group of rogue Jews took on the huge Greek army and triumphed. It is the miracle of the few over the many, as well as the oil lasting for eight days, that we continue to celebrate thousands of years later.
The eight-day festival celebrates the triumph of spirituality over materialism, and light over darkness.
"The battle that we won was about that. When you think of Judaism you should think of Godliness," Eber said. "When Joseph was in Egypt, it's said that God was always on his mind and on his lips."
The story, for some, may seem stale or antiquated. But it's as important now as ever.
"Our mission is to bring Godliness to the world. When you hear the word Jew, you're supposed to think of God. We are his representatives here on earth," Eber said.
When someone asks "How are you?" for example, answer by saying, "Thank God, I'm well." It may seem strange, especially at first, but that's one simple way of bringing God's awareness to people, he said. It's something I've tried to do in my own life the past couple of years, and I admit sometimes I have trouble getting the words out. But when I do, it feels like a small triumph.
"To some people, God is like a dirty word," he said. But on the other hand, there has been a movement of people becoming more religious. "Never in history has there been such a revival of people to go back to their roots," he said.
This year, as I gather with my family to light our oil-filled menorah, I'll think of the victories of my ancestors, as well as my fellow Jews who are now rekindling their own faith. What better time to start than on Hanukkah?
"The world is not an accident. It's about bringing the knowledge that God is running the world, that it's not a free-for-all," Eber said. "Everything is divine providence. That is the message of Hanukkah."