Which נס are we celebrating? The everlasting oil or the victorious war? The גמרא in Shabbos sounds like we are celebrating the oil. Yet, in על הניסים we only hear about the victory. A second question, we generally celebrate miracles that save us from trouble or destruction, why are we commemorating the miraculous oil if it only allowed us to do a mitzva and didn’t save us in any way? We know that מצות לאו ליהנות ניתנו, we aren’t meant to get personal pleasure from the מצוות, so why is something that should become a national holiday for generations?
The מהר”ל answers that Chanukah is about celebrating victory over the Greeks, that’s all. There happened to be two separate victories, and we mention them both at different times. We understand what the victory of the war was, but he says that the oil was also a victory, since what the Greeks were looking to destroy was the spiritual connection that we each have to the Source. They were fine with the Torah being a book on the library shelf, what they hated was that it is a God given document that infuses us with eternity. And therefore, when we enter the בית המקדש after the war, we faced a problem. There is a mitzva to light the menorah, we would be able to do that once, but travel constraints would have it that we wouldn’t have new oil for another 7 days. Sure, we could light with impure oil, but doing the mitzva in it’s pure form is what connects us to Hashem, and that is what we were fighting for! We were protecting our identity as the eternal nation, as the ones in the physical world who have spiritual roots, and the pure oil lasting till we got new oil allowed us to do that one mitzva in it’s pure form and remain connected to our Source, and that is the second victory that we celebrate against the Greeks.
He goes on to explain that it is no coincidence that this miraculous mitzva was done in the בית המקדש. We know that this is the place where we connect to Hashem, this is where we bring קרבנות, where we meet our Father 3 times a year. This is the perfect place for our connection to be miraculously saved. However, the Greeks also had a specific power to infiltrate and contaminate the היכל of the בית המקדש. The numerical value of היכל is 65 and the value of יון is 66, so they have one step up from the היכל which is why they were successful in capturing it. The best way I heard gematria explained is as a scientific language. You can say water which is the conventional name or H2O which is the scientific name, and H2O has a fundamental meaning specific to water. If you know how to read the periodic table and you hear someone talking about H2O and NaCl you would automatically be able to figure out which is heavier, which has less electrons, or which is more likely to attach to other molecules. Similarly, the numerical value assigned to each Hebrew letter has a fundamentally significant relation to that letter and therefore when היכל equals 65 and יון equals 66, in some way יון is more powerful than the היכל.
How then were we able to purify and rededicate it if the Greeks power was fundamentally greater? We found oil with the seal of the כהן גדול. The כהן גדול is the person who can move beyond the היכל and enter the קדש קדשים, those 10 אמות that didn’t really exist in space. It is those 10 אמות that the Greeks couldn’t touch, and that is where the Torah is housed, about which it’s said, כי נר מצוה ותורה אור. That is where true light comes from and through that energy we found the oil which gave us light that broke the rules of time.
When speaking about the כהן גדול entering the קדש קדשים, the Pasuk says בזאת יבוא אהרן אל הקדש. On the surface when the Pasuk says זאת it is referring to the two קרבנות that he brings on יום כיפור day, but the מדרש reads זאת as a code word to refer to ברית מילה, since Hashem told Avraham זאת בריתי אשר תשמורו. That power to take an imperfect body and bring it to physical perfection to connect to our Creator is the power with which the כהן גדול can connect to Hashem on יום כיפור. On the 8th day from birth we take our children from being physical human beings to be part of the Godly family that is the Jewish nation. On the day after the natural seven-day week we embark on the journey of the supernatural that Avraham our grandfather set out on so many years ago. That 8th day we have once in a lifetime, but we also have a recurring 8th day that comes every year where we can find the sae ability to live beyond the natural world. Where we can find the supernatural oil, and that day is today.
We know that is says ועשו לי מקדש ושכנתי בתוכם, that we each have a בית המקדש inside of our heart. We’ve all felt defiled by the Greeks, like the evil inside of us has a fundamental strength over the true “us”. But we need to know that we also have a קדש קדשים buried deep within, a small space that doesn’t take up space since it comes from outside this world. And we can tap into that energy to feel the power of the miracles that we are capable of.
Today, the 8th day of Chanukah we again have that power of the supernatural, the power of the קדש קדשים and the power to connect to Hashem even after the Greeks have defiled the בית המקדש. May we all be zoche to feel zos Chanukah and live closer to Hashem.