November/December 2025 Clergy Column

I would like to share with you an explanation of the origins of Chanukah that you perhaps have not heard before. My text is a teaching by Rabbi Yehudah Aryeh Leib Alter, a Hasidic teacher in Poland in late 19th century Poland; he died in 1905. Our world today is very far from the pre-WWI, Hasidic world of Rabbi Yehudah. He, in turn, cites a teaching of Rabbi Eleazer of Worms, the leader of an obscure but influential Jewish movement in medieval Germany. Rabbi Eleazar was about as far in time, geography, and the world he inhabited from the late 2nd Temple Judaism of Judah the Maccabee as we are from the world of Rabbi Eleazar in medieval Ashkenaz in the 12th century.

At the beginning of the first chapter of Genesis, creation begins with two words: “Yehi or! Let there be light!” (Genesis 1:3). What an awesome beginning! However, it’s only later, on the fourth day, that the sun and the moon are created. What was the “light” created on the first day? It must be something other than the natural, physical wave-and-particle light by which we see. The rabbis claimed that was indeed a special, spiritual light; with it, one could see from one end of the cosmos to the other, through all time and space, “illuminating” even the darkness of night.

This illumination lit up Adam and Eve in the Garden. Humanity was only created on the sixth day and they blew it very quickly. Yet since they were not very worldly, God let them enjoy the Garden for one complete day… from Friday through the end of the first Shabbat.

In the rabbis’ telling, the primordial, sacred, transcendent light — the light which can be a source of illumination even in hours of darkness — burned brightly in the Garden all day on Friday for Adam and Eve, and all through their first dark night, giving them comfort in the presence of shadows and the vast unknown — illuminating their darkness — and again all through that first Shabbat day. How long had it shown for? Well, there were twelve daylight hours on Friday, twelve on Friday night and twelve hours of daylight on Shabbat day making a total of thirty-six hours of illumination. When darkness arrived Saturday night, Adam and Eve were evicted and the special light was hidden. 

So where is this light with the power to illuminate the darkness and help us see further than we can otherwise imagine? It was, the rabbis teach, hidden away to be revealed in the time to come. In the Psalms we read (and sing on Kol Nidre) “Or zarua la’tzadikkim… light is stored away for the righteous and the upright of heart” [Psalm 97:11]. 

Rabbi Eleazer of Worms, living in Germany in the 12th century, knew this story. He too wondered where the light had gone. Rabbi Eleazar was also a math nerd …so already as a child, he had added up the number of candles we light over the eight days of Chanukah. The box from the store contains forty-four but if you take away the eight shamash [helper] candles, you have… thirty-six.

And how long did the spiritual, primordial light shine for Adam and Eve in the Garden? Thirty-six hours. Not a coincidence, says Rabbi Eleazar. It is, in fact, that very first light that illuminated creation from-end-to-end that shines from our menorahs on Chanukah. 

Seven hundred years later, along came Rabbi Yehudah Alter. How can this be, he asks? Well, says Rabbi Yehudah, the generation of the Maccabees lived in a time of darkness, and the original light too was created in a time of darkness, as we read: “The earth was chaotic and empty and there was darkness (Genesis 1:2).” Yet, in the time of their darkness, the rebellious Maccabees kept faith, persevered, and struggled — and therefore they were worthy of this hidden light which in turn sustained them.

As we now move through our own dark days — as the days on nature’s calendar get shorter and shorter, and as we all move through a period of human darkness and tragedy… Our days too, says, Rabbi Yehudah, are also illuminated by that hidden light, by hope, and by faith; and we access this light, he teaches, by our chanukah, by our own dedication and our commitment. 

My teacher, Rabbi David Hartman of blessed memory, wrote that the wonder of Chanukah is not the supernatural event in which the oil which was only supposed to last for one day kept burning for eight. The true essence of Chanukah, he teaches, is that knowing that they only had enough oil for one day, they lit the menorah all the same: 

The Hanukkah lights encourage one to trust human beginnings and to focus one’s passions and efforts on whatever opportunities are available in the present moment. One ought to pour infinite yearnings even into small vessels. The strength to continue, and to persevere grows by virtue of the courage to initiate a process by lighting the first flame. Only lamps which are lit may continue to burn beyond their anticipated life span.

May our Chanukah celebrations, our lives, and our world be filled with light. Amen. 

Rabbi Yoel Kahn
rabbi_kahn@betham.org