[Avodah] pach hashemen

[Micha Berger]

On Mon, Dec 29, 2008 at 02:04:06PM -0500, T613K at aol.com wrote:
: All those miracles were in the Bayis Rishon. There were no open miracles in
: the Bayis Sheni -- with the single exception of the pach hashemen. This
: miracle was therefore seen as a throwback to earlier times and a brief sign of
: Hashem's favor, a momentary ray of sunshine in the darkening gloom.

I would have argued the exact reverse. How many people saw how much
oil burned for 8 days? Only kohanim who were ready to serve and in the
Heichal could have seen them fill it.

This is very far from the national nature of the events commemorated by
the regalim or Purim.

I would propose that this is why CHanukah isn't founded upon the miracle
of the oil. There is no mention of that miracle until the gemara, until
we lost the things the Rambam tells us Chanukah gave us -- freedom from
oppression, opportunity to freely serve Hashem, and autonomy.

"Mai Chanukah?" wasn't a basic question "What is Chanukah?" When do we
ever see such alef-beis level questions in the gemara? Rather, I would
argue it was "Now that we lost everything and back in galus, what is
Chanukah *to us*?"

To provide a ledoros meaning to the already codified holiday, Chazal
turned to the neis shemen. After all, that's the aspect of the story
that was actually codified.

I believe that moots the Beis Yoseif's question. It means that we have
8 days of Chanukah to mark the pseudo-Sukkos they held at the Chanukas
habayis. The length of that duration was set by the time it took to
make the oil and the length of Sukkos - Shemini Atzeres. But having to
map the length to the length of the neis was only a problem after the
recasting of the holiday in "Mai Chanukah".

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Weeds are flowers too
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