[Avodah] FW: RE: Chanukah--miracle of the oil vs. miracle of the oil

[Zvi Lampel]

(Something went wrong with the posting of my submission last time. Instead of my remarks, it reprinted RMF's post, to which I was responding. Let's try again:) 

Sun, 31 Dec 2006 from: "Moshe Feldman" moshe.feldman at gmail.com wrote:

...see David Berger's article at
http://hirhurim.blogspot.com/2006/11/human-initiative-and-divine-providence.html 

Rabbi Berger wrote, to answer why the miracle of oil is not mentioned in Books of the Maccabees I or II:
"1. ...Given the author's consistent historiographic approach, we can be almost certain that he would not have recorded this miracle even if he knew about it.
2. ...  II Maccabees is an abridgment of a five-part work by Jason of Cyrene which has been lost.... To Jason--or to the man who abridged his work--it may have seemed trivial..."
Rabbi Avigdor Miller suggests another solution: These works were composed after the Hashmoneans became Saducees, and they therefore omitted any mention of the miracle upon which "those rabbis" has based (one year after the event) yet another post-biblical takkana.

(I don't recall, and can't look it up right now, but do the Books of Maccabess even mention a kevia l'doros of the Chanuka celebration? If not, it would be introducing another curiousity and strengthening this answer.)
I was still troubled by the lack of the miracle's mention in Al HaNissim, and appreciate Rabbi Berger's explanation that...
"The absence of a reference in Al ha-Nissim, which is a thanksgiving prayer, need not trouble anyone. The miracle of victory requires thanksgiving; the miracle of the oil does not, and it is appropriately omitted."

Zvi Lampel
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