[Avodah] Chanukah Min haTorah?

[Arie Folger]

RMB wrote:
> Bikkurim brought before Sukkos are brought with qeri'ah (saying
> "Arami oveid avi..."), those brought between Sukkos and Chanukah
> are brought without qeri'ah, and after that, anything designated
> bikkurim for that year couldn't be brought. (You just let it rot.) See
> Bikkurim 1:6.
>
> So, the date of 25 Kislev has halachic significance mideOraisa.

Related to your observation, and a source from which to find some
answers to your subsequent questions (snipped in this post), is that
the 25th of Kislev was not only the inauguration of the reconquered
BHMK, but the date of the beginning of the actual building of the 2nd
BHMK, many years earlier, as 'Haggai had addressed the builders, who
had spent some two months collecting supplies, on the 24th, about how
to build a lasting building. The date, as you implicitly note, was not
an accidental one, but rather the last date of bikkurim, which
coincides with the olive harvest it seems, so that that is the time
when fresh oil is produced.

Furthermore, as I Maccabees tells us, it was also on that date that
the BHMK had been desecrated, three years before Chanuka, which is
indicative of the likely fact that both Greeks and Jews considered
that date very special.

R' Yoel Bin Nun develops this is an article and in a recorded shiur
(on YCT, I believe), basing himself on an aggadeta, that since time
immemorial, there had been a universal winter solstice festival, which
he traces to Adam haRishon, which, however, took on a very different
significance in our society vs. pagan societies. That festival was
tied to bikkurim of olives, which will obviously find expression in
light, and becomes formalized in Chanukah. That also explained why the
books of Maccabees don't note the takanah of lighting candles, because
one way or another, they may have tied it to the preexisting festival,
and fail to note the special significance of increasing or decreasing
lights.

Bottom line, the 25th of Kislev is a special day deOraita, as you say,
and that is supported by 'Haggai's prophecy, as well as, lehavdil, by
I Maccabees.

Kol tuv,
-- 
Arie Folger,
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