Vayeshev- Chanukah
One of the fascinating aspects of Chanukah is derived from an unusual facet of the laws of lighting the Menorah.
a) The Talmud informs us that to fulfil ones basic obligation one need only light one light each of the 8 nights of Chanukah. Thus a total of 8 candles over the course of the festival (excluding the shammes which is not part of the count and only serves the main candle)
b) The “next level up” known as the hiddur Mitzva (beautification of the Mitzva) is for each member of the household to light one candle each night.
c) The highest level known as “Mehadrin min Hamehadrin” (lit the beautification of the beautification) is to light one candle on the first night and add one candle each night until 8 candles on the final night. Thus a total of 36 candles excluding the Shammes. This is the view of the school of Hillel. The School of Shammai reverse the order so that we begin with 8 on the first and descend to 1 candle on the last.
The above is taken from Tractate Shabbat in the Talmud.
Whilst this talmudic passage serves as the source for different levels of observances it is fascinating to observe that the Jewish people (across all sections) have universally adopt the highest level of observance. We also universally rule like the school of Hillel.
The Talmud explains the point of debate between Beis Hillel and Beis Shammai.
One view is that the debate is rooted in a wider debate on whether we focus on the actual or potential.
“the reason of Beit Shammai is that it shall correspond to the days still to come, and that of Beit Hillel is that it shall correspond to the days that are gone”
Beis Hillel teach that the actual takes precedence. Thus on each night of Chanukah we celebrate the day of the festival. For example on the second night there have only been in actuality 2 days of Chanukah and so we light 2 candles.
Beis Shammai see things from a completely different perspective. For Beis Shammai the potential takes precedence so that on the first night of Chanukah there are 8 days left and then 7 and so forth.
See here https://www.
Another view in the Talmud explains the point of dispute between Beis Shammai and Hillel as follows
Beis Shammai see the lights of chanukah as corresponding to the bulls offered in the Temple ever Sukkot. Every Sukkot 70 bulls were offered corresponding to the 70 archetypal nations of the world (today this number has expanded to 195 but the torah sees all nations as rooted in 70 hence the metaphor of 70 wolves and the lamb being the Jewish nation. thes bulls were offered as in descending order as follows: Day 1 Sukkot 13 bulls then Day 2 12 going down until 7 on the 7th day of Sukkot (with one bull on Shmini Atzeret representing the Jewish people) Beis Shammai models the rabbinic festival of Chanukah commemorating our spiritual victory over the Syrian-Greeks, to Sukkot. Possibly the reason is to teach us that whilst we are in exile and governed by other nations we must one the one hand maintain our unique identity but at the same time we must seek blessings for the nations. Chanukah marked the last miracle prior to the destruction of the Second Temple and our descent into the long and dark exile we are currently in. This is why Beis Shammai ruled to light the candles 8 down to 1.
In contrast Beis Hillel ruled to light the candles in ascending order. Whilst he understood the Sukkot model he choose instead the ascending order based on a more important overriding principal
“We go up in holiness and not down”
We are currently in a spiritual exile that is characterised by double darkness. In other words not only are we in the spiritual dark lacking the revealed presence of Hashem. In addition to this many of us are unaware that this is so.
The Chanukah miracle of the oil represents the idea that no matter how deep we are in exile Hashem’s presence symbolised by light is with us. We just have to discover it.
There is no coincidence that the Jewish people universally adopted the most “beautiful of beautiful” approaches to the mitzva so that we can best publicise the miracle and Hashem’s presence.
The 36 candles of Chanukah correspond to the 36 tractates of the Talmud which our repository of the Oral tradition whose development began around the time of Chanukah!
The Torah is compared to light because through it we are able to touch the light of Hashem
This is why the custom of Chanukah gelt developed tin 17th century Poland where children were given money to distribute to their teachers to teach them Torah. And of cours ethe dreidle is a commemoration of children defying the decree of the Greeks against torah study.
It is never too late to study Torah and become enriched mind heart and soul.
Here are a few great websites we can learn Torah from on all levels
https://rabbisacks.org/ www.chabad.org https://www.yutorah.org/
and you can also look at hundreds of original Jewish texts some with translation with this incredible tool used by scholar and layman alike https://www.sefaria.org/texts