ad searched the temple very carefully to render impure all the oil, and finding even one container was itself a miracle.
This, then, raises a question; why did God need to violate the laws of nature to make the oil burn for eight days, when He could have made a "simpler" miracle that the Jews would find eight containers? We know that, in truth, there is no distinction between "nature" and the miraculous; that both are entirely the expression of God's Will. However, in general, God desires that the world follow the natural laws that He established; that, of course, is why He established them. Whenever we find a miracle that violates the laws of nature, this indicates that God wishes to send us a special message that required the violation of His natural laws. What was God's message to us through the miracle of the oil?
All of our sources about the period, historical and traditional, tell us that the Jews of this period had been deeply affected by Greek thought. (The Jews were not unique in this regard.) The influence of Hellenism was not limited only to the outright Hellenizers, who had betrayed their people and had taken a major role in the oppression of their fellow Jews, but was pervasive throughout the culture in various degrees. One of the principles of Greek philosophy, as espoused by Aristotle, is that God does not take an active part in the affairs of the world. This idea had crept into the thoughts of many otherwise loyal Jews. Thus, even after the miraculous war that had just been fought, there were Jews who were unsure if the victories were really the result of Divine intervention, or simply the result of the brilliant strategies and tactics used by the Jewish leaders. The doubts of these Jews were put to rest by the miracle of the oil. Here was an undeniable miracle; one that broke the laws of nature! Obviously, God does intervene in this world, and clearly His hand was behind the entire Jewish victory.
The miracle of the oil had no great historical impact, in of itself. It won no battles, saved no lives, and only those who were directly involved in the temple service would have even been aware that it was happening. Nevertheless, the miracle of the oil was absolutely vital as a justification for the establishment of Chanukah as a Jewish holiday. If there had been only the miracle of the victory of the Jews over the Greeks, there was a risk that Chanukah would have been viewed as nothing more than a patriotic holiday—a sort of Jewish Fourth of July. It might deteriorate to nothing more than a celebration of Jewish military might and patriotism. However, with the miracle of the oil it became clear that Chanukah was not a celebration of military strength but of Divine salvation.
When we light the menorah to fulfill the requirement of pirsumei nisah—to spread knowledge of the miracle, we perform an act commemorating the miracle of the oil, a miracle which cannot be explained away as simply brilliant military leadership, or lucky coincidence.
|R' Samson Raphael Hirsch|
The very steadiness, the regularity, of the phenomena of nature is a much clearer, more wonderful manifestation of Divine wisdom and omnipotence than the suspension of these natural laws when God’s miracles were executed. In fact, the purpose of these special acts of God, which interrupted the regular order of nature, was to point to Him as the Lawgiver of these natural laws, lest the thought of Him as Regulator, Master and Lord of the world order be lost through the steady regularity of the natural phenomena. (Hirsch Siddur p. 23)
There are many lessons we learn from Chanukah. We learn that we must be willing to risk our lives for the observance of the God's commandments, we learn of the primary importance of Torah study, and we learn not to judge right and wrong from the standards of numbers and strength. However, perhaps the most basic lesson of Chanukah is to recognize that God's guiding hand is behind all events, even when His presence is not evident; that every aspect of life and history is a miracle.