While there are a number of historical sources for the events surrounding the Jewish rebellion against the Syrian Greek empire, there are only two sources that can be said to have any kind of canonical authority in Judaism. These sources are the Talmud and the Siddur (Jewish prayer book). The Talmud (Shabbos 21b) states:
מאי חנוכה? דתנו רבנן: בכ"ה בכסליו יומי דחנוכה תמניא אינון, דלא למספד בהון ודלא להתענות בהון. שכשנכנסו יוונים להיכל טמאו כל השמנים שבהיכל, וכשגברה מלכות בית חשמונאי ונצחום, בדקו ולא מצאו אלא פך אחד של שמן שהיה מונח בחותמו של כהן גדול, ולא היה בו אלא להדליק יום אחד, נעשה בו נס והדליקו ממנו שמונה ימים. לשנה אחרת קבעום ועשאום ימים טובים בהלל והודאה
What is [the miracle of] Chanukah? The Rabbis taught (in a braisa from Megilas Taanis): On the 25th of Kislev, there are eight days of Chanukah, in which we do not eulogize nor fast. For when the Greeks entered the Temple, they rendered all the oils in the Temple tamei, and when the kingdom of the house of Chasmonai (the Hasmoneans) became strong and was victorious over them, they searched and they found only one vessel of oil that had been placed with the seal of the kohein gadol and it only contained enough to light for one day. A miracle happened with it and they lit from it for eight days. The following year they established and made these days into festivals with Hallel and thanksgiving.
The Talmud seems to indicate that the holiday of Chanukah was established in memory of the miracle of the oil. And, as we all know, on Chanukah we light the menorah in memory of this miracle. However, if we look at our second source, the Al HaNisim prayer that is inserted into our prayers on Chanukah, we find something strange. The prayer reads:
[We thank You, God,] for the miracles, the redemptions, the mighty deeds, the salvations, the wondrous deeds, the consolations, and the wars which You performed for our fathers in those days, at this time.In the days of Mattisyahu, son of Yochanan Kohein Gadol, the Chashmonai, and his sons, when the evil Greek kingdom rose against Your nation Israel to make them forget Your Torah and to remove them from the laws of Your will. You, in Your abundant mercy, stood for them in their time of oppression, You fought their fight, You judged their case, and You avenged their revenge. You delivered the strong into the hands of the weak, the numerous into the hands of the few, the impure into the hands of the pure, the evil into the hands of the righteous, and the wicked into the hands of the students of Your Torah. You made a great and holy name for Yourself in Your world, and You did a great salvation and redemption for Your nation, Israel, as [clear as] this very day. After this Your children came to the Holy of Holies of Your House, and they cleaned Your Temple, purified Your Holy Place, and lit candles in the courtyards of our holiness. And they established these eight days to give thanks and praise to Your great Name.
In the entire prayer, the miracle of the oil is not mentioned. If the miracle of the oil was the primary miracle of Chanukah, which the Talmud seems to indicate, then why don't we mention it in our prayers?
To answer this question we need to first deal with another question, and that is, why was the miracle of the oil necessary at all? One of the famous questions asked about Chanukah is that if the reason we celebrate Chanukah for eight days is because the miracle of the oil lasted eight days, then really we should only celebrate seven days, as the first day was not a miracle since there was already enough oil for one day. There are many answers to this question. One of the answers that some authorities, such as the Meiri, suggest is that the very fact that they were able to find one container of pure oil in the first place was a miracle. The concept of ritual purity was deeply offensive to the Hellenistic mind, especially to those Jews who had abandoned Judaism in favor of Hellenism. It had been no accident that the Greeks had “rendered all the oils impure” (as stated in the poem, Maoz Tzur) but a deliberate act. The Greeks h