"The Battle Is The Lord's"

3 Tevet 5784

8th Candle of Hanukkah

The enduring question of the holiday of Hanukkah is: How did they do it? How did the few defeat the many? The short answer is..."they" didn't. HE did!

Al Hanisim Prayer

...when the wicked Hellenic government rose up against Your people Israel to make them forget Your Torah and violate the decrees of Your will...You, in Your abounding mercies, stood by them in the time of their distress. You waged their battles, defended their rights, and avenged the wrong done to them. You delivered the mighty into the hands of the weak, the many into the hands of the few, the impure into the hands of the pure, the wicked into the hands of the righteous, and the wanton sinners into the hands of those who occupy themselves with Your Torah. You made a great and holy name for Yourself in Your world, and effected a great deliverance and redemption for Your people Israel to this very day.

A testament to the continuing truth of the words of King David...

Shmuel Aleph 17:45-47

And David said to the Philistine, "You come to me with sword, spear and javelin, and I come to you with the Name of the Lord of Hosts, the God of the armies of Israel which you have taunted. 

This day, the Lord will deliver you into my hand, and I shall slay you, and take off your head, and I shall give the carcasses of the camp of the Philistines this day, to the fowl of the air and to the beasts of the earth, and all the earth shall know that Israel has a God.

And all this assembly shall know that not with sword and javelin does the Lord save, for the battle is the Lord's, and He will deliver you into our hand."

"For the battle is the Lord's," from that day to this, and forevermore.

Zot Chanukah

The "simple" explanation for this special name for the last day of Chanuka is the Torah reading from the end of Parshat Naso that emphatically announces ZOT CHANUKAT HA-MIZBEI'ACH (when the Torah is summing up the gifts of all the Tribal Leaders.

There is another, deeper meaning to the name. If you want to really know what Chanuka is all about, the answer is THIS, THE EIGHTH DAY OF CHANUKA - the fact that there are 8 days of Chanuka - ZOT CHANUKA, this is what Chanuka means. It means EIGHT. EIGHT is our answer to the Greek challenge. They said nature is perfect. They said it is a mutilation of the body to be circumcised. And they forbid us to fulfill that great mitzva of ours, under pain of death. EIGHT represents the step beyond TEVA, beyond nature. MILA on the 8th day represents our challenge to go beyond how we were created and take charge of the completion of our physical and spiritual form. The Mikdash began to function on its higher spiritual level on the EIGHTH day. The Greeks tried to take that away from us too. Torah was given to us on the day following seven sevens. It is an EIGHTH too. And the Greeks tried to take that from us also. With G-d's help, we prevailed over the Greeks and the triumph is celebrated with an 8 day holiday. This is Chanuka. ZOT CHANUKA.  (Courtesy of OU.org)