Chanukkah: The Eighth Day (Part 2)

Written to be read at the end of the eighth day of Chanukkah 2020 / 5781 [18th of December / 3 Tevet] (and onwards)

Today was the eighth day of Chanukkah concluding the Jewish Festival of Light; for the eighth day of Chanukkah the eighth light on the Chanukkiah was lit to mark the full festival. Another evening, another morning: the Eighth Day of Light.

If you were to ask anyone, no matter their culture or tradition, they would almost always agree that there’s a sum total of seven days in the week. Although there may be discrepancy over the exact order of the days in the week (viz. where the week ends and where it begins), there is a common ground in, and understanding of, seven days to mark the full week.

So for the Festival of Light we might wonder why eight days instead of an even seven to mark the fullness of the festival? Why not mark the full-week of the festival similar to the seven days of Saturnalia? What’s the difference between the two (more or less) week-long festivals?

On the one hand, Saturnalia is the seven-day Roman pagan festival celebrating the turn of the winter solstice. Every year this festival begins on December 17th and culminates by December 24th of the Gregorian Calendar and the echoes of this ancient festival can be felt in the modern day festivities surrounding Christmas Day. Saturnalia originally involved feasts, gift-giving, game-playing and merry-making and we can witness these same festivities in the dinners & drinks, presents, family-friendly games, music and other indulgences on and around Christmas Day.

Chanukkah, on the other hand, is the eight-day Jewish festival distinguished by the significance of this eighth day despite similarities shared with the seven-day Saturnalia. For example, its celebration taking place in the midst of the winter season (25 Kislev – 3 Tevet on the Jewish Calendar) with similar festivities of feasting, gift-giving, and game-playing. However, it should be stressed that the eighth day of the Jewish festival is not an arbitrary, random or redundant add-on to the pagan festival, but sets it apart from the festival of Saturnalia with meaning, intention, purpose.

Firstly, for each day of the festival of Chanukkah a corresponding light is lit on a menorah with one bole and eight branches (the Chanukkiah); from the light of the central bole the side branches are lit accordingly. This act is to remember the miracle of the oil that occurred with the recapture of Jerusalem in 164 BCE in the midst of the Maccabean Revolt from 167 – 160 BCE. This miracle permitted an eight day supply of oil to keep the Temple’s menorah, the Ner Tamid (the Eternal Lamp), burning in the Temple from one day’s supply of holy olive oil. In short, what would naturally provide only one day’s worth of light supernaturally supplied for eight days.

“The rabbis taught: “On the twenty-fifth day of Kislev ‘Hanukah commences and lasts eight days, on which lamenting (in commemoration of the dead) and fasting are prohibited. When the Hellenists entered the sanctuary, they defiled all the oil that was found there. When the government of the House of Asmoneans [the Maccabees] prevailed and conquered them, oil was sought (to feed the holy lamp in the sanctuary) and only one vial was found with the seal of the high priest intact. The vial contained sufficient oil for one day only, but a miracle occurred, and it fed the holy lamp eight days in succession. These eight days were the following year established as days of good cheer, on which psalms of praise and acknowledgment (of God’s wonders) were to be recited.”

(Chapter II, ‘Regulations Concerning the Sabbath and ‘Hanukah Light’, Babylonian Talmud, p. 35)

Originally, the Ner Tamid (Eternal Lamp) was a seven branched candelabra commanded to be burned continually in the Temple with pure and holy olive oil.

“And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying:
‘Speak to Aaron, and say to him, ‘When you arrange the lamps, the seven lamps shall give light in front of the lampstand.’
[…]
Now this workmanship of the lampstand was hammered work; from its shaft to its flowers, it was hammered work. According to the pattern which the LORD had shown Moses, so he made the lampstand.

Numbers 8: 1-4 (NKJV)

“Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying:
‘Command the children of Israel that they bring to you pure oil of pressed olives for the light, to make the lamps burn continually.
‘Outside the veil of the Testimony, in the tabernacle of meeting, Aaron shall be in charge of it from evening until morning before the LORD continually; it shall be a statute forever in your generations.
He shall be in charge of the lamps on the pure gold lampstand before the LORD continually. “

Leviticus 24:1-4 (NKJV)

However, from the occurrence of the miracle, the lamps used in Jewish faith practice appear to have evolved from one central bole and six side branches with florets of fire (seven in total) to one central bole and eight side branches with florets of fire (nine in total). Both the former and the latter lamps are different forms of menorah, where the latter alone is known as the Chanukkiah and is used for Chanukkah.

Secondly, this festival stems from an eight-day re-dedication of the Temple written in the Books of Maccabees in attempt to renew the original twelve-day dedication of the Tabernacle (House of God) written in the Book of Numbers. The original twelve-day dedication was undertaken by each of the leaders of the twelve tribes of Israel. Each leader represented each tribe when presenting their offering to God in the Tabernacle on each day of the dedication.

“Now it came to pass, when Moses had finished setting up the tabernacle, that he anointed it and consecrated it and all its furnishings, and the altar and all its utensils; so he anointed it and consecrated them.
Then the leaders of Israel, the heads of their fathers’ houses, who were the leaders of the tribes and over those who were numbered, made an offering.
[…]
Now the leaders offered the dedication offering for the altar when it was anointed;
[…]
For the LORD said to Moses, ‘They shall offer their offering, one leader each day, for dedication of the altar.’ “

Numbers 7:1-2, 10-11 (NKJV)

However, from the occurrence of the miracle in the midst of the Macabbean Revolt, the original twelve-day dedication of the Tabernacle with twelve leaders and a single anointing of Moses appears to have evolved and renewed itself from an eight-day re-dedication with eight lights and only one day’s supply of oil.

Thirdly, the eight-day winter festival of Chanukkah is supposed to echo the eight-day autumn/fall festival of Sukkot.

” ‘Speak to the children of Israel, saying: ‘The fifteenth day of this seventh month shall be the Feast of Tabernacles for seven days to the LORD.
On the first day *there shall be* a holy convocation. You shall do no customary work on it.
For seven days you shall offer an offering made by fire to the LORD. On the eighth day you shall have a holy convocation, and you shall offer an offering made by fire to the LORD. It is a sacred assembly, and you shall do no customary work on it.
[…]
Also on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when you have gathered in the fruit of the land, you shall keep the feast of the LORD for seven days; on the first day there shall be a sabbath-rest, and on the eighth day a sabbath-rest.
And you shall take for yourselves on the first day the fruit of beautiful trees, branches of palm trees, the boughs of leafy trees, and willows of the brook; and you shall rejoice before the LORD your God for seven days.”

Leviticus 23:33-6, 39-40 (NKJV)

Sukkot is similarly an eight-day festival, the Third Pilgrimage festival (Shalosh Regalim), remembering the 40-year Israelite pilgrimage in the wilderness after the Exodus from Egypt. On this eight-day festival the Jewish community remember this pilgrimage by re-enacting it on a much smaller scale where natives are instructed to live outdoors in tents for seven days.

” ‘You shall keep it as a feast to the LORD for seven days in the year. It shall be a statute forever in your generations. You shall celebrate it in the seventh month.
You shall dwell in booths for seven days. All who are native Israelites shall dwell in booths,
that your generations may know that I made the children of Israel dwell in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.’ “

Leviticus 23:41-43 (NKJV)

The re-enactment is supposed to be a taste of the Hebrew-Israelite journey to the Promised Land for the Jewish descendants during an eight-day period in autumn/fall. 

Rather than an exodus, the Jewish persecution and Maccabean Revolt between 167 – 160 BCE was an exile from the Promised Land and, as such, rendered the Jewish community unable to exercise their faith for years until the recapture of Jerusalem and re-dedication of the Temple.

“[Judas Maccabaeus and his followers]  rededicated the Temple on the twenty-fifth day of the month of Kislev, the same day of the same month on which the Temple had been desecrated by the Gentiles.”

2 Maccabees 10:5 (GNB)

After the re-dedication, the Jewish people were then able to resume their cycles of celebration such as the weekly Sabbath or the annual Sukkot. In this sense, the Jewish people were able to return from involuntary exile to resume the rituals and free worship of their forefathers’ voluntary exodus.

“The happy celebration lasted eight days, like the Festival of Shelters [Tabernacles], and the people remembered how only a short time before, they had spent the Festival of Shelters [Tabernacles], wandering like wild animals in the mountains and living in caves. But now, carrying green palm branches and sticks decorated with ivy, they paraded round, singing grateful praises to him who had brought about the purification of his own Temple.”

2 Maccabees 10:6-7 (GNB)

In this sense, the eight days of Chanukkah are more than man-made: they are embedded with the meaning of restoration, renewal and  return. In a word, the eight days of Chanukkah sets itself apart from the seven days of Saturnalia through its meaningful, intentional and purposeful revelation of hope.

“Might we not say that hope always implies the superlogical connection between a return (nostos) and something completely new (Kaïnon ti)? … whether preservation or restoration, on the one hand, and revolution or renewal on the other, are not the two movements, the two abstractly dissociated aspects of one and the same unity, which dwells in hope and is beyond the reach of all our faculties of reasoning or of conceptual formulation […] as before, but differently and better than before […] it is never a simple return to the status quo, a simple return to our being, it is that and much more, and even the contrary of that: an undreamed-of promotion, a transfiguration.”

(Gabriel Marcel, Homo Viator: A Metaphysic of Hope, p.67)

(TBC ∞)

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