December 10, 2025|כ' כסלו ה' אלפים תשפ"ו Why Chanukah Is Harder Than It Looks By Rabbi Jonathan Muskat

When I ask children their favorite holiday, many immediately say “Chanukah.” And why not? Donuts, dreidels, gifts, family time – Chanukah feels light and joyful. Yet in many ways Chanukah is actually one of the most challenging holidays for the modern Jew. To understand why, we need to examine what makes the miracle of Chanukah unique.

In Parshat Va-Yeishev, Yosef is thrown into a pit, and the Gemara in Shabbat 22a teaches that the pit was filled with snakes and scorpions. Yosef was miraculously saved, and the Midrash (Bereishit Rabbah 100:8) states that when Yosef returned to the pit years later, he recited the berachah “she’asah li nes ba-makom hazeh,” thanking God for the miracle performed for him in that very place. The Meshech Chochmah asks: Why did Yosef, after burying his father, return to the pit specifically to recite this blessing? Yosef experienced far greater miracles in his life than merely surviving a pit of snakes and scorpions. He explains that only a miracle that defies the laws of nature warrants this blessing. Yosef’s rise to power was miraculous, but it unfolded through natural processes. His salvation from the pit did not.

This is the essential difference between Purim and Chanukah. Both holidays celebrate improbable military victories. But Purim contains no overt supernatural miracle. On Chanukah, after the miraculous military triumph, God granted an additional miracle that broke the boundaries of nature. Why was this necessary? Wasn’t regaining and rededicating the Mikdash enough?

Chanukah is the only holiday that celebrates our willingness to stand apart from the surrounding culture. Purim was a clear battle between good and evil. Chanukah was a battle of values – Hellenism versus Torah. Greek culture was dazzling, sophisticated, and alluring. Many Jews embraced it enthusiastically. Mattityahu and his followers could easily have been dismissed as archaic fundamentalists resisting progress. How do we know that clinging to Torah was the right choice? How do we know our values were not simply outdated?

For that, we needed a miracle that broke the laws of nature.
A miracle that said: Your worldview is true.

But Chanukah did more than validate our perspective. It taught us the single tool we would need to preserve Torah in a world of competing ideologies: passion.

The Sfat Emet notes that our celebration of the first night is not only for the miracle of oil lasting longer than it should have. It is also for what the Chashmonaim did at that moment. As soon as the war ended – exhausted, bruised, and battle-worn – they ran to the Mikdash with eagerness to light the Menorah. They acted with passion.

And not only that. They insisted on using pure oil even though, halachically, they could have relied on tumah hutrah b’tzibbur. The Shem MiShmuel explains that they refused to introduce even the slightest impurity into their renewed spiritual life. For them, it was not enough that God permits tumah. Chanukah was a clash of values, and they responded not with minimal compliance but with spiritual fire.

Perhaps this is why the mitzvah of ner Chanukah uniquely includes mehadrin and mehadrin min hamehadrin. The Rabbis encoded passion into the mitzvah itself. They taught that the only way to confront seductive outside ideologies – whether Hellenism then, or existentialism and postmodernism now –  is not with mere observance, but with a Judaism that is alive, vibrant, and overflowing with joy.

The Sfat Emet even rereads “ad she’tichleh regel min ha’shuk,” until the street empties, as “ad she’tichleh regilut,” until we eliminate rote observance, until we light up our spiritual routines with passion.

This message is not theoretical. Yosef Mendelovitch lived it. Mendelovitch was a well-known Jewish refusenik in the former Soviet Union who, in 1970, joined fifteen others in attempting to hijack a plane to Sweden. They were caught, and he was imprisoned in Siberia for eleven years. In 1981, he was released and immigrated to Israel.

While other prisoners lost themselves in atheism, Mendelovitch found God. What sustained him for those long years in Siberia was his unwavering commitment to Judaism. One story relates that during his first Chanukah in Siberia, he was determined to light Chanukah candles. He managed to find a match in the yard and pulled a few threads from his pants to use as a wick, but he could not find even the smallest amount of oil. So what did he do? On the first night of Chanukah, he used a stone to engrave a picture of a menorah on the wall of his cell, carving out a small indentation for the wick. He placed the improvised wick into the carving and lit it. The flame lasted only a few seconds, but the light lasted ten years. It was this passion for the mitzvah of ner Chanukah that gave him the strength to endure until he was freed and able to reach Israel. Passion carried him through the darkness.

Chanukah looks simple when our children are young – songs, spins, sweets. But as they grow older and encounter a culture that declares that nothing is absolute, that values are personal, that the past is irrelevant, Chanukah becomes far more challenging. The world around them preaches that meaning comes from within, not from memory. Judaism insists that meaning comes from zachor – from bringing the past into the present. That is why the Greeks sought “l’hashkicham Toratecha” – to make us forget.

Chanukah reminds us not merely to observe, but to remember passionately.

And so we must ask ourselves:
What excites us?
What fills our homes with energy?
What do we sing about?
What do we discuss at our Shabbat tables?
Where does our passion lie?

The miracle of the lights taught our ancestors – and teaches us still – that Torah endures not only through reason, logic, or military strength, but through love, joy, and an excitement for Jewish life. When we live with passion, Chanukah continues to shine, and we will never say goodbye to it.

May this Chanukah ignite in each of us a renewed enthusiasm for our Torah, our traditions, and our sacred mission in the world.