Thanks and Praise: The Lights That Belong to All

1“And they kindled lights in Your holy courtyards, and they established these eight days of Chanukah to give thanks and praise to Your great Name.”¹ Why does Al HaNissim not say, “and they established them to kindle lights”? Why does it say instead, “and they established them to give thanks and praise”?

2We must also look closely at the basic enactment of the Chanukah lamp. Chazal taught: “The mitzvah of the Chanukah light is one light for a man and his household.”² That is, it is not a personal obligation placed on each individual. It is an obligation of the household: a light should burn in every house, and each man fulfills the mitzvah on behalf of everyone in his household. Only because of the law of the mehadrin, those who perform the mitzvah in a more beautiful way, is it our custom for each person to light for himself. The Pnei Yehoshua, a commentary on the Gemara, takes up this point, suggesting that perhaps the mitzvah of Chanukah is like the mitzvos that are an obligation of the household, and concluding, “and this still needs study.”³ There is indeed more to examine here. We find that even one who merely sees a Chanukah lamp must say a blessing, though he has no house.⁴ And the arrangement itself needs explaining: why did Chazal not make it a personal obligation, so that each person would have to fulfill the mitzvah of the Chanukah lamp himself, like the other mitzvos?

3We may say that the basic enactment of the Chanukah lamp was made to correspond to the lamps of the Beis HaMikdash, which the Kohen would kindle as the agent of all Klal Yisrael. Corresponding to this, Chazal enacted the Chanukah lamp as a mitzvah that one person fulfills on behalf of many. The heart of their enactment is only that people light and make the miracle known publicly, and this is achieved even with one light in each house. One man fulfills the mitzvah for his household, much as the one who lit the Menorah did so on behalf of all Israel. Now we understand why the onlooker must say a blessing: the main thing is to make the miracle known, and through the one who sees it, the miracle is made known. This also answers our first question: why do we say, “and they established these eight days of Chanukah to give thanks and praise,” without mentioning the enactment of lighting? The obligation placed on every individual is only to give thanks and to make the miracle known; no individual is obligated to light by himself.

4aThe miracles of Chanukah took place within the natural order. They were not like the splitting of the Red Sea, which departed entirely from the order of creation. The miracle of the oil came about through the lighting of physical oil, within nature; it simply burned longer than it should have. The miracle of the war came about through the sword of the Chashmona'im, the Hasmoneans. Yet precisely because the miracle took place within nature, the Holy One, blessed be He, showed His love for the people of Israel all the more. For in this way He proved that all of creation is bound to serve Israel's good.

4bA parable: a king built a great palace, brought his sons and his servants there, and filled it with every good thing in the world. Clearly, everything there exists only for his sons. The servants are there to serve his sons, and everything else is there only to help in serving them; all of it is bound to serve his sons' good. In the same way, this miracle revealed how dearly He loves Israel, His children: everything in the world stands only for Israel's good, in the spirit of Chazal's words “The whole world was created only to be a companion to this one.”⁵ If so, there is no need to change the bounds of the world, since the whole world stands only to serve His children.

5May Hashem, blessed be He, help us be privileged to see faith revealed and the light of the miracle shining, “in those days, at this time.”⁶ Amen, may it be His will.