Friday, December 14, 2012

How did people light their Hanukkah candles BEFORE Shamai and Hillel?

Last night, I used Twitter to crowd source a question:

How did people light their Hanukkah candles BEFORE Shamai and Hillel?

The issue, of course, is that Hillel and Shamai famously disagree about the proper way to kindle Hanukkah lights.

Hillel says start with one candle and add one each night, reasoning that "In matters of holiness we add, rather than subtract." Shamai calls for the opposite procedure: Start with eight candles, he says, and take one away each night. His reason is that Hanukka candles are like Sukkos bulls. Just as we sacrifice one fewer bull on  each day of Sukkoth, we should light one fewer candles on each day of Hannukah

But about 130 years passed between the first Hanukkah and the days of Hillel and Shamai. How did people light their Hanukkah candles in the interim?

My friend, "The Jewish Genius" says that before Hillel and Shamai no one lit Hanukkah candles - at least not as a formal, religious imperative. Instead they celebrated different aspects of the holiday with different rituals. To back up this claim, JG points out that candles are not mentioned in Al Hanisim or in the letters the Maccabees sent to establish the holiday, which are reproduced in 2 Maccabees. According to both Al Hanisim and the Maccabee letters, Hanukkah is about dedicating the Temple, driving off usurpers, and reclaiming national prerogatives. It had nothing to do with candles or an oil miracle. Al Hanisim and the letters tell us that Hanukkah was first celebrated as a national day of independence, likely with feasting, sacrifices and Hallel, but perhaps with speeches and festivals or rallies, as well.

By the first century, however, the political landscape had changed, and the holiday had to change with it. Rome was on the scene, and it was no longer safe or wise to talk publicly about Jewish national prerogatives. The Jews could no longer rally in the street to celebrate the miracle of their deliverance from Greek persecution. The Romans might take that personally. But Hillel and Shamai were unwilling to let the holiday, and the miracle it represented, disappear from Jewish memory. So they did something modern Jews might find shocking.

In the ancient world, Saturnalia was the great holiday, and it was celebrated "with the abundant presence of candlesIts thought that the candle lighting ritual began as a primitive attempt to coax back the sun, but by late antiquity the candles were already being interpreted as symbolic of the quest for truth and knowledge. First century Jews knew about Satunalia, and many probably lit Saturnalia candles. JG thinks Shamai and Hillel took that ritual and converted it into a Jewish practice, and he thinks that they did this to give Jews a new, safe way to celebrate Hanukka.

But once they instituted the new tradition, they disagreed about the correct way to practice it. Remembering Hanukka's birth as a delayed Sukkos, Shamai wanted the candles lit in descending order. Hilell on the other hand saw no profit in preserving the memory of the connection between Hanukka and Sukkos, so he instead recommended following the ordinary rule about matters of holiness.

The point, though, is that Hillel and Shamai were able to have this argument because prior to their discussions there was no official Hanukkah candle lighting ritual. If Jews lit candles before Shamai and Hillel they did it in the same optional and unofficial way that Israeli Jews grill on Yom Haatzmaut. As the ones who established candle lighting as a formal religious imperative, Hillel and Shamai were also able to argue about the correct way to perform it.

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