Chanukah commemorates a successful defense against a grave threat to our religion and everything for which it stands, namely a combination of devotion to God and respect for humanity. Rabbi Akiva, who experienced, perhaps, the most virulent outbreak of anti-Semitism before the Holocaust, taught that the greatest principle in Torah is: Love your fellow like yourself (Vayikra 19:18). 

The attacks on Judaism all over the world must be seen as an attack on more than just us: It is an affront to our humanity. Can we learn anything from the Chanukah experience to guide us in our present predicament?

What was the Chanukah experience? There are two versions of the Chanukah story which inform our celebration: The Talmud in Shabbat (21a) and the prayer AL HaNISSIM. The Talmud discusses the miracle of the oil, and barely mentions the fact that there was a war. The prayer, on the other hand, is all about the war and has only an oblique reference to the oil miracle (‘they lit NEOROT in the Holy Precincts’). This year, perhaps, because of the headlines, I’m more interested in the prayer.

The concept of reciting a prayer for Chanukah is mentioned in the Tosefta (additions to the Mishne, Brachot 3:14), and there’s a short version of the prayer in Masechet Soferim: 

In the benediction for Thanksgiving (MODIM) we include [on Chanukah] ‘and thanks for the wonders and salvation of Thy priests which Thou hast wrought in the days of Mattathias, son of........

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