The arrival of Kislev always draws my attention to the story that sits at its end, the story of Chanukah. Though most of us grew up with a single version of that story, the truth is far more layered. Chanukah does not appear in the Tanakh; its earliest accounts come instead from Maccabees I and II, preserved in the Christian Old Testament. These texts chronicle a moment when a Jewish community demanded the right to practise Judaism authentically, not as prescribed by foreign powers, but as shaped by their own covenant, conscience, and communal life.
At its core, the historical story of Chanukah is one of principled military triumph. The Maccabean revolt tells of a people determined to defend their religious integrity and national autonomy. The festival’s eight-day length is most likely rooted in a delayed observance of Sukkot, the great pilgrimage festival they had missed while fighting for Jerusalem. In 2 Maccabees 10:5–7, the text describes how, after purifying the Temple, they celebrated for eight days “with gladness, like the Feast of Tabernacles [Sukkot],” carrying palm branches and offering hymns of praise. Many contemporary scholars, including Rabbi Paul Steinberg, point to this passage as evidence that the first Chanukah functioned as a belated Sukkot and that its eight days parallel the eight days of Sukkot and Shemini Atzeret.
Generations later, after the destruction of the Second Temple and the dispersion of Jewish communities throughout the ancient world, the rabbis of the Talmud struggled with this militaristic narrative. A holiday centred solely on Jewish nationalism and military victory felt both theologically incomplete and practically dangerous in a world where Jews had no sovereignty and no armies. For the rabbis, Jewish power could never be the whole story. They therefore reframed the festival, introducing the story of the miracle of the oil. This was not a replacement for the historical account, but a way of rebalancing it. Their telling ensured that divine presence and spiritual resilience remained at the heart of Jewish observance.
Two stories: one factual, one from the rabbinic imagination. Two truths: one about courage, one about conscience. Both essential.
This year, as Kislev begins, I have found myself returning to these dual narratives with new urgency. In some corners of Jewish life, people speak about the modern State of Israel as the “Third Commonwealth,” the third era of Jewish sovereignty in our ancestral homeland. For some, this language is loaded or triumphalist; for others, it does not resonate at all. I use it differently, not as a political claim, but as a theological reflection. Whether or not we choose that phrase, we are living in a period where Jewish self-governance is once again a lived reality. With that reality comes immense moral responsibility. Jewish sovereignty is not simply about survival; it is about how we hold power, how we protect life, and how we honour the values at the core of our tradition.
Like the rabbis who reshaped Chanukah, I feel the complexity of celebrating Jewish strength while acknowledging the profound human cost of conflict. I understand why the rabbis could not allow Chanukah to remain a simple celebration of military victory. They needed a counterweight that called the community back to humility, purpose, and holiness, a narrative that insisted that Jewish power must always be balanced by Jewish ethics. That tension feels deeply relevant today. Pride and pain, security and compassion, survival and responsibility sit side by side, and we are asked to navigate them with care.
The heart of Chanukah is the insistence that we need both stories to understand our past and both to safeguard our future. We need the historical story of the Maccabees, which affirms Jewish courage, resilience, and the right, sometimes the necessity, to defend ourselves. And we need the rabbinic story of the oil, which reminds us that power without principle is hollow, and that our tradition calls us to see the divine in every human being. One story calls us to protect our people. The other calls us to protect our values. Chanukah demands that we hold both.
A festival built only on military victory would reduce Judaism to brute survival. A festival built only on divine miracles would detach Judaism from the realities we live with. But a festival that recognises the divine light within us and between us can shape a Judaism worthy of its past and essential for its future.
So, as we prepare to clean our Chanukkiyot and count our candles, may we remember that Chanukah is not just about illuminating our homes. It is about illuminating our tradition, rededicating ourselves to compassion, justice, humility, and courage. May this Kislev inspire us to honour both stories. May it challenge us to hold sovereignty with integrity and conscience. And may it guide us toward being, in the truest sense, an or l’goyim, a light to the nations.