Community Magazine December 2019

18 COMMUNITY MAGAZINE Hanukah is missing! No, it’s not missing from contemporary Jewish practice… In fact, it’s probably the most widely known and most widely celebrated Jewish holiday. But it’s missing from the first written halachic text – theMishnah. The Mishnah was compiled by Rabbi Yehuda Hanasi (“Judah the Prince”) around 150 years after the destruction of the second Bet Hamikdash . Until then, our halachic traditionwas transmitted orally, as was Gd’s intent when He gave us the Torah at Mount Sinai. We were given the text of the Torah, with an oral tradition of how the text is to be interpreted and practically implemented. This oral tradition is critical for a proper understanding of how to observe the Torah’s commands. However, over the course of the turbulent centuries of exile and persecution, many disagreements arose, and people’s capacity to retain material diminished. Rabbi Yehuda realized that unless the oral tradition was written down, it could easily be forgotten – and thiswould spell the end of Jewish practice, Heaven forbid. And so, he compiled all of halachah , including the disputes among the different sages, into a six-volume body of text, known as theMishnah. The Mishnah covers the entire gamut of Jewish practice – the agricultural laws that apply in the Land of Israel, the laws of prayers and blessings, the laws of Shabbat and the holidays, the laws of marriage and divorce, monetary laws, the laws of sacrifices in the Bet Hamikdash , and the laws of ritual purity. But there is one thing missing – Hanukah! Ironically, the holiday that is pretty much all that many people today know about Judaism, is conspicuously omitted from the first and most important text of Jewish practice. There is no discussion in the Mishnah about the laws of Hanukah. These laws are discussed in detail only later, in the Gemara, in Masechet Shabbat, tangentially as part of its discussion of the Shabbat candle lighting. How could this be? Why would Rabbi Yehuda Hanasi include the laws of all other Jewish holidays – including Purim, which, like Hanukah, was enacted by the rabbis, well after the giving of the Torah – but not the laws of Hanukah? Words of Rabbi Eli J. Mansour “…we should be celebrating Hanukah today, in our generation, with special joy and intensity, more so than in any age since the Hanukah miracle.” לעילוי נשמתם של משה בן עליזה, יצחק הלל בן עליזה, והנרייט לאה בת עליזה, דוד בן גילה, רבקה בת גילה, יהושע בן גילה, משה בן גילה, שרה בת גילה, יעקב בן גילה, ואליאנה בת גילה. ולרפואה שלמה ליוסף בן אהובה מסעודה, שילת אהובה בת עליזה, ודניאל בן עליזה. The Modern-Day Hanukah Miracle Why the Hanukah celebration assumes extra special significance in today’s day and age