How many light are kindled during Chanukah?
Ask the rabbi.
HOW MANY LIGHTS ARE KINDLED DURING CHANUKAH?
Rabbi Raymond Apple
Apart from the shammash, 36 lights are kindled during Chanukah.
The number 36 is well-known in Jewish life. It is twice “chai”, and the number of hidden tzaddikim in every generation.
According to the Midrash, 36 hours is the time that Adam was able to enjoy the light created on the first day – 12 hours on the day he was created (Friday), 12 on his first evening, and 12 on the first Shabbat until he was expelled from Gan Eden.
The sin dimmed the primal light and nothing was ever so bright thereafter. Not until the righteous reach “olam ha-ba” will they enjoy the full light of creation.
In a sense Chanukah symbolises the two types of light – the lesser light of our earthly existence and the brighter light of the future.
Earthly history, when the philosophies of the time have challenged the purity of Jewish ideals, has often worked against the Divine light and reduced its brightness.
Just as the assimilatory hellenistic ideology made inroads into Jewish belief and ethics, so did many later philosophies attempt to draw Jews into compromising their Jewish identity.
Often they thought that becoming more like the outside world would bring them social acceptability, but it did not curb antisemitism and there were still things the world did not like about Jews. (Jews were too capitalistic or too communistic, too self-confident or too parasitical).
Fortunately, most Jews decided that Judaism was worth preserving, and the yearning for the primal flame was never quenched.
CHANUKAH – THE POSTPONED SUKKOT?
There is more to Chanukah than meets the eye.
Everyone knows about Judah Maccabee and the jar of oil. But the more you look at the details of the story, the more they remind you of another festival – Sukkot.
Indeed, it may be that since enemy persecution prevented the keeping of Sukkot during the Antiochus episode, Chanukah was in some ways a kind of postponed Sukkot.
Here are some of the links between the two festivals:
• Some sources say that the Maccabees celebrated the cleansing of the Temple with palm branches – a clear connection with Sukkot.
• Sukkot was marked by kindling lights for the Simchat Bet HaSho’evah, the festival of the water-drawing, and Chanukah is the festival of lights.
• On Sukkot a series of bulls was offered in the Temple in descending order (13, then 12, then 11 and so on): there is a view that the Chanukah lights should be kindled in descending order, though this is not the view that is followed.
• The first and last days of Sukkot are yom-tov; histories of Jewish customs record that in some places it was customary to refrain from work on the first and eighth days of Chanukah.
Rabbi Raymond Apple served for 32 years as the chief minister of the Great Synagogue, Sydney, Australia’s oldest and most prestigious congregation. He is now retired and lives in Jerusalem where he answers interesting questions.
