Chanukah: Answer To The Bais Yosef's Question - Because Eight Is Torah
If
the found one jug of oil which lasted 8 days wasn't the miracle only
for seven days? This is the famous Chanuka question of the Bais
Yosef. There are many answers given like, one day is celebration for
the victory, or for finding the jug itself.
Maybe we can offer
as follows. Rav Dovid of Kotzk the son of the Kotzker Rebbe says that
the Nes we celebrate on Chanuka is that we were saved from
"L'Hashkicham Torasecha", the enemy tried to make us forget the Torah.
To a great degree they were successful and aside for the small group of
Chashmonaim, who miraculously overcame a powerful enemy, most of the
nation was already lost to the trappings of the Greek ideology. On Chanuka, thanks to the mesiras nefesh for torah of the Macabim, our nation was to a great degree restored to its senses.
The Maharal
MiPrague says that Teva or nature is governed by the number seven.
Hashem created the natural world in seven days. Torah is one step
above that and is represented by the number eights, which is above
Teva. The world is simply a stepping stone to get to Torah. Hashem
made the world. It is our job to go beyond that and fill it with
Torah. We see this in Tehilim 19, where Dovid marvels at Hashem's
creation of nature in the first seven pasukim. In the next eight
pasukim, he describes the Torah.
On Chanuka, the light of Torah
lit up the darkness that descended upon us with the Greek culture. The
Yom Tov of Chanuka is the celebration of lights, the light of torah.
It is a celebration of eight, a celebration beyond Teva. It is a
celebration for us to out do nature and turn the world into a world of
torah.
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