The miracle of Chanuka is connected to eight, as a one-day supply of pure oil for the Temple menorah lit after the defeat of the Greeks lasted eight days. Also of interest is the concept that the number eight is above nature, which is represented by the number seven. It is therefore associated with an awareness of the miraculous. In addition, the Hebrew word for the number eight is "shemona", and it has the word "shemen", meaning "oil" as its root. Thus we see a connection between "miracles", "eight" and "oil".
The eighth sefira is hod, often translated as "thanksgiving". The Hebrew word "ness", meaning "miracle", also means "to raise up". The legs in the body represent the sefirot of netzach and hod. Just as the legs elevate the torso, so do netzach and hod raise up malchut by revealing wonders and miracles. The festivals of Purim and Chanuka represent these two sefirot in time.
Our mission in this world is to "sweeten" the negative powers of judgment. The kelipot [shells] of this world become nullified before us via the lights we kindle throughout Chanukah and the awakening of consciousness they embody. Rebbe Nachman of Breslev teaches that Chanukah guides us in our constant struggle with the forces of impure imagination attempting to distance us from G-d; by purifying our imaginative capabilities we are able to break the primary force behind all our negative qualities and illusions.
As we witness so clearly in our times, all that seems to stand between our present situation and complete national redemption is our resolve and clarity of our national will. In light of these insights, Chanukah, in which we celebrate our redemption from foreign powers which attempt to delude us into abandoning our G-d and His Torah, is a particularly auspicious time for meditation, especially on the lights and lamps of the Chanukah menorah.
People might have thought that the Temple had no need for interior illumination from windows. However, the Book of Kings teaches that the windows in the Temple were very narrow on the inside and wide on the outside, suggesting that their purpose was not to let light enter, but, on the contrary, in order to illuminate the outside world with the spiritual light contained therein.
In the Torah portion Vayeishev, traditionally read at the time of the Chanuka holiday, we read about the unconventional union that transpired between Judah, the son of Jacob, and his daughter-in-law Tamar, who had disguised herself as a harlot.
A classical Chassidic interpretation based on Rabbi Isaac Luria's writings treats this episode as symbolic of the inner spiritual life of the Jew. Our judgment that began on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur is completed some three months later, during the days of Chanukah. At this time Judah (the metaphor for G-d) is "informed" that His bride Tamar (the Jewish people) has betrayed Him, substituting him with another partner, and the verdict issued that Tamar has no future.
During that fateful time, the Jew says to G-d, "I am pregnant by the man who is the owner of these articles!" Gaze into my identity and you will see that my intimacy is shared only with You, G-d, to which G-d answers, "The Jew going astray is my fault…because I did not give Tamar to my son Shelah." Shelah refers to the Mashiach; Tamar is an innocent, beautiful palm-tree, which still has only one heart to its father in heaven.
That the miracle of Chanuka, the lighting of the Menorah, lasted for eight days is not accidental, but intrinsic. The Torah informs us that G-d created the world in six days and ceased working on the seventh, the Shabbat. The number six can thus be said to represent the natural world that was created in six days with six spatial directions. The number seven represents G-d's hidden presence and the number eight represents G-d's transcendence above and beyond this world.
In Hebrew, the word shemonah (eight) has the same exact letters as hashemen (the oil), neshama (soul), and mishna (transmitted teaching). The Syrian-Greeks entered the Temple and sullied all its oil,representing the deepest level of the Jewish soul, his potential to awaken from the deepest slumber of exile, to come to life even (and perhaps especially) under the most trying circumstances.
Only one jar of pure oil was found, sealed with the seal of the High Priest, the holiest Jew, who embodied the level of "eight" by virtue of the eight special garments he wore when serving in the Temple. Mattityahu the Chashmonai (Mattithiah the Hasmonean) and his sons rallied the Jews to defend the Torah and fight against the Greeks. The name Chashmonai has two components, the letter chet, the eighth letter of the aleph-bet, followed by the word for oil, shemen. Thus, the Cha-shemonai family also embodied the power of Eight.
We can overcome the negative influences in our immediate environment just as the Macabees conquered the Greeks and rededicated the holy Temple. "Defiling the oil" at the individual level is a reference to the increased power and control of the person's animalistic soul in its battle with the divine soul for control of the body. Increased power of this soul means that a person's spiritual senses are blocked giving them an increased awareness and pleasure in the physical world around them.
Still, a small vial of pure oil will be found, sealed with the seal of the High Priest - the inextinguishable point of one's Judaism, called Yechida of the soul, the 5th and highest level of the soul that is always tied to the Divine. With this vial we are able once again to fully connect to holiness and light up the darkness around and inside us, as it says in Proverbs, "G-d's candle is the soul of man".
Chanuka extends our ability to draw holiness into this world
The letters on the dreidel (outside of Israel) allude to the totality of human capabilities: Gimmel represents "guf", which literally means "body", relating to the physical. Shin represents "seichel", meaning "intellect". Nun relates to the Nefesh, the emotional. And hei stands for the word "hakol" meaning "everything", embodying the totality of human aptitudes.
At the same time, we reflect upon the other meaning of these letters, for they are the same numerical equivalent as the four letters of "Mashiach" = 358. As the dreidel spins, we are reminded that all human history "rotates" around the axis of Mashiach and that everything will one day lead to Mashiach. May he come speedily in our days!
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