It's the First Night of Hanukkah.

I first wrote this in 2017, right after the USA elected a fascist who took us down a road we are a long haul from recovering from, and who is once again in the damn Whitehouse. I revisited it in 2023, as we looked towards a place across an ocean and a desert, which is also currently run by a fascist, doing things we abhore. We might do well to remember the lesson now in 2025.

Here is the motherfucking miracle of Hanukkah.  

So one version of the Hanukkah story goes that in about 200 BCE, King Antiochus was oppressing the Jews through a ban on religious practice and forced assimilation in a cultural war that culminated in the massacre of thousands of people and the desecration of the local temple. In a guerilla rebellion fanned by a rabbi and his five sons, the eldest of whom locals referred to as “The Hammer,” the Jews eventually overthrew the oppressors and regained control of their temple. 

The temple was in shambles. A statue of the other deity stood within its walls, the stain of pig’s blood tainted everything sacred a light brown, and the blood smell remained pungent. The hallowed light of the seven-branched oil lamp, representing knowledge and creation, had long been extinguished. The cleanup could only have been long and arduous. 

Someone, maybe The Hammer, maybe a committee, decided it was high time to relight the flame and rededicate the temple. This decision was made even though there was not nearly enough oil for such a party. Did they not check? Did they not care? Could they not wait? Who knows. The flame was lit, and there was exactly enough oil for one night, despite the logistical hurdle of an eight day round-trip journey to get more oil. But, more oil was necessary. 

Someone set out on a journey. We don’t know who. It wasn’t The Hammer, Judah Maccabee, though he is memorialized as the hero in this story. Whoever it was had to know full well that they were not going to be able to pull this off. And yet, they set out. And they did the job. 

My favorite miracle of this story is not that a small band of oppressed people outgunned by their opposition overthrew their oppressors, nor is it that the piddly supply of oil used to rededicate the temple lasted eight days instead of one. It is that someone started an important journey knowing that it would not be enough and that they would not have enough time. It is that they did it anyway, hoping for the best.

Keep going.