For many, the message of Hanukkah is that miracles really do happen and that they can happen for us. This story, found in the Babylonian Talmud, recounts how upon entering the newly liberated Temple in Jerusalem, the Hasmonean soldiers found only a tiny vase containing enough oil to light the Menorah for a single day. Miraculously, that small amount of oil lasted for eight days, enough time to obtain more and keep the Temple lights on as required by Biblical law.
This story, told hundreds of years after the events of the war described in the First and Second Maccabees, promises that miracles really do happen, that they happened for our ancestors in times past, and that they can happen for us as well. It doesn’t matter what odds we face, or what condition we are in, if we are willing to light the light, the miracles will follow.
We may have no idea how they happen or why they happen, but at the darkest and most hopeless of times, this story told by sages living largely in exile and largely in poverty, reminds us that no situation is without hope and that we should dare to imagine that we too can receive miracles in our own lives.
What miracle are you hoping for this Hanukkah?