When the dreidel falls on the hei we go on playing the game, never considering that on the other side of the dreidle is the nun – neis for “miracle.” We see the “there was” but we are blind to the miracle. A gimmel – “great” – hides the pei/shin, the “here” or “there.”
We spin on and on and on, missing so many of God’s messages to us. Why? Because we see only that which is plain to us, failing to look deeper in order to find that which is less obvious or hidden. However, our blindness does not mean that what is on the other side of the dreidel is not an equally important part of the reality we perceive.
Bayamim hahem – in days of yore. What is vital is not what was but whether what was has everlasting value to us. Many of the holidays listed in Megillat Ta’anit are not celebrated because they fail this simple test. They have meaning only in their own time, in the past.
Chanukah – with its silly little dreidel – continues to be celebrated because its message and its power continue to speak to us today. Ba’zeman hazeh.
Bridging the near-insurmountable distance between hayamim hahem to ba’zeman hazeh is the mystical gift of our survival – physical, spiritual and religious. The bridge that carries us from the hei of the dreidle to the neis is the same gift that allowed the congregation of Har Nof to celebrate a bris the very day after the unspeakable events there.
A great miracle is happening here.
In Days of Deliverance, Rav Soloveitchik notes that Chanukah has a universal appeal; it is “…a holiday of political victories, a holiday of the smashing of political might. Matityahu and his sons had the strength and the courage to confront the Syrian-Greek legions, to liberate the city of Jerusalem and its Temple, and to re-establish an independent Jewish kingdom. This history of dramatic bravery appeals to all, Jew and non-Jew, especially when the revolutionaries compose a small group, unorganized and poorly armed, yet unafraid of declaring war on a mighty enemy.”
However, having said that, he asks the deeper question: “Is Chanukah merely a holiday telling us a heroic story of battles won and political victories gained, like the American Fourth of July, or the French Fourteenth of July? A political event, even one of the greatest importance, can be celebrated only as long as the people view it as a turning point in history, the beginning of a new epoch in independence…. However, a political victory loses its meaning when the people later lose their independence and the victory ends in a downfall.
“If Chanukah had been simply a holiday of political freedom, its whole meaning would have evaporated with the destruction of the Temple and the exile of the Jewish people. Chanukah’s fate would have been exactly like that of all the other holidays of the Second Temple era which were enumerated in Megillat Ta’anit…”
As is clearly pointed out in the Talmud (Rosh Hashanah 19b), “One was forbidden [to fast] on those days named in Megillat Ta’anit when the Temple was in existence, because they were days of gladness at that time. Once the Temple was no longer in existence, one was permitted [to fast] because they are days of mourning to them.”
That being the case, asks the Rav, “Where is the logic in celebrating Chanukah during thousands of years of exile, martyrdom, ghettos, pogroms, and suffering? How small and worthless do the Maccabees’ victories seem when compared to the cruel political downfalls that we have suffered?”