More of the usual:

Happy Hannukah

As children we grow up with the joy of Hannukah, lighting candles, eating chocolate coins, tasty warm latkes or jelly doughnuts, playing with dreidels, maybe receiving gifts, and as we grow older we start to wonder what this holiday is all about. We won the war against the Greeks. We fought valiantly against a stronger and greater army and won. Then we are satisfied. We understand it and we celebrate it. Yet in the back of our minds we experience the cognitive dissonance that notices we aren’t in the land of Israel with the Holy Temple in the way it used to be. What happened after we won that war?

Some of us will learn more Jewish history and realize that we only won a temporary freedom that was limited and didn’t last. We did eventually lose our prophets and wise men, our Temple and our land. But we don’t want to lose that little holiday of ours so we continue to light the candles and sing the songs. We are temporary joy seekers. We don’t want to face the facts.

But those who realize that the sages knew what they were doing when they made the holiday, and understood throughout the ages that we should continue to celebrate this event, were looking at life on a deeper more spiritual level. They saw the “light”.

The joy of Hannukah is not the war that was fought and won. That was merely a temporary freedom. The joy is the celebration of Divine Guidance during the war, the special relationship with the Almighty that was evidenced by the miracle of the lamp that stayed lit. That miracle is the symbol that our relationship with our Creator will never get extinguished even though we may be living in other countries serving foreign rulers, or even in our homeland with a secular state battling daily for our survival. Our Father in Heaven will never abandon us, and in fact will continue to guide us through all of our challenges throughout history. You can see His hand in Jewish history, and you can see His hand in your own life if you look for it.

Our joy is the comfort of knowing He is with us, and the hope for the future when all is restored to its rightful place.