The Festival of Hanukkah commemorates a highly significant event in the history of ancient Israel. In the second century B.C.E. as Jerusalem found itself in the middle of a power struggle between Egypt and Syria, the Second Temple became the venue of a despicable act. The Syrian Seleucid monarch Antiochus IV Epiphanes, reacting from an edict of Rome forbidding him to press forward into Egypt, returned to Syria via Jerusalem and took out his fury on the Temple, the Second Temple built in the 6th century B.C.E. Breaking into the sacred precincts, Antiochus looted the Temple of its precious vessels, beginning an assault against Israel's religious sites that lasted for at least another two years. This assault culminated in his pollution of the altar with sacrifices of unclean animals and his erection of statuary which turned the building into a temple of Zeus.

A period of three years ensued in which Israel's temple services were suspended. Its holy place had been defiled, its religious practices banned, its worship ended. But with the revolt led by Judas Maccabeus, Seleucid hegemony was overthrown, and in 165 B.C.E. the Temple was cleansed and rededicated, and Judas decreed that there be eight days of rejoicing and an annual festival that would be observed by future generations. (See 1 Maccabees 1:18-36; 2:8-14; 4:59; 2 Maccabees 10:1-5)

The earliest sources do not refer to the festival by the name "Hanukkah." The first-century C.E. historian Josephus notes that it was commonly known as the festival of "Lights" (Antiquities 12:325), because the right to serve God was given again to the people unexpectedly, like a sudden light. Rabbinic tradition after Josephus tells us that part of the original rededication by the Hasmoneans included the erection of seven (or eight) iron bars with lights kindled in them. Still, by the end of the first century C.E., the word "Hanukkah" was used in reference to the festival in the context of recorded rabbinic debates.

A later tradition arose concerning the festival's use of lights. It states that after Judas' conquest of the Seleucids, when his comrades first entered the Temple, they discovered only one vessel of oil that had not been defiled, enough to keep the eight lights burning for only one day. But a miracle occurred, which enabled the lights to keep burning for the entire eight days - and from that point onward lights became an integral part of the observance of Hanukkah throughout succeeding generations.

From the darkness of the primeval chaos to the dark days of human chaos it is light that enables hope. A new creation is possible when light is thrown on the subject and the terror of darkness recedes. Order can be brought out of disorder, growth from dormancy, health from despair. Once light is thrown on the subject, we can ask why there was darkness in the first place and seek to correct our role in it.

Light is such a primal need that all world religions know its meaning: light means the presence of God. Since the first of the Creator's gifts was light, it can be concluded that God does not want humanity to live without it. Light means the hope of God leading us through the darkness that beclouds the world, especially when that darkness is of our own making. To seek to destroy the faith or the life or the homeland of a people cannot be of God, and light means that God will break through even the darkness of death to offer life on the other side.

Lamps are lit by the millions at Hanukkah. Perhaps they can illuminate beyond ourselves to the people of Darfur, to the prospect of nuclear annihilation, to the vengeful attacks on the unsuspecting and unprepared, to the mindless exhausting of the earth's resources. Perhaps the lights of Hanukkah can enable us to ask what we can do to shed the light of God on the troubled, the impoverished, the threatened people of this world - mutual sojourners with us on this same planet.

To all who celebrate this annual festival we wish a Happy Hanukkah. May we share God's light together and bring illumination to each other. May the eight days of lighting our lamps signal hope for us all, a gift of our Creator.

Written by Richard L. Jeske. The Rev. Dr. Richard L. Jeske was Director of Ecumenical and Interfaith Relations at American Bible Society.