Torah: (Bereishit) Genesis 41:1 – 44:17; Haftarah Shabbat Hanukkah: Zechariah 2:14 – 4:7
Hanukkah Means Rededication to the Lord
“At that time the Feast of Hanukkah took place at Jerusalem, it was winter, and Yeshua was walking in the Temple in the portico of Solomon. The Judeans then gathered around Him, and were saying to Him, 'How long will You keep us in suspense? If You are the Moshiach, tell us plainly.' Yeshua answered them '...I and the Father are one.'" John 10:22-30
If we would not have the holiday of Hanukkah, we would not have salvation. If God would have allowed success to the tyrant of 165 BCE by the name of Antiochus Epiphanes, all Jews would have been annihilated off the face of the earth. But God, in His grace and mercy, interceded because of His promise to the forefathers, Avraham, Yitzchak and Ya'akov. Therefore, "when the fullness of time had come God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Torah" (Galatians 4:4). The promised Messiah came to the Jewish people and to the rededicated Temple to become the Redeemer of all mankind who will receive Him.
The attempt to destroy all the Jews by Antiochus was another attempt by Satan to stop the coming of Messiah. Even as the Holocaust was an effort by Satan to prevent the formation of the State of Israel, thus, preventing Messiah's return to Zion. So, without Hanukkah there would be no salvation, because there would be no Savior born to the Jews. But we do have salvation as promised and we do have a State of Israel to which Messiah will soon return, also as promised.
But often we are told that Hanukkah is not a Biblical festival, commanded by God, therefore it is not important for Israel and for us to celebrate it. Our response must come from both, a historical and a Brit Hadashah perspective.
At the time of the great victory of the Jews over Antiochus Epiphanes in 165 BCE, the Temple was cleansed of the satanic image of Antiochus (at which all Jews were being forced to bow down or die), and rededicated it to God. When the Temple was rededicated, the Maccabee family led the nation in the observance of Sukkot, according to the historical account found in the apocryphal, non-Scriptural but historic, book of II Maccabees 10:6-9. And so, the holiday referred to as Rededication, was actually the observance out of season - two months later - of the Feast of Tabernacles, or Sukkot. According to the historical account the seven-branched Menorah was re-lit in the Temple with only enough kosher oil for one day. The miracle was that it lasted seven more days, the entire eight days holiday of Sukkot.
Messianic believers know that the fulfillment of the Hanukkah miracle was not that God's was again worshiped in the Temple built of stones with human hands, but that, few years later, God's Presence came to the Temple and dwelt in human flesh in David's Greater Son - Yeshua, the Messiah of Israel. Now we can say with the deepest understanding "Nes Gadol Hayah Sham" - A GREAT MIRACLE HAPPENED THERE, for God is now present among His people in a new Temple, which is the Messiah Himself.
There is one aspect of the "out of season Sukkot" which is unique, the lighting of the Hanukkah Menorah, the nine-branch Hanukkiah. Even though great lights were burning on huge pedestals to completely enlighten Jerusalem on Sukkot (it was at the Feast of Sukkot that Yeshua said, "I AM THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD"), this feature has been lost to Sukkot, but retained in Hanukkah, and thus Hanukkah is also called the Festival of Lights.
John 1:4 tells us that in Yeshua was life and that it is the life of Yeshua which enlightens our own lives, that without Him we live our lives in dark fear and striving against one another. On the Menorah this symbolism is born out beautifully. The Shammash, or servant candle, represents the light of Messiah. When that great light touches our darkened lives, we become lights too, and Yeshua said to us, "YOU ARE THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD." In Matthew 5:14-16, He said that we were to share this light, letting our lives shine before all people through the good we can do in His name. John 10:21-22 tells us that the Messiah came to His Temple at Hanukkah and proclaimed that He was the I Am - YHVH - the light that enlightens our lives, thus comparing His light with the light of the Menorah.
Proclaiming Messiah to the Jew first and also to the Gentile is the reason we live and endure. We announce through Hanukkah that God is present with us - IMMANUEL - Yeshua the Messiah of Israel. The question we must deal with is "Does my life reflect that light of the Service Candle, the lite of Messiah Yeshua?" We are enjoined by the Scripture to "make known His deeds among the people" (1 Chronicles 16:8). Especially at Hanukkah, we are to be like the lights of the Menorah illuminating a darkened world by making known the free gift of salvation to the community around us.
What does Hanukkah mean to you personally? At the time of the Maccabees the Jews were forbidden to read the Torah, but the Maccabees fought and gave their lives in order for the Jews to be able to read it again. Today, we have the printed Torah in any form imaginable, do we treasure it? Have the Maccabees died in vain because most of the Jews today do not read the Torah as they used to? We need to take this Hanukkah message to heart and not only treasure the Torah - the Bible - by reading it and studying it, but also by sharing it.
And Hanukkah has yet another message. As we light a little candle on the first night it does not give much light, but every day we add another one and another until there is this bright light, so, too, our steps in sharing the faith and our spiritual growth could be small in the beginning, but adding another step and another, we will find out that one day we will be indeed a great light making a difference in this world.
This Hanukkah, let us make a point of proclaiming the Messiah to someone in our family or to a friend, even as Moses raised up the despised and rejected serpent upon a pole in the wilderness, so that the people of Israel looked up to it and were healed. What Moses did was a typology of our Messiah, that although we have, collectively as Jews, looked up to Him upon that Roman cross with abhorrence despising the One who claims to be our King, it is to that despised and abhorred One by the Nation (Isaiah 49:7) that every Jewish person needs to look for the healing that leads to life, not just temporary as in the wilderness of Sinai, but to life eternal!
"God is in control, yet we have free choice"
The sages taught that this world is not the place where the righteous can expect tranquility — the lives of the patriarchs are proof that this is true. They also taught that God is in control of our lives and much is to be accomplished through a righteous person in the service of God.
The previous Parashah begins the amazing story of the life of Yosef and we have seen how God is in control of it regardless of human actions. Man cannot alter the overriding purpose of the divine plan. Yosef's life story is interrupted by an event showing God's sovereignty in developing the Messianic line through the extraordinary events in the lives of Yehudah and Tamar. In spite of the humanly seemingly impossible situations, God brings together events to magnify the good in the righteous people. The struggle between good and evil is the story of man, for Satan wants to have victory over man's actions. We do not understand the duality of God's plan and our free choice, but we are warned that our actions would have a positive or a negative impact, not only in our lives but also in the lives of the people around us, even though God’s plan is being accomplished.
The prophesy was that the Messiah would be born through the line of Yehudah, but Yehudah's two oldest sons committed evil acts, thus, were unworthy of carrying the Messianic line and Yehovah took their lives. Tamar's righteousness conquered Satan’s intention of stopping the developing roots of the Davidic dynasty and thus his ultimate goal of stopping the coming of Moshiah. By Tamar’s action, she gave birth to Perez through Yehudah and, down through eight generations later, King David was born (see Ruth 4:18). God’s plan was accomplished through Tamar’s free willed righteous act.
Parashah Mikeitz continues the tumultuous story of Yosef. He has been sold by his brothers for having a dream, taken to Egypt, thrown in prison for being an upright man, and now after 13 years his dream starts to become reality. His brothers, not all of them yet, come and bow down to him as foretold by the dream — thus, God is in control.
The book of Bereishit - Genesis - proclaims God as the Creator of the universe, the only one who can determine and sustain its course. Even though Pharaoh considers himself a god and worship the Nile as its deity, even he proclaims that only God has the power to give the knowledge of the future and that He is the only one who controls the events of the universe and of our lives. What a fitting message for this time of the year. God was in control centuries later at the Maccabeean revolt and He is in control today in the crises of our lives.
May this Hanukkah make us reflect on how to increase and intensify our commitment to God, one step at the time, so that the world could indeed see the bright light of Yeshua calling them to salvation.
Hag Hanukkah Sameach! Shabbat joy, peace, and blessings! Shabbat Shalom!
