The Talmud asks: “What is Chanuka?” One is immediately struck with the strangeness of the opening question: is it possible that the questioner had not heard of this festival? And the answer is even more puzzling: is there nothing more to be said about Chanuka than the story of the miracle concerning the oil? What about the great and no less miraculous military victory? Why is there no mention of the reinstatement of Israelite sovereignty "for more than two hundred years" (as the Rambam teaches in Hilkhot Chanuka 3:1)? Why does the Gemara see fit to emphasize specifically the miracle of the oil? We propose three solutions to the questions posed above.

Courtesy of the Virtual Beit Midrash, Yeshivat Har Etzion