The Hanukka lights are reminiscent of the miracle of the pure olive oil for the Menorah lit in the Beit HaMikdash.
Let’s have a look at the Menorah (candelabrum) and lights of the Mikdash, as well as miracles relating to oil and to a menorah in Tanakh.
While Bnei Yisrael set out from Egypt on their journeys through the desert, God accompanied them with a pillar of fire at night (Exodus 13,21; Nehemiah 9, 12; Psalms 109, 39).
The Book of Shemot lists various instructions for constructing the Mishkan and its vessels. The seven-branched golden Menorah is described in detail, with seven branches and cups resembling almond blossoms (Exodus 25, 31-40). A few verses before, God says “build me a Mikdash, and I will Dwell in their midst” (Exodus 25, 8).
Perhaps symbolically reminiscent of this, the Menorah in the Mikdash is to be lit with pure olive oil from evening until morning, continually (Leviticus 24, 1-4).
The Book of Bemidbar describes Aharon the Kohen Gadol, lighting the seven - branched Menorah as the part of the culmination of setting up the Mishkan (Numbers 7; 8, 1-4).
It appears that in the Mishkan at Shiloh during the days of Eli, the lights of the Mikdash were burning from evening until morning, as mentioned earlier. Young Shmuel first experiences prophecy “when the Lamp of God had not yet gone out…in the sanctuary of God, where the Ark of God was” (I Samuel 3, 1-4).
When King Shlomo builds the First Beit HaMikdash, he seems to set up ten golden Menorahs in the Mikdash (I Kings 7, 49).
We see a Menorah, oil, and miracles in the stories of Elisha the Prophet.
Previously, Elisha’s teacher and mentor Eliyahu told a starving woman that her jug of flour and small cruse of oil would (miraculously) last to sustain her for the duration of the long and terrible drought in Israel (I Kings 17).
After Eliyahu’s death, Elisha is at the center of a series of narratives. One such story relates how the wife of one of the Bnei HaNeviim (prophetic apprentices) is about to witness her sons being taken away by ruthless creditors. She calls to Elisha for help, and he tells her to borrow containers and then close her doors. For this hidden miracle, Elisha tells her to keep pouring her jug of oil into all of the containers. Miraculously, there is enough oil to sell and pay off the creditors.
Immediately following is a story of the Shunnamite woman who asks her husband to make an attic guest room for the “holy man of God” (Elisha) who often passes through and whom she invites for meals. Part of her hospitality involves arranging for a candelabrum (menorah), in addition to a bed, chair and table. The miracle in this story is one of the birth of a son – and his subsequent revival behind closed doors and after prayer to God. (II Kings 4).
Much later on, in the period of the Return to Zion, there seems to be a miracle of oil on a national level. The prophets Haggai and Zekharya recount the agricultural and economic troubles of those beginning to return to Israel after the long exile. Now that they have begun building the Second Beit HaMikdash, though, there will be a positive turnaround – and God is with them (Haggai 1-2; Zechariah 8,9-17).
Haggai mentions that now (the 24th of the Ninth Month – Kislev), when the olive tree harvest is yet to begin, God will bring forth bounty and blessing (Haggai 2, 10-19).
Interrupting Zekharya’s sequence of visions, a prophetic passage that echoes the verse about building the Mikdash from the Book of Shemot (Exodus 25,8), announces to the people of Jerusalem that God will “dwell within your midst” (Zechariah 2, 14-15).
One of the following visions is one of a fantastic scene of a golden seven-branched menorah flanked by olive trees with tubes through which the golden olive oil flows. “It is not by might, nor by force, but by my spirit” – as is emphasized again in Chapter 8, God’s presence “dwells in Jerusalem,”(Zechariah 8,) and the returnees led by Zerubavel will overcome challenges to build the Beit haMikdash (Zechariah 4).
May we enjoy the light and the oil of Hanukka and have courage, strength, and hope this winter.