TradCatKnight: False light of Hanukkah

Additionally, in the opinion of one scholarly skeptic, Hanukkah’s sub rosa significance, communicated esoterically through the image of the menorah, is as a testimony to “the supreme position which the Holy Judaic People occupy in God’s eyes. …The secret of Hanukkah was disclosed by Rabbi Levi Isaac ben Meir of Berdichev (known as ‘the Kedushat Levi’ after his eponymous treatise), an important eighteenth century halachic [legal] authority, who revealed the fact that lighting the Hanukkah menorah does not commemorate the victory of the Biblical Maccabees.

(source: Hanukkah: A Brief Introduction)

The arcane traditional doctrine of Chazal (i.e. the “sages” of the Talmud) concerning Hanukkah is that it commemorates God’s “delight in the Jewish people” themselves, and their vainglorious celebrations. The secret teaching of Hanukkah is that God supposedly provided a mythical eight days of oil not as a means of facilitating a victory, or of guaranteeing the successful completion of a sacred duty, but rather as a sign (halacha osah mitzvah), of His continuing adoration of the Judaic people, which all the rest of us are supposed to emulate, as we do indeed whenever a menorah is erected where a Nativity scene is banned.  

(source: The Hanukkah Hoax and Hatred for Christmas)

How did Hanukkah originate?
 

The Chanukah ‘miracle of the oil’ has its origin in Talmud tractate Shabat 21b and is generally accepted as originating 600 years after the events recorded in Book of Maccabees. Numerous rabbinic scholars have determined that the fable was invented at a time when militant Judaism would be a liability (c.f. the Bar Kochba rebellion), and so the ‘miracle of the oil’ was contrived and emphasized over the militant theme in the Book of Maccabees to mollify fanatics and thereby avoid backlash. This is an example of Judaic dispensationalism at work. For our time, when fear of backlash is less, we can see that the militant theme of Chanukah is more heavily emphasized (c.f. George W. Bush’s White House Chanukah party speeches, Chabad Chanukah literature).

(source: For Advent, ‘The Remnant’ Offers ‘Hope’ in Rabbinic Fables)

Why is Dreidel-Man at the menorah lighting?

Synagogue and State