NOVEMBER 25 • 2021 | 43

and his brothers — to try and do
something about the situation. What
began simply as an act of defiance
became a miraculous military defeat
of the mighty Greek army, allowing
the Jewish people to reclaim the land,
reclaim the Torah and reclaim the Holy
Temple.
More than 2,000 years later, in
the depths of the Holocaust, Rabbi
Grodzinksy drew on the Maccabees’
example, recruiting 10 righteous
men of his own to bring hope and
strength to the inhabitants of the
ghetto, and spreading light in a time of
unimaginable darkness.
The prayer we read describing the
great miracles of Chanukah describes
how God delivered “the many into the
hands of the few,” And, indeed, the
smallness of the Jewish people and our
outsized impact on the world is the
story of Jewish history. As the Torah
says: “Not because you are the most
numerous of the nations did God want
you and chose you — for you are the
fewest among the nations.” (Devarim 7:7)
Why is that? Why is it that the Jewish
people, so small in number, are able to
have this seismic effect on the world?
Part of the reason is that we, the Jewish
people, are a living testimony to a
fundamental truth about the nature
of reality — that the physical world
is just a smokescreen for a deeper
spiritual reality. Overcoming the
odds, subverting the natural order of
things, testifies to the primacy of the
world of spirituality over the world of
materialism, to the fact that God —
who is the Creator of all matter and the
source of everything — is the One in
control.

THE CHANUKAH MIRACLE
So, what we see in the story of
Chanukah, and in many other instances
in which the Jewish people have
defied their small numbers, is how
the impact of the few is multiplied
through God’s intervention, defying all
rational predictions and overturning
empirical reality as we know it. This
idea is symbolized by the defining
miracle of Chanukah — the small jar

of halachically pure oil the Maccabees
found when they recaptured the Temple,
which burned for eight days when it
should have burned for one. This is
why we celebrate Chanukah by lighting
candles for eight days.
Friends, why is this miracle so central
to the festival? Surely the great military
victory of the Maccabees over the
mighty Greek empire was even more
remarkable? The reason is that the
miracle of the oil burning for longer
than it was supposed to encapsulates
all of the other miracles. It symbolizes
this multiplier effect that we’ve been
discussing — that through God’s
direction, through the mysterious
workings of a deeper, essential, spiritual
realm, outcomes in the physical world
can be amplified beyond their input.
And a small jar of oil that was meant to
burn for a day can burn for eight.
Rabbi Aharon Kotler, the great Rosh
Yeshiva of Lakewood, points to the fact
that it was the oil’s spiritual purity that
imbued it with the miraculous power
to burn for eight days, to transcend its
physical limitations. Similarly, it was the
righteousness and uprightness of the
Maccabees that enabled them to defeat
the great army of the Greeks. Both are
small in physical quantity, but potent in
spiritual quality.
And this is the great lesson of
Chanukah for the Jewish people —
that, irrespective of our numbers, if we
remain upright and loyal to our Divine
heritage, then we will always survive
and thrive. Rabbi Kotler’s personal
life story bears this out. One of those
fortunate to escape Europe before the
Holocaust swept everything away, he
came to America and established a
small yeshiva in Lakewood, New Jersey.
In the 1940s and 1950s, few people held
much hope for the prospects of a classic
Torah institution in the heart of the new
world, yet, starting with a handful of
students, and in defiance of all rational
predictions, the yeshiva grew to become
the largest center of Jewish learning
in the Diaspora, with more than 6,500
students. He started small, battling the
odds, but his vision had the power of
purity behind it.

This message of the few over the
many, of God’s multiplying effect of our
actions, is the story of Jewish history.
Israel is such a small country, and yet its
impact is so great, and wherever Jewish
communities have found themselves,
their impact on wider society has been
out of all proportion to their small size.
But, the real secret ingredient to
transcending physical inputs is spiritual
purity. Purity is the yeast that makes our
efforts rise up. It’s all about the purity of
the oil, of the energy and intentionality
we put into our work in this world.
Purity is about sincerity, about
kindness, compassion and decency,
about spirituality and faith in God, and
dedication to His Will, His Torah. With
this, we can truly achieve great things,
supernatural things. We can go beyond
the numbers.
This seminal message of Chanukah,
this Heavenly multiplier effect, applies
no less to our personal lives. A person
may feel he will not be able to earn
a living if he closes his business on
Shabbos, but Chanukah teaches us that
God can multiply all of the week’s work
to more than make up for it. A person
may feel that dedicating himself to
absolutely scrupulous business ethics
may cost him money, but ultimately,
God has the power to bless all of our
efforts and to multiply them. The
same goes for tzedakah — charity —
for which the Torah itself promises
multiplied returns.
On Chanukah, a small group of
righteous people made a big difference,
overcoming a mighty force. If good
people with pure hearts and sincere
intentions band together, even in small
numbers, they can bring light and
blessing into the world. God’s blessings
can multiply the effect of the limited
physical world like that small jar of
oil that burned for so much longer,
thereby spreading so much light in the
world. This is the message of hope and
optimism of Chanukah.

Chief Rabbi Warren Goldstein, who has a Ph.D. in

Human Rights Law, is the chief rabbi of South Africa.

This article first appeared on aish.com.