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. 

