The eighth day of Chanukah is called Zos
Chanukah/This is Chanukah, after the Torah reading for this day
which contains the words “zos chanukas hamizbei’ach …/this
is the dedication of the altar ...” (Bamidbar 7:84) Aside from the nice play on words what is the
significance of the name?
The Sfas Emes explains that Zos Chanukah
indicates something very fundamental about Chanukah. The Chanukah story begins with the
persecution of the Jews by the Assyrian Greeks.
The situation was bleak indeed.
The gentile rulers were powerful.
How could we overcome them? From
the depths of this darkness came the salvation.
The word
zos/this, is laden with
symbolism. In the Zohar
we find the word
zos
alluding to
Jerusalem and the
kingdom of Heaven. The Midrash
says that the word
zos/this
in the pasuk, “...
בְּזֹאת
אֲנִי בוֹטֵחַ/… in this I trust,” (
Tehillim 27:1) is an allusion to
God – in God I trust. The early
kabbalists
teach that
zos
alludes specifically to that point of spirituality through which God gives
existence to the physical. David HaMelech as well, asked God to preserve this
recognition of His presence within us, “
... שָׁמְרָה־זֹּאת לְעוֹלָם לְיֵצֶר מַחְשְׁבוֹת לְבַב עַמֶּךָ
.../… Preserve this forever – the product of the thoughts of Your
people’s hearts …” (
Divrei HaYamim 1 29:18)
Zos, then, is a reference to the Godliness hidden
within us and all of Creation. Knowing
that everything, including God’s obscurity is powered by this point of God-given
spirituality, essentially, knowing that God is “in” everything and that
everything is therefore “good” is a tremendous tool for strengthening one’s
faith particularly in times of exile. This, in fact, is the fundamental meaning of
the pasuk in Eicha (3:21), “זֹאת אָשִׁיב אֶל־לִבִּי עַל־כֵּן אוֹחִיל/This I will bear in
mind; therefore I have hope.” The
prophet is teaching us that when we bear in mind zos – that
the exile as well is from God and that He is present even in the darkness of it
– we have good reason for hope.
This concept is the lesson of Chanukah. The salvation came when the nation realized
that God was with them in the darkness as well.
We find this idea as well in the following pesukim from Tehillim (112:7-8),
“מִשְּׁמוּעָה רָעָה
לֹא יִירָא נָכוֹן לִבּוֹ בָּטֻחַ בַּה': סָמוּךְ לִבּוֹ לֹא יִירָא עַד אֲשֶׁר־יִרְאֶה
בְצָרָיו/He will have no fear of evil tidings; his heart is firm,
confident in God. His heart is steadfast, he shall not fear, he will even
[expect to] see [vengeance upon] his tormentors.” When a person trusts in God,
he knows that salvation is at hand. The Chiddushei HaRim points out that,
significantly, the last letters of the words, “נָכוֹן לִבּוֹ בָּטֻחַ בַּה׳ סָמוּךְ/his
heart is firm, confident in God, steadfast” spell out חֲנוּכָּה/Chanukah.
The chapter in Tehillim that we say on Chanukah bears out
this idea. “
הָפַכְתָּ
מִסְפְּדִי לְמָחוֹל לִי פִּתַּחְתָּ שַׂקִּי וַתְּאַזְּרֵנִי שִׂמְחָה/You
have transformed my lament into dancing for me; You undid my sackcloth and
girded me with happiness.” (
Tehillim 30:12) The word for transformed –
הָפַכְתָּ – also means to
overturn or to turn inside out. The difference between lament and dancing is
whether God is hidden or revealed. Dancing is lament turned inside out, as it
were. The important point is that God is present in both. The Midrash
on the curses in parshas
BeChukosai makes this point when it says that the difference between the
blessings and the curses is that the blessings are in the order of the Hebrew
alphabet whereas the curses are backwards.
The second half of the pasuk continues this idea. It is
important to understand that the sackcloth, a clear reference to exile and God’s concealment is only a cover. When the sackcloth is undone,
when the concealment is removed, God is revealed in the form of salvation and
closeness to Him. Then we are girded with happiness. This is the meaning of
Chanukah, the days of miracles, when the nation of Israel was at a very low point and
God helped us. It is encouraging to know that according to the extent of
concealment so is the extent of the good since everything is from God and
everything is for good. And according to our recognition of this fact and our
trust in God so the underlying good will be revealed and we will merit
salvation.