How many blessings?

How many blessings does one recite on Hannukah? Three on the first night, as we include Sheh-heh-cheh-yanu, and two on all the subsequent nights of the holiday. This easy, familiar, pattern was not always so. It will not surprise anyone to learn that this was a burning question for Cha”zal, our sages of blessed memory, as they sought to establish a standard observance of this holiday and the enduring meaning it would perpetuate through the generations.

Many are familiar with the debate between the schools of Hillel and Shammai regarding the number of candles to be lit each night with the school of Shammai asserting that one lit eight candles on the first night, seven on the second, and so on lighting only a single light on the final night. Conversely, the school of Hillel advocating the practice with which we are familiar of lighting a single light on the first night and culminating with eight candles on the final night.

Less well known is the debate in rabbinic literature regarding the recitation of the second blessing, “Sheh-ah-sah nissim la-voh-the-nu ba-ya-mim ha-hem, ba-z’man ha-zeh – who performed miracles for our ancestors in ancient days and …” then it gets complicated. The concluding words can be understood as “at this season” defining the moment in the past when the miracle referenced took place.

Focusing on the miracle of the oil evokes further debate as to the necessity of this blessing on the first night of Hannukah as oil used at that lighting was in fact sufficient for the task and nothing miraculous manifested until the next evening when the flame continued to burn and did so for the next seven days. The assertion through this lens argues that the second blessing should be added beginning on the second night.

Alternatively, the end of the blessing can be understood as, “unto present times”, asserting that miracles continue through the ages and even today. This perspective changes not only the timeframe of miracles, I believe it moves the miraculous away from the realm of the supernatural and into the realm of the human. Miraculous is the faith to light the remnant of oil knowing that it was insufficient. Miraculous is the faith to stand up for their religious freedom and to fight to protect it. Miraculous is the human capacity to take the world given to us by the Holy One and to shape it, form it, and elevate it for divine purpose. Miracles are experienced when human beings transform the real into the ideal, the ordinary into the transcendent.

Hannukah’s second blessing about miracles celebrates this transformation, the human capacity to use adversity and challenge to refine the human spirit into expressions of courage and compassion. Negative experiences are transmuted into affirmations of life and assertions of the presence of the sacred in the world, a reflection of the divine-human partnership.

The Hannukah lights and the blessing regarding miracles are a reminder of our power and potential, an assertion that miracles are as real as we make them when we reflect our ideals and allow our best selves to shine forth.

Chag Channukah Sameyach –

Rabbi David M. Eligberg