The Mystery of the Missing Menorah

December 11, 2009
Rabbi Seymour Rossel

I have some sad news. The great golden Menorah is missing. It has been missing for a long long time. It has been missing for so long that people make up stories about where it is and what happened to it. But the story I tell you now is true -- at least, we think it is a real history. But if one day we find the missing golden Menorah, my history will have to change for a new history. That's the way history works -- history is always changing.

     The Torah tells how God told Moses to make a special golden lamp stand that would look like a tree with seven branches. But Moses was not a goldsmith. So God ordered Moses to call on a great artist, a man called Bezalel. The people of Israel brought gold -- earrings from their ears, bracelets from their arms, even buckles and mirrors -- and Bezalel turned the gold into the great golden Menorah.

     In the wilderness, the Menorah was placed in the Tabernacle -- a temporary traveling Temple -- where it stood guard over the Holy of Holies and gave light for the priests. Many years later, another Tabernacle was set up in Shiloh, in the land of Israel, but the great golden Menorah of Bezalel was nowhere to be found. Still, the design was in the Torah, so a new menorah was made of wood or metal and set up outside the Holy of Holies to give light in the new Tabernacle.

     Not long after that, the mighty King David brought the Holy Ark from Shiloh to Jerusalem. His son, the wise King Solomon, built the First Temple and placed the Holy Ark in it. But Solomon's Temple was much larger  than the Tabernacle at Shiloh, so ten Menorahs were made to give light in the new Temple. Of course, the ten Menorahs were only lit at night, but near the Holy of Holies, Solomon ordered that one single lamp should be always remain burning, day and night, to remind us that God is with us day and night. This was called the Ner Tamid, the Eternal Light, and to this day, we keep a Ner Tamid burning above our Ark to remind us that God is always with us.

     When Solomon's Temple was destroyed nearly five hundred years later, the ten Menorahs were taken captive along with all the gold from the Temple and many of the people of Israel. The armies of Nebuchadnezzar took them all to Babylon. In Babylon, the people remained Jewish, but the menorahs disappeared. Now there were eleven missing Menorahs!

     When the Babylonians were defeated, King Cyrus the Great allowed the Jews to return to Israel and rebuild the Temple. This new Second Temple was much smaller than Solomon's Temple and the Jews of Israel were poor. They built a new Menorah of wood to remind them of the great golden Menorah which they read about in the Torah.

     Later, a new enemy arose against Israel and his name was Antiochus, king of the Syrian Greeks. He wanted to do away with the Jewish faith, so he removed all the Jewish symbols from the Temple and with that, the Menorah of wood disappeared from history. Now there were twelve missing Menorahs!

     In place of the Menorah, the Syrian Greeks set up a statue of Antiochus! He ordered that his soldiers burn every copy of the Torah they could find. He forbid Jews from practicing Judaism. He had his priests sacrifice pigs on the altar in the Temple. There were even many Jews who wanted to be more like the Greeks and they built little altars in front of their doors to make sacrifices in honor of the Greek gods.

     But there arose a mighty Jewish warrior and his name was Judah Maccabeus, Judah the Maccabee. He led the Jews against the Syrian Greek armies and he won many battles, until there were just a few of Antiochus' soldiers left in Jerusalem, and they and the Jews loyal to them shut themselves up in a fortress that Antiochus had built inside the city. From this fortress, they could look down into the Temple court.

     That winter, Judah led his Jewish soldiers into Jerusalem, hoping to conquer the Akra fortress. But when Judah's men passed the deserted houses of the Jews loyal to Antiochus, they were angered to see pagan altars outside the doors of many homes. And when they saw the Temple itself, they were too angry to go forward.

     They demanded that the Temple be cleaned and rededicated to God. And Judah told them to do exactly that. So they worked for many days, removing the statue of Antiochus, building a new altar, and cleaning the whole Temple top to bottom. Then they remembered two things: For several years, the Jews had not been able to celebrate the eight-day festival of Sukkot. And in three days it would be the 25th day of Kislev, the very day that Antiochus had brought pagan worship into the Temple.

     So they decided to rededicate the Temple to God starting on the 25th day of Kislev by observing Sukkot for eight days. But when they came on the evening of the 25th, they suddenly knew that something very important, and most essential, was missing. There was no Menorah to bring light to the Temple! How could they dedicate the Temple without a Menorah to bring light and remind them of God and Torah?

     Just then, Judah's soldiers discovered some spikes of iron lying in the Temple courtyard. Seven soldiers put down their swords and picked up seven big spikes of iron. They put lamps on top of the stakes and lit them. And these seven soldiers stood together to make a Menorah for the ceremony. Then the Maccabees sent letters to all the Jews everywhere that this ceremony of Chanukah, of "rededication," should be celebrated every year beginning on the 25th day of Kislev and lasting for eight days, just like Sukkot.

     The Menorahs of earlier times were still missing, but the Maccabees themselves became the Menorah for Chanukah. To wipe out the memory of the pagan altars outside the doors of the unfaithful Jews, they ordered that all the faithful Jews should put a menorah of eight candles where everyone could see it throughout Chanukah -- outside the door or in the window, to make sure that everyone remembered the real miracle of Chanukah: how God helped a tiny band of loyal Jews to overcome an enemy with vast armies, just as a little light overcomes the vast forces of darkness. And let us say: Amen.