HaRav Abba Berman zt"l, rosh yeshiva of Iyun HaTalmud, used to ask about the Chanukah miracle of the oil burning for eight days: What is so impressive about that miracle? The mishna (Pirkei Ovos, 5:5) says: Ten miracles were performed for our ancestors in the Beis HaMikdash... the rains never extinguished the fire of the Altar, the wind never affected the column of smoke...
These and perhaps other miracles were at least as impressive as the oil burning for eight days, yet they were routine, daily occurrences. Why did Chazal see fit to establish a yearly commemoration of the miracle of the oil?
He used to answer that the key is not the burning of the oil but the light produced. And the point is the lesson that Chazal wanted us to learn: The world is driven by the light of Hashem and His Torah and worship of Him.
Chanukah is often called the festival of lights, but the point being made here is that it is a festival of light, whose goal and purpose is to enlighten all of us about the nature of Creation.
It seems to me that the power of light in the Creation is not only expressed in the realm of the overtly spiritual like Torah, but in truth it is present in all corners of Creation, and it is vitally important to recognize this, and Chanukah is an appropriate occasion for this.
The reality is that the world is driven by light. However intellectual systems such as Evolution have the effect of darkening things and in effect seeing dark forces as the dominant drivers of the world. Evolution sees strife, struggle and competition for survival as the key content of the relationship between creatures of the world. It posits that all living creatures are engaged in a never-ending war for survival against all other creatures, as each individual and each species seeks to eat the lunch of everything else.
This is in fact nothing but a Big Lie. The world is truly characterized and sustained by, "He gives bread to all flesh..." (Tehillim 136:25), as well as "...He gives all life satiety" (Tehillim 145,16). In other words, each creature eats nothing but its own lunch, sent to it daily by the Master of the Universe from Above. Living creatures have their sustenance given to them, in effect and in fact, in a way that modern ecological studies have shown is a wonderful system characterized by harmony and not strife. Those who spend time in nature do so to experience the peace and balance that they find there. There is no evidence of the law of the jungle of survival of the fittest.
This is the same principle that we express in our description of the events of Chanukah, in that Hashem delivered the Many into the hands of the Few and the Mighty into the hands of the Weak. This is not just a historical fact that we are thankful for, but also a deep and powerful lesson for us. Physical might is not decisive; moral might wins: the Evil are delivered into the hands of the Righteous and the Mendacious into the hands of those who learn Torah.
In Moreh Nevuchim (I, 72) the Rambam explains that man, as a microcosmos, is able to survive and flourish only due to his developed ability to think, and not just by his instinctive urges as do all other creatures. He notes that no one ever called a horse a microcosmos, and explains that it is because the horse and all other animals just go about their business, eating what they feel like eating, sleeping when and where they feel like sleeping and mating when they feel like mating. This low, instinctive behavior is enough to allow them to live a reasonably long life and to preserve their respective species. Only man, says the Rambam, needs a society that is organized in order to provide for his basic needs of food and shelter. As the Rambam writes: "For the food which man requires for his subsistence demands much work and preparation, which can only be accomplished by reflection and by plan; many vessels must be used, and many individuals, each in his peculiar work, must be employed."
Therefore every part of our lives is infused with the light of intelligence. It is what enables us to survive and on a large scale it controls the workings of the entire universe. "He has built a world of Chesed." (Tehillim 89,3)
This is the lesson of Chanukah: that the world is founded upon and run upon light and benevolence.
