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 | It is tempting to speculate that calling Chanukah a
"festival of lights" is connected with the "days of fire."
 | Megillat Taanit, 25 Kislev first
mentions kindling lights in honour of the festival and links it to the previously unknown
"miracle of the oil."
Legend says that, when the Temple was
rededicated, the Maccabees only had enough pure holy oil to last for 1 day, but it lasted
for 8 until new supplies arrived.
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| Clearly, by this time, the appearance of
Halley’s comet and the lunar eclipse of 164 BCE had long been forgotten.
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| Many sources may have contributed to the
development of the new custom. The "days of
fire" may have been one: pagan solstice festivals may have been another. We have
already seen the significance of the 25th in
various traditions.
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| One can imagine the Maccabees seizing on the comet as the
heavenly sign that would allow them to safely light the sacred flame, perhaps even more so
when in conjunction with 3 bright planets, Jupiter, Venus and Saturn.
| In the absence of a fire from Heaven,
surely a fire in the heavens was good enough!
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| The eclipse would have unsettled them - would it also spur
them to get a move on with the rededication before something went wrong?
| If they looked on it as a warning that
trouble from Antiochus was ahead, they would still have got on with their rededication as
quickly as possible, (they didn't know about Antiochus's death).
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| The eclipse happened on 12th Kislev, at the beginning of what
would have been the festival of Succot, (Tabernacles), had the calendar been right.
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| They would not do the rededication during what should have been
the Festival season, so they did it as soon as possible after the Festivals would have
ended - the 25th of the month - possibly bearing in mind the other significances of the 25th.
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| It is highly likely that Halley's comet
and the eclipse of the moon affected the date of the rededication of the Temple on 25th
Kislev 164 BCE.
Is there a connection between the miraculous 'lights in the sky' and the Chanukah
candles that we still light 2000 years later?
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