Sometimes God plays tricks on the wicked by putting words in their mouths. Obviously when Hamas named their godless day of live-streamed murder “Temple Mount Flood,” it was firstly because the silly, psychopathic Monopoly-game-world they inhabit revolves around stopping us Jews from rebuilding our temple, and secondly because floods are big and scary-sounding. UNRWA school dollars hard at work, there.
Remarkably, though, the name they chose accidentally contains a whole essay on why, and how profoundly, they are going to lose.
In the founding myth of Athens, the goddess of wisdom grants her eponymous city an olive tree as a gift, either because its bitter fruits seem useless unless you are clever enough to figure out how to process them, or else because a main product from the tree is the light from that comes from burning its oil, a light that banishes darkness and reveals new knowledge.
Strictly speaking, we do not need to rely on the fairy tales of now-extinct idolaters to realize the connection between Noah’s flood and the holiday of Hanuka, but doing so does help us to notice clues. When we see a bird, a dove, whose Hebrew name yonah is written identically to yawana (“to Greece”), and that dove is carrying an olive leaf in its mouth, we get suspicious. And then we remember that the bird was sent out from the ark on Day 8 after seven days of waiting; and that it was sent by Noah, an accomplished technologist and mariner, whose grandson, Yawan, would father the whole Greek nation of accomplished technologists and mariners.
If that weren’t enough, the dove is playing the role of illumination, by bringing Noah information about the current state of far away places in the way that shining light often does. More specifically, the dove is telling Noah there is dry land, which the Torah says first began to poke above the retreating waters on the first day of the tenth month, that is, on what would one day become the eve of the eighth and brightest night of Hanuka lights.
We all know Hanuka (which means “dedication”) is supposed to commemorate the Jews’ military and spiritual triumph over Greek culture by marking the miraculous re-dedication of the Second Temple in Jerusalem. We have all heard about the stunning victory of the Maccabees against the Syrian Greeks on the battlefield, and about the little cruze of oil that lasted eight times longer than expected. Among other things, Noah’s flood story clearly anticipates the Israelites’ confrontation with Hellenism, and with the hellenistic worship of wisdom, that will forever complicate the mission to build a temple for God.
Interestingly, though, Hanuka was not the first time am yisrael dedicated their mizbeah (altar) on Mount Moriah. Long before the Maccabees, when the First Temple was built by King Solomon the Wise, a different eighth day holiday was selected for the initial hanukat mizbeah in Jerusalem, and the name of that festival is Shmini Atzeret.
Shmini Atzeret was the eighth day of hanuka before there was Hanuka, which may be why the Torah lists the commandment to light the temple’s menora with olive oil immediately after completing its description of the autumn Sukkot holiday that ends with Shmini Atzeret, and also why Noah’s ark first lands on Ararat during that same autumn holiday.
We may have ultimately needed the sages to add Hanuka to the winter calendar to treat the issue of wisdom and the Greeks, but the original Temple Day was the original eighth day festival, when the Torah teaches that we leave our huts that we dwelt in during Sukkot and move back into a more permanent home like the one we must build for God.
Shmini Atzeret was meant to be Temple Day, but it also became the day of October 7, 2023, when Hamas signed its proto-state up for collective suicide as a means to torture and kill thousands of Israelis. The Al Aqsa Flood was meant to drown the Jewish Nation, but instead it awakened it, lifting the eyes of many to new possibilities.
We celebrate Hanuka, year after year, and we usually talk about the glorious battles and the challenge of assimilation. This year let’s notice the eight nights of light are lighting the way backward to an erstwhile joyful autumn holiday, now in need of redemption from pain and loss. To redeem it, we will have to build an altar.
Jeremy England is a machine-learning researcher in the biotech industry in Israel. He is also a visiting professor of physics at Bar-Ilan University.