Hanukkah-The Ultimate Torah Challenge

Torah Living Daily Challenge Episode 32

No better time of the Torah Observant Believer in Y’shua Messiah’s calendar year better exemplifies challenge—that is the daily life of living Torah Y’shua-style that Hebrew Rooters face, than Hanukkah. As I’ve said on a number of occasions, although not one of the seven-mandated feasts of Yahovah, Hanukkah should hold a special meaning for the believer in Y’shua Messiah, as it contains within its history and foundation tremendous spiritual and life applications. Erroneously coined by secular and some rabbinic Jews as the Festival of Lights—due to the mythological story spun by the Jews of old about the lamp in the temple burning for eight-days on just a single day’s supply of oil-the true version of Hanukkah is more aptly coined the Feast of Dedication, or better, Feast of Re-dedication. A similar Feast that focuses our attention on dedication and seeking renewal and forgiveness and setting our purpose for each year would be Yom Kippur or the Day of Atonement. Atonement, the holiest day of the believer’s calendar year, certainly has hints of dedication and re-dedication written all through it by the hands of the Almighty, it tends more to turn our focus to the sin in our lives and of the world, and how the evil one will be bound and put away for a 1,000-years, as Y’shua sets up His millennial kingdom here on earth. But Hanukkah, although it focuses on sin to a certain degree, is more focused on a spirit and mindset of service and dedication to Yahovah, His Holy Temple. To the less-spiritual minded of us and to the Jewish mind, the dedication of the currently defunct Temple holds tremendous significance. However, to the Spirit-filled, Torah Observant Believer in Y’shua Messiah, this season—this eight-day festival, provides the opportunity to focus our minds and hearts on dedicating and re-dedicating the Temples that are our bodies—this temple that we reside in and that we’ve dedicated to the service and purpose of Yahovah. Rav (Apostle) Shaul (Paul) wrote to the Corinthian Assembly, “do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from Yahovah?” (1 Cor. 6:19) Again, in his same letter to the Corinthian Assembly he wrote: “Know you not that you are the temple of Yahovah, and that the Spirit of Yahovah dwells in you?” (1 Cor. 3:16) And then in his next letter to the same assembly in Corinth, he addressed the issue of idolatry in a believer’s life and the defilement of the temple which is our bodies: he wrote, “And what agreement has the temple of Yahovah with idols? For you are the temple of the living God; as Yahovah has said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” (2 Cor. 6:16)

Unfortunately, many of us fail to realize the significance of this truth that comes only via the revelation of the Holy Spirit. Solomon’s and Herod’s Temples in Jerusalem are gone and we can only presume that a third one will be built. But Father wants us to grasp the significance of the destruction of both these temples—the reasons for their destruction and where we go from the point of their destruction to where we are today in our relationship with the Creator of the Universe. Those Temples, once the center of worship for Israel and subsequently the Jew, focused our attentions on the Creator of the Universe. There is a nexus between the Believer of Y’shua Messiah and the Temples of our God.

It was to these sacred edifices that we journeyed three-times each year; that we sacrificed and celebrated before Yahovah; that our security and confidence rested; that our joy was founded upon. But we grew fat and stupid and callous in our minds and hearts and our attentions turned away from true worship of Yahovah—from true focus upon our God. We were so brazen in our being and behavior that we erected idols on the Temple grounds; we allowed dishonest commerce to take place; we abandoned true worship of the Most High and forsook His annual Feasts. Virtually every conceivable violation of Torah was committed either on the Temple Mount and or in the Temple proper. I would lovingly encourage you when you get the next opportunity to crack open the book of Ezekiel and read chapters 8 through 10. I posted a Torah Living Daily Challenge a few weeks ago that addressed this particular historic event and the spiritual significance to be gained from it. Bottom line saints, Father is very sensitive about sanctification and holiness, especially the lack thereof. He required that the place where He chose to put His name and His Spirit be sanctified and holy at all times—perpetually. Thus, when we grew spiritually dull and fat and went awhoring after idols and pagan gods and effectively defiled Yahovah’s dwelling place over and over again, He could no longer inhabit it and he left; and we’ve seen repeated twice in our history the outcome of Father’s protection and covering being removed from the Temple and the city of Jerusalem, resulting in the two Temples being effectively destroyed along with multitudes of our brothers and sisters murdered.

But with the destruction of the second Temple, Father has chosen to place His name and His Spirit within us, these human dwelling places—our bodies—our individual temples. It is indeed an amazing concept and truth that few of us are able and willing to grasp with any appreciable understanding and commitment. By commitment I mean just that: the Believer in Y’shua Messiah’s body has been identified as a temple of the Most High; yet we treat these temples no differently than we treated Solomon’s and Herod’s Temples. We defile our bodies with all sorts of evil and filth—most of us haven’t the slightest inkling that we are in fact defiling our bodies which translates in us defiling Yahovah’s dwelling place. Today, much of what we eat is not food. It is either manufactured foods—that is food that is made in laboratory kitchens and sold to us through various restaurants and grocery stores; or genetically modified foods, where a plant’s or animal’s genetic code has been tampered with for purposes of producing more of that food product or changing it in some way that makes for greater profit for the agricultural industry. And that which has not been altered by scientists in their labs that we’ve adopted as food, many of us compromise and violate Father’s Torah by consuming foods that Father has prohibited us from eating—pork, shell fish; animals and birds that are designed for purposes other than for purposes of being consumed.

And that’s just food. What about the things that we do to our bodies and minds and souls? Drug use/abuse; alcohol abuse; body mutilations such as piercings and tatoos; pornography; inappropriate television shows and movies and videos; inappropriate video games; inappropriate music and books; sex outside of marriage; harboring and taking on anger, hatred, envy, lusts, covetousness; the keeping and telling of lies; and I’m certain there are other things that we place onto and into these temples of Yahovah that effectively defile and make for edifices where Yahovah is not at all content to reside in.

So what does Hanukkah have to do with all this? Well, quite frankly, Hanukkah—the true story of Hanukkah that is—is about the restoration and re-dedication of the Temple after its defilement by Antiochus Epiphanes and his Greek armies. The story of Hanukkah is not just about the restoration and re-dedication of the Temple, however. It is also about the Jews residing in Judah during the Macabbean Revolt, who through the zealous leadership of the Maccabees, re-dedicated themselves to Torah living—effectively hitting the default bottom on their Faith and going back to the beginning and the purity of God’s Word and His Torah. It was returning the nation to its Hebrew Roots—undefiled by Hellenistic influences and assertiveness; back to the one true God—the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The true story of Hanukkah is not found in a centuries’ old fairy tale whereby a lamp vessel, holding just enough oil to light the interior of the Temple for a single day, but miraculously provided fuel enough to the lamp for the flame to burn 7 additional days. No—that’s not it at all. I remember believing that tale until I actually took the time to read the book of Maccabees and through Yahovah’s teachers learned that the whole oil and lamp story was just that: a story—a fairy tale. And why would men drum up such a tale and distract our attention away from the truths to be gained from the real Hanukkah story?

These temples of the Most High are to be holy and sanctified and pure for our heavenly Father to dwell in. The lives we live must not be compromised as well. Hanukkah is a prime time for us to re-dedicate our bodies, hearts, souls, minds and lives to Yahovah our God. Let us not squander this Feast—this Festival—this season on petty squabbles about the actual dates that Hanukkah fall upon this year; the gift giving; whether or not we should observe it because it is not one of the man-made Feasts of Yahovah or that it has been taken over by secular and rabbinic Judaism. The real spirit of Hanukkah is right there in front of us and provides us the opportunity to hit the default button on our Faith so that we may live for Yahovah with zeal and truth and grace.

Shalom and Happy Hanukkah saints. Until next time—may you be most blessed fellow saints in training.