The way in which it was celebrated Hanukkah at the time of the Second Temple of Jerusalem cannot be reconstructed from a “manual holiday classic. The key is to understand what is the Mishnah, how to organize the halachah and why Hanukkah is fragmented in the rabbinic literature early.
SEE THIS CLASS IN ENGLISH VIDEO
The Mishnah and the place of Hanukkah
The Mishnah, written in the time tanaítica and associated to Rabbi Yehuda hanassi, is not a historical chronicle or a liturgical calendar full. Its main objective is the codification of halachah, organized by broad subject areas: Zeraim, Moed, Nashim, Nezikín, Kodashim, and Tohorot.
Within the Order of Moed, the priority is clearly defined: Shabbat, the holidays biblical (Pesach, Shavuot, and Sukkot), Yom Kippur, and the legal structures of the calendar and the votes. Hanukkah, instead, is a celebration postbíblica, character rabbinical, centered in an act of domestic —the power of lights— and without a comprehensive system of prohibitions of melajá or a service sacrificial comparable to that of the feasts of the Temple.
This profile halachic explains why Hanukkah is not equipped with a treaty itself and why its regulation appears distributed.
TO SEE THIS KIND OF VIDEO IN ENGLISH
Where does it appear Hanukkah in the Mishnah
Far from being absent, Hanukkah is integrated in the places where it generates legal consequences concrete:
Calendar and announcement of the month
In Mishnah Rosh Hashanah 1:3, it is mentioned that the emissaries came out also in the month of Kislev, because Hanukkah. This shows that the festival had an impact on the public calendar and in the community coordination.
Public readings of the Torah
Mishnah Meguilá 3:6 includes Hanukkah among the occasions with special readings. The aspect sinagogal of the festival is regulated, consistently, in the treaty dedicated to the reading public.
Fasts and orders community
In Tractate ta'anit, Hanukkah is among the days in which no decree fasting or mourning public. It works as a placeholder legal days happy that limit community measures restrictive.
Damage and liability
Mishnah Bava Kama 6:6 presents the case of the fire that spread from a light of Hanukkah placed correctly. Here the power-up has implications on the law of damages, not the legislation festive classic.
Materials on
Mishnah Shabbat, chapter 2, regulates wicks and oils. Although not explicitly mentioned Hanukkah, provides the technical framework that the Gemara connects directly with the lights of Hanukkah. The central event of the festival is on, and Shabbat is the treaty that regulates fuel and light fixtures.
Together, the Mishnah incorporates Hanukkah there where it belongs: calendar, synagogue, public decrees, civil liability, and the technology of power.
The core halachic: Shabbat 21b
The heart policy of Hanukkah is found in the Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 21b. There is formulated in the famous question, “What's Hanukkah?” and offers a synthesis that links the festival with the miracle of the oil and the establishment of a day of praise and gratitude.
The passage develops central issues: the location of the lights, principles of pirsumei nisa (publicizing the miracle), safety considerations and adaptation in contexts of danger.
In this framework appears the famous debate between Beit Hillel and Beit Shamai on the number of lights: increase day-to-day or to decrease them. The halacha follows Beit Hillel, based on the principle of ma'alin bakódesh ve-ein moridín: in holiness rises and does not descend.
Well, Hanukkah presents a corpus relatively brief, but loaded with principles halájicos fundamental.
Why is there not a Treaty of Hanukkah?
The strongest explanation is editorial and halachic. Hanukkah does not generate a field normative large enough to justify a separate treaty. Legislation focuses on the power of lights, some markers community and some of the implications civilians, all of which can be integrated in existing treaties.
To this are added other factors: the weight of established custom, the existence of literature parallel as the Megillat ta'anit, and a possible prudence historical to avoid emphasizing narratives of rebellion in a context of roman domination. The result is not silence, but integration.
Conclusion
To say that “there is no treaty of Hanukkah” does not mean that the festival has been marginal. It means that the Mishnah chose not to create a block self-contained, incorporating Hanukkah in the points where it produced legal effects real. The Talmud, especially through Shabbat 21b, built from there the halachic practice and the religious meaning of the holiday.
Hanukkah, at the time of the Second Temple and rabbinic literature early, was a celebration of living, legally accurate and contextually, intense, although deliberately compact.
