They shall take to you pure olive oil, crushed for lighting, to kindle the candle continually (Shemos 27:20)

As we all know, Chanuka is eight days and nights. The question is why. It is true that the oil burned for eight nights, but there was enough oil for one night. Therefore, the miracle was only seven nights. The question is asked, “why is Chanuka eight nights?” There is a sefer which has 100 answers to this question. My Rav shared with me one of the answers which I would like to share with you.

It is true that there was enough oil for one night, but there were still eight nights of miracles. Seven nights were because there did not seem to be enough oil for those nights. The eighth miracle, though, was the first night that the oil burned — it is a miracle that oil burns and we should celebrate this! Think about it, why does oil burn? It is a liquid and liquids do not keep fire going. My Rav actually once did an experiment. He filled up a menorah and in each cup he had a different liquid. He put in soda, vinegar, apple juice, etc. He also put in olive oil in one of them. The only one that lit and stayed lit was the olive oil (even Coca Cola didn’t keep the fire going although rumor says it has many uses). It is a miracle that olive oil keeps a flame going!!!! This is what we should celebrate.

Every Hebrew letter has a number associated with it; this is called Gematria. If you add up the numbers of one word and it equals the numbers of another word it means that the words are related. The Gematria of the Hebrew word for G-d (Elokim) is 86. The Gematria of the word for nature (HaTevah) is also 86. This is because nature is full of G-d. Miracles are all around us; our job is to see the things around us which we call nature which are really miraculous.

Good Shabbos!
-yes
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