OU TORAH YU TORAH NAALEH.COM Final Flames By Shira Smiles

Adapted by Channie Koplowitz Stein We tend to think of our holidays as commemorating events in our history, but our Sages tell us that the Torah with all its precepts existed before the world was created, and all the holidays and mitzvoth were in place before the Jews were commanded at Sinai. Hashem then created historical events so that man could perhaps form a closer connection to the holidays and to the mitzvoth. As such, Chanukah and all that it represents predated the era of the Greeks and the battle the Chashmonaim fought against them. If that is the case, we must find allusions to Chanukah in the Torah.