By Rabbi Shlomo Riskin

Among the Jews who dared to light Chanukah candles in the Nazi concentration camps was a 12 year old boy in Auschwitz who was to become Bar Mitzvah during Chanukah.

It was impossible to have any Bar Mitzvah observance such as a Torah reading in the camp, so this boy resolved to prepare for his Bar Mitzvah by scrounging around for potato peels and crumbs which he fashioned into makeshift Chanukah candles. The boy wanted to mark his Bar Mitzvah by performing the Chanukah mitzvah.

But there was an unexpected inspection one night, and a Nazi guard ordered him to extinguish the candles.

The young boy looked up and quietly said, “Sir, we don’t extinguish light; we bring light to this dark world.”

Instead of shooting the boy on the spot, the guard turned around and walked away.

Those Chanukah lights in the dark pits of Auschwitz turned an anonymous child into a heroic figure. A young boy defied the German military with potato peels and crumbs!

My mentor Rabbi Moshe Besdin taught me that Chanukah actually celebrates anonymous unsung heroes who work quietly to bring light to this world.

The real Chanukah hero was the anonymous priest who originally took the time to hide the small cruse of pure oil, although it seemed futile at the time. What could one small cruse of oil accomplish? Was it worth the effort?

We certainly don’t deny Judah the Maccabee’s central role in standing up to the Greek-Syrians, or Matathias who raised a family with the backbone to rouse and rally the Jewish people. Nor do we overlook how Judith daringly approached general Holofernes and offered him hot milk and latkes until she could overpower him.

But the true hero of this festival was someone whose name was never even recorded.

When the Syrians invaded Jerusalem’s Temple to defile it with their idolatry, one priest quickly grabbed a small cruse of pure olive oil and hid it so well that it wasn’t found until the Maccabees returned to cleanse its impurities. The Greek-Syrian carnage was deliberate and thorough. It seemed that nothing was left intact, until the discovery and the miracle. The little cruse burned for eight days.

We certainly need the bravery of Judah the Maccabee and Judith. But without the faith of this unknown priest, Chanukah would be different. The physical victory represented by Judah Maccabee is supplemented by the spiritual victory represented by the light of Chanukah.

Judaism is obsessed with light. G-d’s very first utterance of creation was “Let there be light.” It is significant that we don’t celebrate our military victory over the Greek-Syrians with displays of armor and might, but rather with light that dispels the destructive forces of darkness, then and now.