Lighting Chanukah with Oil

The Chanukah miracle was oil. Not wax, not a candle, and not light in general. One sealed flask.

וּמָצְאוּ פַּךְ אֶחָד שֶׁל שֶׁמֶן שֶׁהָיָה מוּנָּח בְּחוֹתָמוֹ שֶׁל כֹּהֵן גָּדוֹל

They found one flask of oil lying sealed with the seal of the Kohen Gadol. Shabbat 21b

Enough for one day, and it burned eight. The detail the Gemara stops to record is the seal, which is to say the flask had been closed by someone and stayed closed through everything that happened in between.

Why olive oil is preferred

The halacha permits any oil and then names a favourite.

כָּל הַשְּׁמָנִים כְּשֵׁרִים לְנֵר חֲנֻכָּה וְשֶׁמֶן זֵית מִן הַמֻּבְחָר

All oils are fit for the Chanukah light, and olive oil is the choicest. Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim 673:1

Two reasons are usually given. The miracle itself was olive oil, and olive oil draws up a wick cleanly and gives a steady light instead of a smoking one. A wax candle gives light and ends as nothing. An oil lamp has a reservoir you filled on purpose.

Shemen and shmoneh

Oil and eight are written with the same letters, שֶׁמֶן and שְׁמוֹנֶה. Seven is the week, the count of nature finishing itself. Eight is the number that steps past it, which is the count this holiday runs on and the number of nights the flask held.

How long it has to burn

The requirement is that the light burn into the evening rather than be lit and gone, and the measure commonly given is at least half an hour after nightfall. Fill accordingly, and follow your own rav on the practice.

Lighting with oil

Glass cups with a float wick are the simplest arrangement. Set the cups in a straight line at an even height, pour enough oil for the half hour, and light from the shamash. Oil lights are lit the same order as any other Chanukah lights.

An eggshell works as well as a cup, which is its own argument: the thinnest wall there is, built to be broken from within, carrying a flame it does not consume.

The sealed flask

A flask that stayed sealed through a war, and oil that outlasted its own quantity, are the opening of a longer argument about oil having no upper limit. That argument is Kol Tehom, free to read in English and in Hebrew.

Oils for the eight nights

26 oilz carries twenty-six oils for the twenty-six of the Name. Carob oil suits the learning lamp. The gift set includes the egg-shaped diffuser.

All of it made in small batches in Israel and shipped from Petah Tikva.

Keep reading

• Pach Shemen  the flask that stayed sealed through a war
• Shemen  oil, a name and eight, inside three letters
• Why the Eggshell Holds the Flame  the thinnest wall there is, built to break from within

The map shows how all of it connects.