The story of Chanukah took place in the year 3597 from creation. There is a tradition that for every year in history there is a corresponding verse in the Torah. If we go to the 3597th verse in the Torah we find the following. Vayikra (27:29) “Kol Cheirem Asher Yecheram Min Ho’Adam Lo Yipodeh Mos Yumos-None devoted of men which shall be doomed to death shall be redeemed but shall surely be put to death.” The subject is Erichin which loosely translated means values. If a person wishes to donate the value of someone to the Temple how much does he pay? It would seem that this verse has little to do with Chanukah? But if we look at the first reference to this miracle we find that in the second verse in the Torah it states (Bereishis 1:2) “V’hoaretz Hayisa Sohu V’vohu V’choshech al Pnei Sehom-The earth was in a state of confusion and there was darkness on the face of the abyss.” The darkness that this verse speaks of refers to the exile of Greece. It is called darkness because the Greeks wished to cut off any claim the Jewish people might have to spirituality. They believed in the wisdom of man. They even allowed the Jews to have Torah as long as it was not connected to a spiritual source.
This is exactly what the verse in Vayikra is speaking about. The Value that the verse refers to is not what that person would be worth if sold as a commodity. But rather what is the intrinsic value of a person’s soul. If a person has had a sentence of death decreed upon him, if he has become cut off from the living community, then his life has no value. This is the true message of Chanukah. The Greeks were not seeking to destroy the Jews physically. There lives were not at risk. How then could they risk their lives to go against the Greek empire? The answer is that without a connection to the spiritual world life has no value. This is why this verse comes out in the year of the miracle of Chanukah.
Interestingly if you take the second verse in the Torah that speaks of the four exiles you find that the numerical value of the entire verse is 3597. The exact year of the Chanukah miracle.
