Some scholars suggest that the reason for an eight-day holiday was less to do with the story of a miracle than the fact that Hanukkah was modeled on Sukkot, which also featured King Solomon’s dedication of the First Temple, recorded in 1 Kings: 8.  The Maccabees could not observe Sukkot while they were fugitives in the mountains of Judea so they made Hanukkah a kind of recompense for the festival they missed.  And it, too, of course, included the (re)dedication of the Temple.

Chag sameach,

Rabbi Barbara