Chanukah is a time when light shines out from the darkness. On a practical level, we put the Chanukiyah in our windows to brighten the darkness of the night. But, there are much deeper secrets to what that represents.

The Midrash (Rabah on Bereishis) says that the second verse in the Torah, "VeHaretz Haysah Tohu VaVohu, VeChoshech Al Pnei Tehom…" : Tohu represents the Babylonian exile; VaVohu is the Median exile; VeChoshech represents the Greek exile, because they darkened the eyes of Israel with their decrees; and Tehom referres to the evildoers (who are referred to as "depths" because it seems like they will never end).

Rav Hutner (In Pachad Yitzchok) explains that what the Midrash means by saying, "the Greeks darkened the eyes of Israel," is that through their decrees against the learning of the oral law in particular, some of the Torah was forgotten. The first Torah dispute ever, was at the time of the Greeks (between Yose ben Yoezer and Yose ben Yochanan over Semicha on Yom Tov). It was the "darkening" of Yisrael's eyes that caused this dispute. In fact, all of the differing opinions that we have today over Halacha are a result of that initial darkness.

The obvious question is, if that was what the Greeks were trying to do, then what was the Jews victory? What are the Jews celebrating if they are still in the same darkness today? If anything, the darkness has only gotten worse! We still have innumerable disputes, and they continue to grow daily. How is Chanukah a victory?

To answer this question we are going to approach it from a different angle. It says in the Gemarah (Sanhedrin 98a) that Rav Yehoshua ben Levi found Eliyahu HaNavi standing at the opening of the cave of Rav Shimon bar Yochai. Rav Yehoshua asked him when the Mashiach was coming, and Eliyahu responded, "Go ask him yourself - he's sitting at the doorway of Edom, between all the poor who are suffering from wounds. You will know it is him because all the others untie and retie all their bandages at the same time, and he unties and reties them one at a time."

Rav Yehoshua met the Mashiach and asked when he was coming. The Mashiach answered, "Today."

Rav Yehoshua returned to Eliyahu and told him what happened. "He lied to me," said Rav Yehoshua, "He said he would come 'today' and has not."

Eliyahu responded that what the Mashiach had really said was, "Today… if you listen to His (G-d's) voice (Tehillim 95)."

The Maharal asks, what is the significance of the Mashiach having to be at the doorway of Edom? We have a certain concept in Judaism that the good always emerges specifically from the bad. It is exactly from the evil of the time that the redemption will come. When the Jews were slaves in Egypt, Pharaoh was the ultimate evil. It is no coincidence that Moshe, the Jews redeemer was raised in Pharaoh's house. It had to be that the redemption would come exactly from the problem. Ester was the redeemer of the Jews at the time Purim took place. She was married to Achashveirosh, and living in the palace where the evil decrees originated! So too, the Mashiach has to be in Edom, which is the source of our current exile.

The Gemarah (Eruvin 54) says that were it not for the destruction of the first tablets [containing the ten commandments], Torah would never have been forgotten from Yisrael. Rav Hutner views this as a positive development, based on the Gemarah (Shabbos 87a) which says that G-d told Moshe, "Good Job (Yashar Coach) breaking them." While these two Gemarah's may seem contradictory, Rav Hutner explains that they are actually complimentary. By the Jews being forced to forget Torah, it actually created more of it. The Greeks were trying to weaken the Jew by taking away his Torah; that is how they tried to darken our eyes. But, it was exactly through their decrees that Torah was increased in the world. Since the decrees caused the Jews to stop studying, some of the Torah was forgotten; but so much more Torah was created. There are numerous books being written each day for every situation that there is a doubt to in Halacha (Jewish Law). These books would never be written were it not for this doubt! It was due to the Greeks that we have all these doubts, and yet those doubts create more Torah! So we see that it was exactly the darkness that the Greeks tried to impose upon the Jews that was turned into light; the light of Torah.

So this is another aspect of what we mean when we say, "Chanukah is a time when light shines out from the darkness." It is the victory of Torah, the Jew's light that can shine out of anywhere, even when it is being attacked. The victory of the Jews wasn't over the darkness; the victory was that the darkness itself became our light. The wound itself became the redemption. Just like Moshe came from Pharaoh's house, and Ester from Achashveirosh's palace, the light emerged exactly from the place of darkness. Chanukah is the time when the light shines exactly out of the darkness.