Thank you for this beautiful post!
Interesting that you mentioned Purim and Chanukah together! The local Chabad magazine had an article based on an address by the Lubavitcher Rebbe back in the '50s which discussed this relationship! I'm going to reproduce it for you below:
http://www.chabad.org/holidays/chanukah/article.asp?AID=102967
Oil permeates the entire substance of a thing
Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh De'ah 105:5
When wine enters, secret emerges
Talmud, Eruvin 65a
Oil is in. Oil shuns superficiality--you wont find it riding a fad or angling for a photo opportunity. When oil comes in contact with something, it saturates it to the core, permeating it in its entirety.
When set aglow, oil is the master of understatement. Soundlessly it burns--not for the oil lamp the vulgar cackling of firewood or even the faint sizzle of candlewax. Its light does not burst through the door and bulldoze the darkness away; instead, it gently coaxes the gloom to shimmer with a spiritual luminescence.
Wine is a tabloid reporter. Wine barges past the security guard of mind to loosen the lips, spill the guts and turn the heart inside out. Wine smears the most intimate secrets across the front pages of life.
Chanukah is oil, Purim is wine.
Chanukah is the triumph of the Jewish soul. The Greeks had no designs on the Jews body; it was the soul of Israel they coveted, seeking to indoctrinate her mind with their philosophy and tint her spirit with their culture. The Jew fought not for the freedom of his material self but to liberate his spiritual identity from Hellenist domination.
Haman and company did not bother with such subtleties. They had one simple goal: the physical destruction of every Jew on the face of the earth. Purim remembers the salvation of the Jews bodily existence.
Chanukah is commemorated with oil. Chanukah celebrates the innerness of the Jewish soul, the essence which permeates and sanctifies every nook and cranny of the Jews life. Chanukah celebrates the secret glow of the spirit, which, rather than confronting the darkness, infiltrates it and transforms it from within.
On Purim we pour out the wine. Purim is a noisy party, a showy parade, a costumed extravaganza. Purim celebrates the fact that the Jew is more than a soul--he is a body as well. Purim celebrates the fact that our Jewishness is not only an internal spirituality but also a palpable reality; that it not only permeates our beings from within, but also spills out into the externalities of our material lives.
Likkutei Sichot, vol. II, pp. 482-484
(ased on the teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe More articles... | RSS Listing of Newest Articles by this Author
By Yanki Tauber; based on the teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe.
Yanki Tauber; based on an address by the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Chanukah 1955 (Likkutei Sichot, vol. II, pp. 482-484).)
You might also find this of interest.
On Purim we pour out the wine. Purim is a noisy party, a showy parade, a costumed extravaganza. Purim celebrates the fact that the Jew is more than a soul--he is a body as well. Purim celebrates the fact that our Jewishness is not only an internal spirituality but also a palpable reality; that it not only permeates our beings from within, but also spills out into the externalities of our material lives.
Interestingly, in contemporary America the exact opposite is true; Chanukkah is the "noisiest" Jewish holiday (the only one many Americans have ever heard of) and Purim is not only invisible, but has actually been removed from the calendar by liberal Jewish "denominations." Could there be something sinister to this exact reversal?
There was some idiotic movie called The Hebrew Hammer on Comedy Central this morning, in which a Jew and a hip Black guy join together to stop the evil son of Santa Claus from "eradicating" Chanukkah (and I suppose "kwanzaa" as well). Why isn't there a movie about the evil son of St. Patrick (or perhaps Louis Armstrong when it falls in feb)trying to eradicate Purim? Liberal Jews have already eradicated it!!!
Of course Shavu`ot is the most ignored and "embarrassing" Jewish holiday, though Simchat Torah will always be my own personal favorite.