With regard to the dates of these festivals, the Sages taught: When Adam the first man saw that the day was progressively diminishing, as the days become shorter from the autumnal equinox until the winter solstice, he did not yet know that this is a normal phenomenon, and therefore he said: Woe is me; perhaps because I sinned the world is becoming dark around me and will ultimately return to the primordial state of chaos and disorder. And this is the death that was sentenced upon me from Heaven, as it is written: “And to dust shall you return” (Genesis 3:19). He arose and spent eight days in fasting and in prayer. Once he saw that the season of Tevet, i.e., the winter solstice, had arrived, and saw that the day was progressively lengthening after the solstice, he said: Clearly, the days become shorter and then longer, and this is the order of the world. He went and observed a festival for eight days. Upon the next year, he observed both these eight days on which he had fasted on the previous year, and these eight days of his celebration, as days of festivities. He, Adam, established these festivals for the sake of Heaven, but they, the gentiles of later generations, established them for the sake of idol worship.
1. This festival that Adam celebrated contains many similarities to the pagan Roman holidays of Calenda and Saturnalia. What does this tell us about the last line - that the gentiles "established them [the festivals] for the sake of idol worship"?
2. Adam fasted as the days grew shorter leading up to the winter solstice. Are we losing something by only celebrating and not having somber moments during Hannukah?
3. How does this story effect our thinking about how we celebrate Hannukah? How we relate to the seasonally proximate holidays of other religions?