Today is the first day of Hanukkah, the Jewish festival of lights. And I want to tell the story of the festival, because of what it tells us about our post 11 September world.

Hanukkah happened some two centuries before the birth of Christianity. Israel was then under the rule of the empire of Alexander the Great. A ruler came to power - Antiochus IVth - who was determined to impose his values on the Jewish people. He forbade the public practice of Judaism, set up a statue of Zeus in the Temple, and systematically desecrated Jerusalem's holy sites. This was tyranny on a grand scale, and had he succeeded, not only would Judaism have died, but also there would have been no Christianity or Islam.

A small group of Jews rose in revolt, and astonishingly, in the space of three years, defeated the Greek army, restored religious liberty and reconsecrated the Temple. Hanukkah means "reconsecration."

Yet oddly enough, when we recall Hanukkah we tell a different, and apparently more minor story of how, searching through the wreckage of the Temple, Jews found a single cruse of oil still undefiled. With it they were able to relight the menorah, the Temple candelabrum; and the oil just kept on burning, which is why we still we light candles in our homes at this time of the year. The military victory was extraordinary; yet it didn't last. 230 years later, the Temple was destroyed, this time by the Romans. What lasted was the spiritual miracle, the faith which, like the oil, was inextinguishable.

This year's military campaign in Afghanistan has been a success. A tyrannical regime has been overthrown. It isn't over yet, but already many freedoms have been restored, even if at a heavy cost in human life. But what Hanukkah tells us is that it isn't always the big events that make a difference in the long run. It's sometimes the small miracle that endures.

It won't be a military victory that will change our world. Instead it will be whether we in the affluent West are willing to share some of our blessings with the three-quarters of humanity who today live in poverty, hunger and disease. They have so little; we have so much; and it doesn't take much rescue a life from despair. Military victories are temporary; it's the spiritual achievements that last. The real test of our age will be whether, for those who suffer in the dark places of the world, we can light a candle of hope.

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