Thursday Thirteen - Hannukah

In honor of the Jewish holiday of Hannukah, the Festival of Lights, which begins Tuesday night (most of the explanations are taken from Judaism 101 to save me writing everything out all over again - yup, I'm informative but inherently lazy). Follow the links for more information.):

1. This year, Hannukah begins at sundown on December 4th. It ends at sundown on December 12th.

2. The word Hannukah is transliterated from Hebrew, so you may see (or hear*) it spelled many different ways: Hannukah, Hanukkah, Chanukah, Hanukah...

3. The Hannukah Story

The story of Chanukkah begins in the reign of Alexander the Great. Alexander conquered Syria, Egypt and Palestine, but allowed the lands under his control to continue observing their own religions and retain a certain degree of autonomy. Under this relatively benevolent rule, many Jews assimilated much of Hellenistic culture, adopting the language, the customs and the dress of the Greeks, in much the same way that Jews in America today blend into the secular American society.

4. More than a century later, a successor of Alexander, Antiochus IV was in control of the region. He began to oppress the Jews severely, placing a Hellenistic priest in the

Temple, massacring Jews, prohibiting the practice of the Jewish religion, and desecrating the Temple by requiring the sacrifice of pigs (a non-kosher animal) on the altar. Two groups opposed Antiochus: a nationalist group known as the Maccabees led by Mattathias the Hasmonean and his son Judah Maccabee, and a religious traditionalist group known as the Chasidim, the forerunners of the Pharisees (no direct connection to the modern movement known as Chasidism). They joined forces in a revolt against both the assimilation of the Hellenistic Jews and oppression by the Seleucid Greek government. The revolution succeeded and the Temple was rededicated.

5. According to tradition as recorded in the Talmud, at the time of the rededication, there was very little oil left that had not been defiled by the Greeks. Oil was needed for the menorah (candelabrum) in the Temple, which was supposed to burn throughout the night every night. There was only enough oil to burn for one day, yet miraculously, it burned for eight days, the time needed to prepare a fresh supply of oil for the menorah. An eight day festival was declared to commemorate this miracle. Note that the holiday commemorates the miracle of the oil, not the military victory: Jews do not glorify war.

6. The Maccabees came from the Modiin area, just about 20 minutes from where I live. Today, Modiin is a bustling city and home to a number of my good friends.

7. The Hannukah Menorah: The only religious observance related to the holiday is the lighting of candles. The candles are arranged in a candelabrum called a menorah (or hanukkiah in Hebrew) that holds nine candles: one for each night, plus a shammash (servant) at a different height. On the first night, one candle is placed at the far right. The shammash candle is lit and three brachot (blessings) are recited: l'hadlik neir (a general prayer over candles), she-asah nisim (a prayer thanking G-d for performing miracles for our ancestors at this time), and she-hekhianu (a general prayer thanking G-d for allowing us to reach this time of year). After reciting the blessings, the first candle is then lit using the shammash candle, and the shammash candle is placed in its holder. The candles are allowed to burn out on their own after a minimum of half an hour. In many families each child has their own menorah. Here are the ones we used last year - my kids each made their own (and then the school sent home more, we were inundated). The ceramic one belongs to Jay and I. It comes from a pottery collective in Old Jaffa and was a gift from my late mother-in-law the last time she visited Israel. (The weeds flowers in the plastic orange mug were picked by my daughter Maya from the bush downstairs. She LOVES bringing home flowers from that bush. They have no connection whatsoever to the holiday, other than the fact that they bloom in the winter. I just threw that in for extra color.)

8. Each night, another candle is added from right to left (like the Hebrew language). Candles are lit from left to right (because you pay honor to the newer thing first). On the eighth night, all nine candles (the 8 Hanukkah candles and the shammus) are lit. On nights after the first, only the first two blessings are recited; the third blessing is only recited on the first night of holidays.

9. Why the shammash candle? The Hanukkah candles are for pleasure only; we are not allowed to use them for any productive purpose. We keep an extra one around (the shammash), so that if we need to do something useful with a candle, we don't accidentally use the Chanukkah candles. The shammash candle is at a different height so that it is easily identified as the shammash.

10. Hannukah is actually a fairly minor Jewish holiday. It's only become so well known in the West due to its proximity to Christmas. Here in Israel, the gift giving often doesn't go beyond some Hannukah gelt (chocolate coins) or perhaps a few real coins. More serious gift giving is usually kept for Passover.

11. My kids still get a fair amount of loot for the holiday because their relatives send it to them, and because their mom (that would be me) can't get her head around the idea of gifts at Passover instead. We do try to keep things pretty low-key even so. I grew up with the idea of a gift each night (especially for younger children) and really enjoy doing that for my own kids, but the gift is often something quite small, a book, or perhaps a craft to do together. A larger gift is only given the first night and perhaps once after that if the grandparents have gotten involved.

12. It is traditional to play dreidel, a gambling game played with a square top, on the holiday. Most people play for things like pennies, M&Ms or gelt (Las Vegas this is not). The traditional explanation of this game is that during the time of Antiochus' oppression, those who wanted to study Torah (an illegal activity) would conceal their activity by playing gambling games with a top (a common and legal activity) whenever an official or inspector was within sight.

A dreidel is marked with four Hebrew letters: Nun, Gimel, Hei and Shin. These letters stand for the Hebrew phrase "Nes Gadol Hayah Sham", a great miracle happened there, referring to the miracle of the oil.

The letters also stand for the Yiddish words nit (nothing), gantz (all), halb (half) and shtell (put), which are the rules of the game! There are some variations in the way people play the game, but the way I learned it, everyone puts in one coin. A person spins the dreidel. If it lands on Nun, nothing happens; on Gimel (or, as we called it as kids, "gimme!"), you get the whole pot; on Hei, you get half of the pot; and on Shin, you put one in. When the pot is empty, everybody puts one in. Keep playing until your parent is bored stiff one person has everything. You can play a virtual dreidel game here.

13. It's traditional to eat foods fried in oil for Hannukah, since oil is such a significant part of the holiday. Among Ashkenazi (Jews of Eastern European origin), a favorite holiday food is latkes, or potato pancakes. In Israel, the most popular holiday treat is sufganiyot - jelly doughnuts (5 minutes in your mouth, 12 hours in your stomach...).

* I snagged the video from Ima Bimah. Thanks Phyllis *smooch*. If you're looking for some more Hannukah fun check out the Chanukah Countdown party she's got running on her blog this week.(Of course she spells Hannukah wrong differently, but we won't hold that against her, right?)