She understands that Christians
celebrate Christmas and Jews celebrate Hanukkah, she regularly asks “is he/she
a Christmas or a Hanukkah?” Yesterday
she and I talked about Hanukkah and I said, “Jesus even celebrated Hanukkah.”
Well that brought about all kinds of confusion (who can blame her) and she
quickly responded with “but mom, Jesus is Christmas, it’s his Birthday!” So we talked a little bit about how Jesus was
Jewish. That idea is going to take her awhile to catch on to.
Anyway, back to my Hanukkah
lesson- I’ve been compiling information about different Jewish Holidays and
customs and how they are intertwined with my own Christian beliefs and
customs. I really knew very little about
what Hanukkah was, other than that we lit 8 candles because the oil in the
temple lasted 8 days. There is WAY more
to the story….so here is the cliffs notes (or 3 year old) version. (As with lots of things that happened
thousands of years ago, there are several versions of this story, I tried to
take the pieces that would make the most sense to Maggie and that were easiest
to understand and piece them together….so forgive me if this doesn’t go right
along with the story you were told as a child).
In about 165 B.C. , this time period technically falls between the writing of the old and new testaments of the bible, Israel was ruled by Antiochus, he wanted the Jews to quit worshiping God and start worshiping Greek Gods, he gave the Jews a hard time for several years and was a real jerk. At some point during his rule, he placed a statue of Zeus in the temple and he slaughtered a pig (thought of as REALLY unclean to the Jews) on the altar. There was a very devout Jewish family, with 5 sons, named the Maccabees. The Maccabee boys created their own army and went to defeat Antiochus and his army. The Maccabee army was successful at winning back the temple. Once they won, they spent 8 days scrubbing, cleaning and rededicating the temple. When they started cleaning the temple they could only find enough oil to burn the lamps while they worked for one day, and that little bit of oil lasted the entire 8 days they needed. In Hebrew the word Hanukkah means dedication. In John 10:22, Jesus is taking part in the Festival of Dedication, this festival later became known as Hanukkah. So really it’s more about the cleansing and rededication of the temple then the candles….but who wants to clean for 8 days???
Our observance of Hanukkah includes lighting the menorah and saying 2 blessings. Candles are added to the menorah from right to left, with an additional candle being added every day. Some might be confused because there are usually 9 candles in a Menorah, usually the center candle is the “helper” candle or the candle used to light all the others. In our house we blow out the helper candle every night and reuse it the next, then on the last night of Hanukkah we let it burn all the way out with the other 8 candles.
We recite both of the blessings
below. In our house we recite them in
Hebrew, (yes, I do know at least that much Hebrew), though this year I think we
will do them in both Hebrew and English because Maggie won’t understand the
Hebrew. Maybe next year she’ll be old
enough to start learning them.
Blessing 1
Blessed are You, Lord our God, Ruler of the universe, who has sanctified us with Your commandments, and has commanded us to kindle the lights of Hanukkah.
Blessed are You, Lord our God, Ruler of the universe, who has sanctified us with Your commandments, and has commanded us to kindle the lights of Hanukkah.
Blessing
2
Blessed are you, Lord our God, Ruler of the universe, who wrought miracles for our fathers in days of old, at this season.
Blessed are you, Lord our God, Ruler of the universe, who wrought miracles for our fathers in days of old, at this season.
Some other
notes about Hanukkah-
·
Gift-giving
was not historically a traditional part of the holiday, but has been added in
places where Jews have a lot of contact with Christians. The only traditional
gift of the holiday is "gelt," small amounts of money. (Sometimes given to children in the form of
chocolate coins….that’s why there are so many more chocolate coins available in
stores this time of year.)
·
When we have
our annual Hanukkah dinner with Dick and Betti, we always have latkas, they’re
basically fired hashbrown cakes. Based
on what I can figure out, I think latkas became a traditional Hanukkah food
because of the significance of oil to the holiday and of course oil is used to
fry the latkas…..I could be wrong here, and I have NO idea where the tradition
of putting either applesauce or sour cream on the latkas comes from.
·
Another
tradition of the holiday is playing dreidel, a gambling game played with a
square top. Most people play for matchsticks, pennies, M&Ms or chocolate
coins. 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
gist is everyone puts in one coin. A person spins the dreidel. If it lands on
Nun, nothing happens; on Gimel, 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 one person has everything.
We
wish all of our family a very Happy Hanukkah!
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