Lighting Up the Darkness
What is Hanukkah and how is it celebrated? Check out this handy guide from Rabbi Rick Brody, Baskin Jewish Community Chaplain!
This week (through Monday, December 6), we’re celebrating Hanukkah. The festival commemorates a military victory in the Land of Israel in the year 165 BCE. Jewish revolutionaries, the Maccabees, toppled an occupying Syrian army and reclaimed the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, which had been defiled. After restoring the Temple for sacred Jewish use, they celebrated its rededication. The Hebrew word Hanukkah means dedication.
A major symbol of this rededication was the ritual oil lamps that illuminated the Temple. Later rabbis amplified this aspect of the story with a legend about a tiny amount of oil that burned miraculously for eight days.
Deeper Knowledge
Hanukkah is not “the Jewish Christmas”—which is especially clear this year, when the two holidays are almost a full month apart. The typical greeting, “Happy Hanukkah” is perfectly appropriate this week—during the holiday itself.
One noteworthy similarity with Christmas is that both celebrations come during the darkest time of the year—hence the shared emphasis on the role of light. In fact…
Another name for Hanukkah is the Festival of Lights.
The main ritual of the festival is the lighting, in people’s homes, of an eight-branched menorah (a special set of candles)—adding one candle each night to increase the overall amount of light and to celebrate the eight-day miracle of the oil.
Fried foods are traditionally served during Hanukkah, also recalling the sacred oil. Potato pancakes (latkes) and fried doughnuts (sufganiyot) are the most popular treats. Dreidel, a game of chance played with a special spinning top, is also a cherished holiday activity.
Inspiration
Hanukkah celebrates taking risks for Jewish survival—physical and cultural—despite the odds. Innovative Jewish educators took dreidel, a beloved European children’s game, and adapted it for Hanukkah—teaching that the toy’s letters spell out “a great miracle happened there!” Perhaps one of the true miracles of Hanukkah is in taking creative risks with our surroundings. With a small amount of oil defying its chances to endure, the real miracle might be the risk to light a candle at all rather than resigning to dark defeat. Dreidel itself is also about risk—each spin can move us closer to winning or losing. But we know for certain that unless we spin, victory is impossible.
The unknown darkness of risk can be a holy place. Let’s take bold chances this winter. May our brave spins add victorious, redemptive light to our world.
Happy Hanukkah!