HAPPY HANUKKAH | HAPPY CHANUKAH
Foundation for Pluralism | Pluralism Center
Festival are a collective celebration of an achievement in a given community. The Festival of Hanukkah celebrates the recovery and re-dedication of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem in 165 B.C.E. Hanukkah, (also Chanukah) is celebrated for eight days and nights. It starts on the 25th of the Jewish month of Kislev and each year the date differs due to the Lunar calendar. This year the festivities began with the lighting of Menorah on Saturday, December 8th and the celebrations will continue thru the 15th. Continued at - http://pluralismcenter.blogspot.com/2012/12/happy-hanukkah.html
Hanukkah means dedication, and
this holiday commemorated the re-dedication of the Temple in Jerusalem
following the Jewish victory over the Greek-Syrian army in 165 BCE.
Learning about each other
demystifies the myths about others and opens the doors of understanding. Indeed
the best way to create a cohesive meaningful society is to be part of the joy,
suffering and pain of the other. Our happiness hinges on the happiness of
others around us and it is in our interests to be a part of the whole.
On my part I am committed to writing, talking and speaking about the essence of
every possible festival that humans celebrate. I am pleased to share the
following from different sources as I have not completed my own writing. I
am blessed to have written about the essence of every major religious festival
of the world continuously in the last twenty years.
What I write is the essence of
the festival. This year, I found one of the best pieces written by Rabbi
Michael Lerner, who and I met in Melbourne some, Australia and have kept up
writing to each other since then.
Following is a compilation about Hanukkah.
Rabbi Michael Lerner wrote this week about Chanukah, describing it
as "the holiday celebrating the triumph of hope over fear, light
over darkness, the powerless over the powerful." He went on to say that Chanukah is about
"understanding that when we connect with the transformative power of the
universe, the Force of Healing and Transformation, YHVH, we become aware that
the powerless can become powerful, that oppression of any sort is in
contradiction to the fundamental nature of human beings as loving, kind,
generous, free, creative, intelligent, attuned to beauty, caring for and
needing each other beings created in the image of God. When that energy and
awareness permeates our consciousness, no ruling elite and no system of
exploitation can possibly last for very long."
The Hanukkah Story
Here is the story I
received in email. Author unknown.
In 168 B.C.E. the
Jewish Temple was seized by Syrian-Greek soldiers and dedicated to the worship
of the god Zeus. This upset the Jewish people, but many were afraid to fight
back for fear of reprisals. Then in 167 B.C.E. the Syrian-Greek emperor
Antiochus made the observance of Judaism an offense punishable by death. He
also ordered all Jews to worship Greek gods.
Jewish
resistance began in the village of Modiin, near Jerusalem. Greek soldiers
forcibly gathered the Jewish villages and told them to bow down to an idol,
then eat the flesh of a pig – both practices that are forbidden to Jews. A
Greek officer ordered Mattathias, a High Priest, to acquiesce to their demands,
but Mattathias refused. When another villager stepped forward and offered to cooperate
on Mattathias' behalf, the High Priest became outraged. He drew his sword and
killed the villager, then turned on the Greek officer and killed him too. His
five sons and the other villagers then attacked the remaining soldiers, killing
all of them.
Mattathias
and his family went into hiding in the mountains, where other Jews wishing to
fight against the Greeks joined them. Eventually they succeeded in retaking
their land from the Greeks. These rebels became known as the Maccabees, or
Hasmoneans.
Once
the Maccabees had regained control they returned to the Temple in Jerusalem. By
this time it had been spiritually defiled by being used for the worship of
foreign gods and also by practices such as sacrificing swine. Jewish troops
were determined to purify the Temple by burning ritual oil in the Temple’s
menorah for eight days. But to their dismay, they discovered that there was
only one day's worth of oil left in the Temple. They lit the menorah anyway and
to their surprise the small amount of oil lasted the full eight days.
This
is the miracle of the Hanukkah oil that is celebrated every year when Jews
light a special menorah known as a hanukkiyah for eight days. One candle is lit
on the first night of Hanukkah, two on the second, and so on, until eight
candles are lit.
Significance
of Hanukkah
According to Jewish law,
Hanukkah is one of the less important Jewish holidays. However, Hanukkah has
become much more popular in modern practice because of its proximity to
Christmas.
Hanukkah falls on the twenty-fifth
day of the Jewish month of Kislev. Since the Jewish calendar is lunar based,
every year the first day of Hanukkah falls on a different day – usually
sometime between late November and late December. Because many Jews live in
predominately Christian societies, over time Hanukkah has become much more
festive and Christmas-like. Jewish children receive gifts for Hanukkah – often
one gift for each of the eight nights of the holiday. Many parents hope that by
making Hanukkah extra special their children won't feel left out of all the
Christmas festivities going on around them.
Hanukkah
Traditions
Every community has its unique
Hanukkah traditions, but there are some traditions that are almost universally
practiced. They are: lighting the hanukkiyah,
spinning the dreidel
and eating
fried foods.
- Lighting the
hanukkiyah:
Every year it is customary to commemorate the miracle of the Hanukkah oil
by lighting candles on a hanukkiyah. The hanukkiyah is lit every night for
eight nights. Learn more about the hanukkiyah in: What Is a
Hanukkiyah? | How
to Light the Hanukkah Menorah | Hanukkah
Candle Lighting Blessings.
- Spinning the
dreidel:
A popular Hanukkah game is spinning the dreidel, which is a four-sided top
with Hebrew letters written on each side. Read The Hanukkah
Dreidel to learn more about the dreidel, the meaning of the letters
and how to play the game. Gelt, which are chocolate coins covered with tin
foil, are part of this game.
- Eating fried foods: Because Hanukkah
celebrates the miracle of oil, it is traditional to eat fried foods such
as latkes and sufganiyot during the holiday. Latkes are pancakes made out
of potatoes and onions, which are fried in oil and then served with
applesauce. Sufganiyot (singular: sufganiyah) are jelly-filled donuts that
are fried and sometimes dusted with confectioners’ sugar before eating.
Learn more about Hanukkah food
Happy Hannukah
Compiled by Mike Ghouse
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Mike Ghouse is a speaker, thinker and a
writer on pluralism, politics, peace, Islam, Israel, India, interfaith, and cohesion at work
place and standing up for
others as an activist. He is committed to building a Cohesive America and offers
pluralistic solutions on issues of the day at www.TheGhousediary.com. Mike has a
presence on national and local TV, Radio and Print Media. He is a frequent guest
on Sean Hannity
show on Fox TV, and a commentator on national radio networks, he contributes
weekly to the Texas Faith Column at Dallas Morning News, fortnightly
at Huffington post, and
several other periodicals across the world. His personal site www.MikeGhouse.net indexes everything you
want to know about him.
A plurality of Jews (44%) live in North America, while about four-in-ten (41%) live in the Middle East and North Africa – almost all of them in Israel.
