The Hanukkah Story
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Hanukkah, the Jewish “Festival of Lights,” begins again tonight. Time to tell the Hanukkah story.
Imagine it’s around 165 BC, in the ancient land of Judea–and Judea is a pawn in a series of squabbles between Egypt and Syria. The Syrian king, Antiochus IV, is trying to control Judea by appointing the high priest of the Temple of Jerusalem. At first, he appoints a man named Jason, but later he switches to a rival named Menelaus (reportedly because Menelaus’s bribes are bigger than Jason’s).
When Jason musters troops and throws Menelaus out, Antiochus decides to put an end to Jerusalem’s fractious politics. Descended from one of Alexander the Great’s generals, Antiochus sends in his army and begins a campaign of persecution against the Jews. He goes so far as to set up an altar to Zeus inside the Temple of Jerusalem. It’s just too much for the Jews to take–so they fight back.
Hammer Time
The Jewish revolt is led by a priest named Mattathias and his sons, who take to the hills and embark on a three-year war against the Syrians. Soon Mattathias’s son Judas Maccabeus (a.k.a. “The Hammer”) takes command and repeatedly frustrates Syrian soldiers with guerrilla tactics.
Eventually, Judas chases the Syrians out of Jerusalem and sets about purifying the Temple. He dedicates a new altar and institutes a new holiday–Hanukkah (Hebrew for “dedication”), an annual eight-day celebration to commemorate the victory over the Syrians.
But if Judas originally intended Hanukkah as a sort of ancient Veterans Day, it quickly became the “Festival of Lights”–thanks to a miracle told in the Talmud. On first entering the Temple, the Talmud says, Judas found only enough ritually pure oil to burn for one day. Miraculously, that oil burned for eight days, until replacement oil arrived.
Light My Fire
Hanukkah now mainly commemorates God’s miracle, not Judas’s military victory. Not surprisingly, Hanukkah’s most important ritual activity involves lights. There’s a special menorah–the hanukkiya–for the occasion, with branches for eight candles (or pots of oil), plus a ninth, called the shammash (“servant”), in the middle.
At sunset on every night of Hanukkah, candles are placed in the hanukkiya from right to left, and then lit from left to right (one for each day, so that the lights grow with the holiday). The shammash is used to light the other candles.
It’s traditional to give gifts on Hanukkah, to inspire the gratitude that’s at the heart of the festivities. A special Hanukkah prayer thanks God for delivering “the strong into the hands of the weak, the many into the hands of the few, the impure into the hands of the pure, and the wicked into the hands of the righteous.”
