The Miracle of Hanukkah

It’s December, the holiday season. Of course, that means Christmas and, for some of us, Hanukkah. Hanukkah is not a major Jewish holiday. It is not mentioned in the Torah, as the major holidays are, because the Torah was completed well before the events of Hanukkah took place. However, these days, this minor holiday has become a kind of major one, and that’s most likely due to its temporal proximity to Christmas. So, let’s pause a moment and explore this holiday.

Hanukkah commemorates the miraculous rededication of the Jewish Second Temple in Jerusalem after it was desecrated by the Hellenistic pagan Seleucid Empire rulers who tried to restrict Jewish observances. After three years of struggles, the Jewish resistance fighters, the Maccabees, finally in 165 BCE reclaimed the Temple, the center of Jewish observance. A small vial of oil was found, and it was enough to light the Temple’s light for a day of dedication, but the oil lasted eight days. That’s the miracle.

So, Hanukkah is celebrated for eight days beginning on the 25th day of the month of Kislev, according to the Hebrew lunar calendar. That varies from year to year in the corresponding Gregorian calendar, so Hanukkah may take place in late November or December. This year, Hanukkah begins the evening of Dec. 25, 2024 (how’s that for timing?) and lasts until the evening of Jan. 2, 2025.

OK, so let’s spend a moment exploring the important question: “How do you spell Hanukkah?” Is it Chanukah, Hannukah, or Chanuka? The answer is that you can spell it any way you like as it is a transliteration of a word written in the Hebrew alphabet that means dedication. If you were so inclined, I suppose you could spell the holiday Hanooquah. 

And what is the menorah thing? It has nine places for a candle, but if there are eight days of the holiday, then why a place for nine candles? Look at a menorah for Hanukkah (called a hanukkiah), and you will notice that one candle is higher than or separate from the others. The shamash (literally meaning “helper”) is the candle used to light the other candles of the menorah. The prayers recited upon the lighting of the menorah include the idea that candles are only to celebrate the holiday; they must not be used for other functions such as light for reading. The shamash is not a sacred candle, so if you happen to read by the light of the hanukkiah, well…you can say you are only reading by the light of the shamash. I know. That’s not important these days unless we have a CenterPoint power outage, but it used to be. 

Gifts at Hanukkah time are a relatively new custom, mostly in America, and we do exchange plenty of gifts. This certainly borrows from the tradition of gift-giving at Christmas. The custom at Hanukkah used to be simply a gift of gelt to children in the family. When I was a child, my father would give each of us sons a crisp new dollar bill, and Uncle Harry would present us with a shiny silver dollar. Now there is gelt in the form of chocolate candy wrapped in gold or silver foil to look like a large coin. I miss the real silver dollars, but I cannot recall seeing a real silver dollar for a very long time. Oh, in case you are interested, gelt in Yiddish (geld in German) means “money.”

We celebrate Hanukkah by lighting candles each night – one light the first night, ending in eight lights the last night. Each night, you also burn a shamash candle. You can count them up if you like, but I will save you the trouble. It takes 44 candles to properly celebrate Hanukkah. So, Hanukkah is also called the Festival of Lights. 

You may have seen little Hanukkah tops called dreidels. They are descendants of a European gambling game played with a top called a teetotum. The dreidel has four sides, each with a Hebrew letter. The letters stand for the Hebrew words nes gadol haya sham (a great miracle happened there). The game is played by gambling with pennies, pieces of candy, gelt, or anything else. You spin the top and follow the action indicated by the letter that shows up when the dreidel stops spinning. You either do nothing (nes), take the entire pot (gadol), take half the pot (haya), or put one piece of whatever token in the pot (sham). My Bellaire neighbors, brothers Will, Max, and Gus Goldfarb, spotted some dreidels I had out and immediately started playing together joyfully. It’s a simple but enjoyable game. 

Sure, dreidels are especially fun for children, but all ages can enjoy Hanukkah food. The tradition is to consume food prepared in oil. We make potato pancakes called latkes, and these are fried in oil. They are great with applesauce or sour cream. Donuts, of course prepared by frying, are filled with jelly and called sufganiyot. They are popular in Israel and catching on here, too. How did oil in a holy lamp in 165 BCE end up in our stomachs two millennia later? Don’t ask. And while you’re thinking about it, why don’t we just eat French fries? I don’t know. 

Hanukkah is a nice holiday, especially if you are a kid. Who complains about presents or chocolate candy or fried foods? No, we don’t get a pine tree decorated with cute things hanging from the branches. We don’t string lights on our houses and trees. We don’t have a jolly guy who slides down our chimney (if we have a chimney) and leave presents in stockings. We don’t have innumerable carols to sing. But we enjoy our holiday, and…we can spell Hanukkah so many more ways that you can spell Christmas. 

Happy Holidays to us all.