Hanukkah 101
What is Hanukkah?
Hanukkah, or the Festival of Rededication, celebrates the rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem after its defilement by the Syrian Greeks in 164 BCE.
Although it is a (relatively) late addition to the Jewish liturgical calendar, the eight-day festival of Hanukkah has become a beloved and joyous holiday.
It is also known as the Festival of Lights and usually takes place in December, at the time of year when the days are shortest in the northern hemisphere.
Why are there so many spellings?
In actuality, there is one correct way to spell the name of this holiday:
חֲנוּכָּה
The Hebrew spelling is inaccessible to many non-Hebrew-speaking Jews, as well as our non-Jewish neighbors. Like many other Hebrew words, it is transliterated (written out in letters from a different alphabet) so as to be easier to read.
There's no one correct way to transliterate a Hebrew word! People disagree about it, and that's okay. However you want to spell Hanukkah in English letters is probably completely fine!
Lighting the Candles
Central to the holiday is the lighting of the hanukkiah or menorah, an eight-branched "Hanukiah" (often mistaken as a menorah) to which one candle is added on each night of the holiday until it is ablaze with light on the eighth night
However, it was not a forgone conclusion that we would ADD a candle each night. In fact, some of the earliest rabbis had a big disagreement:
Shammai says: On the first day one lights eight and from then on one continues to decrease.
Hillel says: On the first day one lights one and from then on one continues to increase.
(Talmud Shabbat 21b)
The House of Hillel give the explanation that “One elevates in holiness and does not decrease it.” As usual, the House of Hillel’s method is the accepted one and to this day, we light an increasing number of candles each night.
Hanukkah Foods:
In commemoration of the legendary cruse of oil, it is traditional to eat foods fried in oil. The most familiar Hanukkah foods are the European (Ashkenazi) potato pancakes, or latkes, and the Israeli favorite, jelly donuts, or sufganiyot.
We’re not exactly sure what foods were traditionally made prior to the 14th century, when two types of Hanukkah foods emerged on the record, dairy foods and fried foods.
The Sephardic Jews made many variations of fried sweets for the holiday, while Ashkenazi Jews in Northern Europe made fried blintzes and donuts. Italian Jews in the 15th century made fried ricotta cheese pancakes (“cassola”) which were arguably the first “latkes.” Fried cheese commemorated the heroine Judith, who was central to Hanukkah celebrations during this time.
What's a Dreidel?
A dreidel is a spinning top, with four sides, each marked with a different Hebrew letter (nun, gimmel, hey and shin). The custom of playing dreidel on Hanukkah is based on a legend that, during the time of the Maccabees, when Jewish children were forbidden from studying Torah, they would defy the decree and study anyway. When a Greek official would come close they would put away their books and take out spinning tops, claiming they were just playing games.
The letters on the dreidel are the first letters in a Hebrew phrase that means “A Great Miracle Happened There” (“There” being the land of Israel). In Israel, the letter peh (for the Hebrew word po, meaning “here”) replaces the letter shin to spell out “A Great Miracle Happened Here.”
Hanukkah Presents
The tradition developed in Europe to give small amounts of money as well as nuts and raisins to children at this time.
American Jews used to exchange gifts only on Purim, but in the late 19th century there was a shift from Purim to Hanukkah. Christmas itself became magnified in the late 19th century when it became a national holiday in America. The Jewish custom shifted in imitation of Christmas, as the Christian holiday’s consumerism grew.
The practice of giving Hanukkah gifts is different from its precursor — Hanukkah gelt (Yiddish for money, though now usually used to mean chocolate coins): “Hanukkah gelt is an old custom, well attested in Europe. Gift giving, by contrast, is new.”
The precise origin of Hanukkah gelt is unclear. The most popular explanation is that coins became a symbol of the holiday because the ancient Jews’ ability to make their own coins was a symbol of the independence they gained in the battles that the festival of lights commemorates.
Hanukkah Themes
Like Passover, Hanukkah is a holiday that celebrates the liberation from oppression. It also provides a strong argument in favor of freedom of worship and religion. In spite of the human action that is commemorated, never far from the surface is the theology that the liberation was possible only thanks to the miraculous support of the Divine.
Hanukkah in Pop Culture:
Due to its proximity to Christmas, Hanukkah has become a much bigger holiday then Jewish Law mandates. As Christmas grew into the commercialized holiday we see today, American Jews embraced Hanukkah through pop culture. Here are a few examples:
