By Shaia Culligan
During December, there’s a lot of different holidays that people celebrate. Christmas is for people to celebrate the birth of Jesus. Kwanza is when people celebrate from December 26 to January 1 to appreciate African American culture. New Year’s Eve is the welcoming in the New Year, and people stay up till 12 A.M to have fun with friends and family. And then Hannukah, otherwise known as Chanukah, where people celebrate a miracle, but what is this miracle?
Kids.nationalgeographic.com explains that approximately 2000 years ago, Israel was under Syrian-Greek rule. The leader of Israel, King Antiochus, was against any Jews practicing their religion. King Anthious decided that people must worship Greek Gods instead. Of course, people refused to listen to this and chaos broke out. King Antiochus decided that his troops were to destroy the Temple of Israel for a second time.
This was not the first time the Temple was destroyed. bibleodyssey.org states that this temple was the Second Temple Of Israel, after it was dismantled in 586 B.C.E by Nebuchadnezzar, who was the King of Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar damaged their temple because the state Judah rebelled against Babylon, and decided to be loyal to Egypt instead.
The Temple held sacred things such as The Torah which teaches how to live life, stories, old paintings, and ritualistic things. All of this was taken apart in 70 C.E. People came back after fighting for three years to see everything gone. But one thing was left; a jar of oil, a jar of oil to light only one candle, for it to only last one day.
But that’s not what happened, the Talmud, which holds history, stories, and the law of Judaism, all based on the Torah, states that the candle lasted eight days. It was considered a miracle.
Now people celebrate this holiday every year. Usually Hanukkah is around late November to mid December. The date changes because Hanukkah falls on the 25th of Kislev on the Jewish Calender, which is a Lunisor calender and, “Follows the phases of the moon, and solar because the calendar’s 12 months follow the earth’s orbit around the sun,” a quote from familysearch.org. This calendar usually doesn’t line up with the Gregorian calendar a lot of the world uses.
Families light something called a “Menorah” or a “Hannukkiah” that holds eight candles, plus one helper candle, representing the eight days the candle stayed lit. Families will say a prayer, “Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the universe, who has sanctified us with His
commandments, and commanded us to kindle the Chanukah light”
Families will get together and eat food usually cooked in oil like latkes which are fried potato pancakes, sufganiyot, otherwise known as jelly donuts, brisket, challah and so much more. People will exchange gifts each night, have gelt, chocolate candy, and spend time with the people around them.
People celebrate so many different holidays around this time of year and it’s important that we recognize them and learn more about those holidays. Hanukkah has a long history to it, and even though it’s not as big of a holiday as Christmas, it still holds lots of important details about Jewish history and tradition.
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