Originally published in The Chattanooga Times Free Press
A friend who runs local programs for seniors asked me about Hanukkah. She knew that the Jewish holiday was coming before Christmas, but wasn’t sure when. The first of 8 nights of Hanukkah begins at sundown on Sunday, December 14. The date often differs according to our calendar, but remains constant on the Jewish calendar as the 25th of the month of Kislev.
Next, she wanted to know how we celebrate the holiday saying that she only knew about playing games with a spinning top called a dreidel. Yes, great fun! But let’s start with the ceremony of candle lighting which helps explain why Hanukkah is called the Festival of Lights. It’s time to clear space on the dining room table for my menorah, a multi-candle stick holder with a candle for each of the 8 nights plus an extra candle to use for lighting the others. My mom bought the menorah when we first came to America from Bermuda more than a half century ago. Back then, there was no place on the island to buy one. So I truly treasure it and still sing this song from those early days, “O Hannukah, O Hannukah, come light the menorah…One for each night, they shed a sweet light. To remind us of days long ago.”
Those days long ago refer to more than 2,000 years ago when Jewish freedom fighters rebelled against the Israel occupiers who made being Jewish illegal and converted Jerusalem’s Holy Temple into a place of idol worship. Reclaiming the Temple in 164 BCE meant lighting the oil of the Eternal Light, a continuous divine light tradition that exists even in synagogues today, although no longer fueled by oil. Back then, there was only one night’s worth of oil available and it would take 8 days/nights to make more. The miracle of Hanukkah is that the oil and its light lasted for all 8 nights until more oil was made. Our lighting the menorah’s candles for each night celebrates the miracle. That’s why the dreidel’s 4 sides each have symbols for these Hebrew words: Nun, Gimel, Hey, Shin that stand for the Hebrew phrase: “A great miracle happened there”.
Keep in mind that while there has been a small presence of Jews in Israel over the centuries, Jews were banned from returning to the Promised Land during medieval times. Jew hatred meant expulsions from England, France and Spain along with ghettoization, massacres, and convert-or-leave laws in Europe’s Christian nations. The mass murders of 6 million Jews during the Holocaust was so stunning that it led to the 1948 establishment of the modern state of Israel where Jews supposedly could return and finally be safe.
When I visited Jerusalem 2 decades ago, the tunnels under the Temple Mount were opened to the public for the first time. I and my fellow mission travelers went through them, intensely curious. Lagging behind the group, I stood on a glass screen looking down at centuries of layers of Jerusalem, forgetting everything else around me.
When I finally looked up, I was alone in the dark, my group had passed far ahead of me and I was alone, and lost. Panic! But suddenly a light came out of the nearby wall and a stranger appeared to come out of the wall. Signaling me to follow, he led me through the tunnel to my group. When I turned to thank him, he disappeared. I will never forget him, or the light that brought him. Lighting the Hanukkah menorah is now a more personal experience than ever. I’m forever grateful for the Eternal Light and its miracle!
Photo by Robert Thiemann on Unsplash
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