Hanukkah

I would be remiss in doing this calendar if I didn’t give Hanukkah its own entry. I grew up celebrating Christmas, but I was always curious about the Jewish holiday that many of my friends celebrated. As most people reading this will know, Hanukkah is the Festival of Lights, commemorating the rededication of the Second Temple in Jerusalem. There was only enough olive oil remaining to light the menorah for one day. But instead, the fire burned for eight days, long enough for more oil to be prepared.

I won’t presume to write about the details of the celebration and the lighting of the candle since many people reading this know it far better than I do, but I do enjoy the ritual of the lighting of candles and am looking forward to having it happen in my home this year for the first time.

I was a bit enamored with Hanukkah when I was a child. Despite the fact that we had our own Christmas rituals, and that the whole season leading up to Christmas seemed part of the holiday, the prospect of eight days and nights of a holiday seemed to trump our one day. The idea of the family coming together around the menorah every night also seemed desirable. It was something a bit wonderful and mysterious, as if it lay beyond a door and I could only catch glimpses through the keyhole.

Of course there were dreidels. I amassed quite a few when I was younger, though I never really learned how to play the game. I particularly remember a small, blue plastic one which was special in the way that small objects can be to a young child. I was fascinated with what it meant, the symbols on the sides. I suppose I could have asked – maybe I did – but it wasn’t anything that was ever explained to my satisfaction. Which was okay. Wikipedia tells me that the letters are an acronym for “A great miracle happened here.”

Incidentally, Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion gave Harry Truman a Hanukkah Menorah in 1951, though it appears to have gone unused. In 1979, Jimmy Carter took part in a candle-lighting ceremony on the National Mall. The first candle lighting ceremony in the White House itself occurred courtesy of Bill Clinton. And it was actually George W. Bush who began the annual ceremony of an official Hanukkah reception in the White House with a candle-lighting ceremony.

I wish all of those out there celebrating Hanukkah a wonderful and wondrous holiday and I hope that your candles burn bright for as long as possible.

As long as Hanukkah is studied and remembered, Jews will not surrender to the night. The proper response, as Hanukkah teaches, is not to curse the darkness but to light a candle.