We’ve talked about not finding Chanukah things for decorating, we’ve talked about the menorah app on my iPad, what we haven’t talked about is Chanukah.

Chanukah is the Jewish holiday known as “The a Festival Of Lights”. There is a lot of symbolism to the holiday and I would like to share it with you.

The story of Chanukah (some people spell it Hanukkah, you may be one of those and wonder why I spelled it differently, that’s just the way I learned to spell it as a kid and it stuck)

When the temple was destroyed and the Jews went in to rebuild they found enough oil to light the lamps for only one night and the oil lasted eight, that is why we celebrate for eight nights and we call it the “Festival of Light”. So, each night we light one candle progressively so that by the eighth night, we light all eight. We never light the candles directly, we light a shamas which we use to light the other candles after we say the prayer. Sometimes one person will say the blessing, sometimes the entire family and each person will light a candle each night.

There are things that are special to the holiday, such as certain foods; we eat things fried in oil, such as potato latkes or pancakes, there are jam filled donuts which are fried in oil.

We play games as in the dreidel game, you might know the song “Oh Dreidle, Dreidle, Dreidle, I made you out of clay and when you’re dry and ready, oh dreidel I shall play!” A dreidel is a type of top with four sides, each with a letter that indicates what to do in the game. Everyone starts off with some chocolate coins, or gelt, could play with peanuts or other candy, it’s all in good fun and depending on what the dreidel lands on, you put some in, get half, all or none. The letters spell out “Nes Gadol Haya Sham” which means “A great miracle happened here”.

From Wikipedia “The dreidel is believed to commemorate a game devised by the Jews to camouflage the fact that they were studying Torah, which was outlawed by Greeks. The Jews would gather in caves to study, posting a lookout to alert the group to the presence of Greek soldiers. If soldiers were spotted, the Jews would hide their scrolls and spin tops, so the Greeks thought they were gambling, not learning.”

Everything we do is a lesson to be learned and remembered.

I remember growing up and some of my friends being jealous because we got presents for eight nights, this is true, but it wasn’t something extravagant or huge or we got better presents, it was just that our presents were given and received over eight nights, they may have gotten the same amount, just all at once.

In my family we got smaller things and then we got one big present as a family, one year it was a Commodore 64, now I’m totally dating myself! And every year we went to see the Nutcracker Ballet at the City Company at Lincoln Center. My mom made the best potato latkes and my grandmother made the best applesauce.

We celebrated as a family, most times just the four of us, but others we had the opportunity and loved to share the experience with friends and family.

I have an amazing collection of menorahs and one day I will find the photos of all of them or I will just have to take new ones, but I do have to point out that most people don’t have a huge collection of menorahs, I have been lucky that people have been wonderful enough to give them to me as gifts, I bought a few, but the majority of my collection has come from friend and family.

I want to tell you that the most special menorah to me is the one that a dear friend of the family made. There is a black and white photo of it at my dad’s house, that my mom took that says it all for me. This is the menorah that my dad lights every year and I have attached a photo.

Thank you for letting me share this wonderful celebration with you.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanukkah