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Chanukah Chanukah celebrates the military victory of the Maccabees over the forces of Antiochus in Judea, and two miracles of the oil in the Temple in Jerusalem. After their victory, the Maccabees reconsecrated the Temple. Miraculously, they found one vial of undefiled oil, but that was enough to keep the Eternal Flame burning for only one day. It would take eight days to prepare new oil, for the oil permitted in the Temple was specifically ~ and only ~ the first drop of oil from each olive. Again a miracle occurred, and the one vial of oil lasted for the full eight days. The eight candles of the Chanukah menorah symbolize those eight days. The ninth candle is the shamash, or helper, used to light the other candles. The shamash is necessary because the Chanukah lights are not to be used for any normal household needs, including the lighting of another candle! The candles in the menorah are added from right to left but are lit from left to right. How did the dreidel come to be associated with Chanukah? Antiochus refused to allow Jews to study Torah, so scholars would keep a dreidel close by. When the king's soldiers spied on them, they would hide the Torah and pull out the dreidel, and appear to be playing a harmless game. The four Hebrew letters on the sides of the dreidel ~ Nun, Gimel, He, and Shin ~ represent the words Nes Gadol Haya Sham, "a great miracle happened there", except in Israel, where the letters abbreviate "a great miracle happened HERE". On Chanukah, we eat foods fried in oil, such as latkes. |
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