Hanukkah

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Hanukkah

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For other uses, see Hanukkah (disambiguation).

HanukkahOfficial nameObserved byTypeSignificanceCelebrationsBeginsEndsDate2021 date2022 date2023 date2024 dateRelated to

Dreidels, hanukkiah, and sufganiyot

Hebrew: חֲנֻכָּה or חֲנוּכָּה
English translation: 'Establishing' or 'Dedication' (of the Temple in Jerusalem)

Jews

Jewish

The Maccabees successfully revolted against Antiochus IV Epiphanes. According to the Talmud, the Temple was purified and the wicks of the menorah miraculously burned for eight days, even though there was only enough sacred oil for one day's lighting.

Lighting candles each night. Singing special songs, such as Ma'oz Tzur. Reciting the Hallel prayer. Eating foods fried in oil, such as latkes and sufganiyot, and dairy foods. Playing the dreidel game, and giving Hanukkah gelt

25 Kislev

2 Tevet or 3 Tevet

25 Kislev, 26 Kislev, 27 Kislev, 28 Kislev, 29 Kislev, 30 Kislev, 1 Tevet, 2 Tevet, 3 Tevet

Sunset, 28 November –
nightfall, 6 December[1]

Sunset, 18 December –
nightfall, 26 December[1]

Sunset, 7 December –
nightfall, 15 December[1]

Sunset, 25 December –
nightfall, 2 January[1]

Purim, as a rabbinically decreed holiday.

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1 Maccabees

Hanukkah table

Hanukkah[a] (/ˈhɑːnəkə/; Hebrew: חֲנֻכָּה‎, Modern: Ḥanukka, Tiberian: Ḥănukkā 

listen) is a Jewish festival commemorating the recovery of Jerusalem and subsequent rededication of the Second Temple at the beginning of the Maccabean Revolt against the Seleucid Empire in the 2nd century BCE.[3][4]

Hanukkah is observed for eight nights and days, starting on the 25th day of Kislev according to the Hebrew calendar, which may occur at any time from late November to late December in the Gregorian calendar. The festival is observed by lighting the candles of a candelabrum with nine branches, commonly called a menorah or hanukkiah. One branch is typically placed above or below the others and its candle is used to light the other eight candles. This unique candle is called the shammash (Hebrew: שַׁמָּשׁ, "attendant"). Each night, one additional candle is lit by the shammash until all eight candles are lit together on the final night of the festival.[5] Other Hanukkah festivities include singing Hanukkah songs, playing the game of dreidel and eating oil-based foods, such as latkes and sufganiyot, and dairy foods. Since the 1970s, the worldwide Chabad Hasidic movement has initiated public menorah lightings in open public places in many countries.[6]

Originally instituted as a feast "in the manner of Sukkot (Booths)", it does not come with the corresponding obligations, and is therefore a relatively minor holiday in strictly religious terms. Nevertheless, Hanukkah has attained major cultural significance in North America and elsewhere, especially among secular Jews, due to often occurring around the same time as Christmas during the holiday season.[7]

Contents

• 1Etymology
  • 1.1Alternative spellings
  • 1.2Festival of Lights
• 2Historical sources
  • 2.1Books of Maccabees
  • 2.2Early rabbinic sources
  • 2.3Narrative of Josephus
  • 2.4Other ancient sources
• 3Story
  • 3.1Background
  • 3.2Traditional view
  • 3.3Academic sources
  • 3.4Timeline
  • 3.5Battles of the Maccabean Revolt
  • 3.6Characters and heroes
• 4Rituals
  • 4.1Kindling the Hanukkah lights
  • 4.2Candle-lighting time
  • 4.3Blessings over the candles
    • 4.3.1Blessing for lighting the candles
    • 4.3.2Blessing for the miracles of Hanukkah
    • 4.3.3Hanerot Halalu
  • 4.4Maoz Tzur
  • 4.5Other customs
  • 4.6Special additions to daily prayers
  • 4.7Zot Hanukkah
  • 4.8Other related laws and customs
  • 4.9Hanukkah as the end of the High Holy Days
• 5Customs
  • 5.1Music
  • 5.2Foods
  • 5.3Dreidel
  • 5.4Hanukkah gelt
  • 5.5Hanukkah in the White House
• 6Dates
• 7Symbolic importance
  • 7.1Relationship to Christmas
• 8See also
• 9Footnotes
• 10References
• 11Further reading
• 12External links

Etymology[edit]

The name "Hanukkah" derives from the Hebrew verb "חנך", meaning "to dedicate". On Hanukkah, the Maccabean Jews regained control of Jerusalem and rededicated the Temple.[8][9]

Many homiletical explanations have been given for the name:[10]

• The name can be broken down into חנו כ״ה, "[they] rested [on the] twenty-fifth", referring to the fact that the Jews ceased fighting on the 25th day of Kislev, the day on which the holiday begins.[11]
• חינוך Chinuch, from the same root, is the name for Jewish education, emphasizing ethical training and discipline.
• חנוכה (Hanukkah) is also the Hebrew acronym for ח נרות והלכה כבית הלל – "Eight candles, and the halakha is like the House of Hillel". This is a reference to the disagreement between two rabbinical schools of thought – the House of Hillel and the House of Shammai – on the proper order in which to light the Hanukkah flames. Shammai opined that eight candles should be lit on the first night, seven on the second night, and so on down to one on the last night (because the miracle was greatest on the first day). Hillel argued in favor of starting with one candle and lighting an additional one every night, up to eight on the eighth night (because the miracle grew in greatness each day). Jewish law adopted the position of Hillel.[12]
• Psalm 30 is called שיר חנכת הבית‎, the "Song of Ḥănukkāt HaBayit", The Song of the "Dedication" of the House", and is traditionally recited on Hanukkah. 25 (of Kislev) + 5 (Books of Torah) = 30, which is the number of the song.

Alternative spellings[edit]

Spelling variations due to transliteration of Hebrew Ḥet Nun Vav Kaf Hey

In Hebrew, the word Hanukkah is written חֲנֻכָּה‎ or חֲנוּכָּה‎ (Ḥănukā). It is most commonly transliterated to English as Hanukkah or Chanukah. The spelling Hanukkah, which is based on using characters of the English alphabet as symbols to re-create the word's correct spelling in Hebrew,[13] is the most common[14] and the preferred choice of Merriam–Webster,[15] Collins English Dictionary, the Oxford Style Manual, and the style guides of The New York Times and The Guardian.[16] The sound represented by Ch ([χ], similar to the Scottish pronunciation of loch) is not native to the English language, although it is native to the Welsh language.[17] Furthermore, the letter ḥeth (ח), which is the first letter in the Hebrew spelling, is pronounced differently in modern Hebrew (voiceless uvular fricative) from in classical Hebrew (voiceless pharyngeal fricative [ħ]), and neither of those sounds is unambiguously representable in English spelling. However, its original sound is closer to the English H than to the Scottish Ch, and Hanukkah more accurately represents the spelling in the Hebrew alphabet.[13] Moreover, the 'kaf' consonant is geminate in classical (but not modern) Hebrew. Adapting the classical Hebrew pronunciation with the geminate and pharyngeal Ḥeth can lead to the spelling Hanukkah, while adapting the modern Hebrew pronunciation with no gemination and uvular Ḥeth leads to the spelling Chanukah.[citation needed]

Festival of Lights[edit]

In Modern Hebrew, Hanukkah may also be called the Festival of Lights (Hebrew: חַג הַאוּרִים, Ḥag HaUrim), based on a comment by Josephus in Antiquities of the Jews, καὶ ἐξ ἐκείνου μέχρι τοῦ δεῦρο τὴν ἑορτὴν ἄγομεν καλοῦντες αὐτὴν φῶτα "And from then on we celebrate this festival, and we call it Lights". The first Hebrew translation of Antiquities (1864) used חג המאורות "Festival of Lamps" but the translation "Festival of Lights" appeared by the end of the nineteenth century.[18]

Historical sources[edit]Books of Maccabees[edit]

The story of Hanukkah is preserved in the books of the First and Second Maccabees, which describe in detail the rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem and the lighting of the menorah. These books, however, are not a part of the canonized Masoretic Text version of the Tanakh (Hebrew and Aramaic language Jewish Bible) used and accepted by normative Rabbinical Judaism and therefore modern Jews (as copied, edited and distributed by a group of Jews known as the Masoretes between the 7th and 10th centuries of the Common Era). However, the books of Maccabees were included among the deuterocanonical books added to the Septuagint, a Jewish scholarly Greek-language translation of the Hebrew Bible originally compiled in the mid-3rd century BCE. The Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches consider the books of Maccabees as a canonical part of the Old Testament.[19]

The eight-day rededication of the temple is described in 1 Maccabees,[20] though the miracle of the oil does not appear here. A story similar in character, and older in date, is the one alluded to in 2 Maccabees[21] according to which the relighting of the altar fire by Nehemiah was due to a miracle which occurred on the 25th of Kislev, and which appears to be given as the reason for the selection of the same date for the rededication of the altar by Judah Maccabee.[22] The above account in 1 Maccabees, as well as 2 Maccabees[23] portrays the feast as a delayed observation of the eight-day Feast of Booths (Sukkot); similarly 2 Maccabees explains the length of the feast as "in the manner of the Feast of Booths".[24]

Early rabbinic sources[edit]

See also: Mishnah § Omissions

Megillat Taanit (1st century) contains a list of festive days on which fasting or eulogizing is forbidden. It specifies, "On the 25th of [Kislev] is Hanukkah of eight days, and one is not to eulogize" and then references the story of the rededication of the Temple.[25]

The Mishna (late 2nd century) mentions Hanukkah in several places,[26] but never describes its laws in detail and never mentions any aspect of the history behind it. To explain the Mishna's lack of a systematic discussion of Hanukkah, Rav Nissim Gaon postulated that information on the holiday was so commonplace that the Mishna felt no need to explain it.[27] Modern scholar Reuvein Margolies suggests that as the Mishnah was redacted after the Bar Kochba revolt, its editors were reluctant to include explicit discussion of a holiday celebrating another relatively recent revolt against a foreign ruler, for fear of antagonizing the Romans.[28]

Hanukkah lamp unearthed near Jerusalem about 1900

The miracle of the one-day supply of oil miraculously lasting eight days is described in the Talmud, committed to writing about 600 years after the events described in the books of Maccabees.[29] The Talmud says that after the forces of Antiochus IV had been driven from the Temple, the Maccabees discovered that almost all of the ritual olive oil had been profaned. They found only a single container that was still sealed by the High Priest, with enough oil to keep the menorah in the Temple lit for a single day. They used this, yet it burned for eight days (the time it took to have new oil pressed and made ready).[30]

The Talmud presents three options:[31]

1. The law requires only one light each night per household,
2. A better practice is to light one light each night for each member of the household
3. The most preferred practice is to vary the number of lights each night.

Except in times of danger, the lights were to be placed outside one's door, on the opposite side of the mezuza, or in the window closest to the street. Rashi, in a note to Shabbat 21b, says their purpose is to publicize the miracle. The blessings for Hanukkah lights are discussed in tractate Succah, p. 46a.[32]

Section from the Aramaic Scroll of Antiochus in Babylonian supralinear punctuation, with an Arabic translation

Megillat Antiochus (probably composed in the 2nd century[33]) concludes with the following words:

...After this, the sons of Israel went up to the Temple and rebuilt its gates and purified the Temple from the dead bodies and from the defilement. And they sought after pure olive oil to light the lamps therewith, but could not find any, except one bowl that was sealed with the signet ring of the High Priest from the days of Samuel the prophet and they knew that it was pure. There was in it [enough oil] to light [the lamps therewith] for one day, but the God of heaven whose name dwells there put therein his blessing and they were able to light from it eight days. Therefore, the sons of Ḥashmonai made this covenant and took upon themselves a solemn vow, they and the sons of Israel, all of them, to publish amongst the sons of Israel, [to the end] that they might observe these eight days of joy and honour, as the days of the feasts written in [the book of] the Law; [even] to light in them so as to make known to those who come after them that their God wrought for them salvation from heaven. In them, it is not permitted to mourn, neither to decree a fast [on those days], and anyone who has a vow to perform, let him perform it.[34]

The Al HaNissim prayer is recited on Hanukkah as an addition to the Amidah prayer, which was formalized in the late 1st century.[35] Al HaNissim describes the history of the holiday as follows:

In the days of Mattiyahu ben Yohanan, high priest, the Hasmonean and his sons, when the evil Greek kingdom stood up against Your people Israel, to cause them to forget Your Torah and abandon the ways You desire – You, in Your great mercy, stood up for them in their time of trouble; You fought their fight, You judged their judgment, You took their revenge; You delivered the mighty into the hands of the weak, the many into the hands of the few, the impure into the hands of the pure, the evil into the hands of the righteous, the sinners into the hands of those who engaged in Your Torah; You made yourself a great and holy name in Your world, and for Your people Israel You made great redemption and salvation as this very day. And then Your sons came to the inner chamber of Your house, and cleared Your Temple, and purified Your sanctuary, and lit candles in Your holy courtyards, and established eight days of Hanukkah for thanksgiving and praise to Your holy name.Narrative of Josephus[edit]

The Jewish historian Titus Flavius Josephus narrates in his book, Jewish Antiquities XII, how the victorious Judas Maccabeus ordered lavish yearly eight-day festivities after rededicating the Temple in Jerusalem that had been profaned by Antiochus IV Epiphanes.[36] Josephus does not say the festival was called Hanukkah but rather the "Festival of Lights":

Now Judas celebrated the festival of the restoration of the sacrifices of the temple for eight days, and omitted no sort of pleasures thereon; but he feasted them upon very rich and splendid sacrifices; and he honored God, and delighted them by hymns and psalms. Nay, they were so very glad at the revival of their customs, when, after a long time of intermission, they unexpectedly had regained the freedom of their worship, that they made it a law for their posterity, that they should keep a festival, on account of the restoration of their temple worship, for eight days. And from that time to this we celebrate this festival, and call it Lights. I suppose the reason was because this liberty beyond our hopes appeared to us; and that thence was the name given to that festival. Judas also rebuilt the walls round about the city, and reared towers of great height against the incursions of enemies, and set guards therein. He also fortified the city Bethsura, that it might serve as a citadel against any distresses that might come from our enemies.[37]Other ancient sources[edit]

In the New Testament, John 10:22–23 says, "Then came the Festival of Dedication at Jerusalem. It was winter, and Jesus was in the temple courts walking in Solomon's Colonnade" (NIV). The Greek noun used appears in the neuter plural as "the renewals" or "the consecrations" (Greek: τὰ ἐγκαίνια; ta enkaínia).[38] The same root appears in 2 Esdras 6:16 in the Septuagint to refer specifically to Hanukkah. This Greek word was chosen because the Hebrew word for 'consecration' or 'dedication' is Hanukkah (חנכה). The Aramaic New Testament uses the Aramaic word hawdata (a close synonym), which literally means 'renewal' or 'to make new'.[39]

Story[edit]Background[edit]

Further information: Coele-Syria

A model of Jerusalem during the Second Temple Period

After the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BCE, Judea became part of the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt until 200 BCE, when King Antiochus III the Great of Syria defeated King Ptolemy V Epiphanes of Egypt at the Battle of Panium. Judea then became part of the Seleucid Empire of Syria.[40] King Antiochus III the Great, wanting to conciliate his new Jewish subjects, guaranteed their right to "live according to their ancestral customs" and to continue to practice their religion in the Temple of Jerusalem.[41] However, in 175 BCE, Antiochus IV Epiphanes, the son of Antiochus III, invaded Judea, at the request of the sons of Tobias.[42] The Tobiads, who led the Hellenizing Jewish faction in Jerusalem, were expelled to Syria around 170 BCE when the high priest Onias and his pro-Egyptian faction wrested control from them. The exiled Tobiads lobbied Antiochus IV Epiphanes to recapture Jerusalem. As Flavius Josephus relates:

The king being thereto disposed beforehand, complied with them, and came upon the Jews with a great army, and took their city by force, and slew a great multitude of those that favored Ptolemy, and sent out his soldiers to plunder them without mercy. He also spoiled the temple, and put a stop to the constant practice of offering a daily sacrifice of expiation for three years and six months.

— The Jewish War[43]

Traditional view[edit]

Main article: Miracle of the cruse of oil

High Priest pouring oil over the menorah, Jewish new year card

When the Second Temple in Jerusalem was looted and services stopped, Judaism was outlawed. In 167 BCE, Antiochus ordered an altar to Zeus erected in the Temple. He banned brit milah (circumcision) and ordered pigs to be sacrificed at the altar of the temple.[44]

Antiochus's actions provoked a large-scale revolt. Mattathias (Mattityahu), a Jewish priest, and his five sons Jochanan, Simeon, Eleazar, Jonathan, and Judah led a rebellion against Antiochus. It started with Mattathias killing first a Jew who wanted to comply with Antiochus's order to sacrifice to Zeus, and then a Greek official who was to enforce the government's behest (1 Mac. 2, 24–25[45]). Judah became known as Yehuda HaMakabi ("Judah the Hammer"). By 166 BCE, Mattathias had died, and Judah took his place as leader. By 164 BCE, the Jewish revolt against the Seleucid monarchy was successful. The Temple was liberated and rededicated. The festival of Hanukkah was instituted to celebrate this event.[46] Judah ordered the Temple to be cleansed, a new altar to be built in place of the polluted one and new holy vessels to be made.[22] According to the Talmud,

"For when the Greeks entered the Sanctuary, they defiled all the oils therein, and when the Hasmonean dynasty prevailed against and defeated them, they made search and found only one cruse of oil which lay with the seal of the kohen gadol (high priest), but which contained sufficient [oil] for one day's lighting only; yet a miracle was wrought therein, and they lit [the lamp] therewith for eight days. The following year these [days] were appointed a Festival with [the recital of] Hallel and thanksgiving."

—Shabbat 21b

Tertiary sources in the Jewish tradition make reference to this account.[47]

The 12th century scholar Maimonides, known for correcting certain of Aristotle's errors by reference to the Hebrew bible, and subsequently introducing Aristotelianism to both the Jewish world and to the Christian scholastics, described Hanukkah thus in the Mishneh Torah, his authoritative 14 volume compendium on Jewish law:

When, on the twenty-fifth of Kislev, the Jews had emerged victorious over their foes and destroyed them, they re-entered the Temple where they found only one jar of pure oil, enough to be lit for only a single day; yet they used it for lighting the required set of lamps for eight days, until they managed to press olives and produce pure oil. Because of this, the sages of that generation ruled that the eight days beginning with the twenty-fifth of Kislev should be observed as days of rejoicing and praising the Lord. Lamps are lit in the evening over the doors of the homes, on each of the eight nights, so as to display the miracle. These days are called Hanukkah, when it is forbidden to lament or to fast, just as it is on the days of Purim. Lighting the lamps during the eight days of Hanukkah is a religious duty imposed by the sages.[48]