Investigating the eight-day miracle

MICHELE MARR

Miracle.

My Webster’s Dictionary defines the word four ways.

It can be synonymous with miracle play, which is defined right

under miracle as “any class of medieval religious dramas dealing with

the events in the lives of the saints.”

A miracle can also be “a wonderful example,” an act that stands

above others. By way of example, Webster’s offers “[That was] a

miracle of tact.”

Or a miracle can be a remarkable event or thing, “[a] marvel,” as

in “The Red Sox win in the World Series was a miracle.”

First of all, though, Webster’s says, a miracle is “an event or

action that apparently contradicts known scientific laws and is hence

thought to be due to supernatural causes, especially to an act of

God.”

Tell someone, though; say you have experienced or witnessed a

miracle of that sort. The response you are liable to get -- at least

outside your religious community and sometimes even within it -- is

“miracle, shmiracle.”

We live in a cynical age. Believe in miracles and a lot of people

are likely to believe you’re either a nut or a chump. Their loss.

Hanukkah, which will begin at sunset on Dec. 7, is all about a

great miracle. But look it up in your Webster’s and you’ll find

“Hanuka” and not a word about a miracle.

The word Hanukkah is transliterated from Hebrew, a language with

an alphabet that looks nothing like our own and words that read right

to left, in a number of ways, including “Hanuka,” “Chanukkah” and

“Chanukah.”

Webster’s simply describes it as “a Jewish festival commemorating

the rededication of the Temple by Judas Maccabaeus in 165 B.C. and

celebrated for 8 days beginning the 25th day of Kislev.” Which is

true as far as it goes.

On our Western calendar, Kislev 25 typically falls between mid-

and late December, so it’s easy for Hanukkah to get lost in the crush

of getting ready for Christmas, which follows Thanksgiving for so

many people.

And while it is perhaps the most familiar of Jewish holidays,

religiously, Hanukkah doesn’t carry the weight that holy days like

Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur do. It is, however, one of the more

festive of holidays on the Jewish calendar, in part because it’s a

kind of thanksgiving itself.

Few, if any, accounts of Hanukkah mention why the Temple in

Jerusalem was rededicated. They don’t say who Judah Maccabaeus was.

In 165 B.C., the Jews in and around Jerusalem found themselves under

the rule of a Seleucid Syrian king, Antiochus IV, who banned their

religious practices and attempted to force them to adopt those of the

Greeks. The king turned the Jew’s ancient Temple, which stood where

the Temple Mount now stands, into a temple for the Greek god, Zeus.

In time, Jews who resisted Antiochus’ Hellenistic culture decided

to regain their religious freedom. Led by a man named Judah, they

liberated Jerusalem. Judah, the son of Mattiyahu, then became known

as Judah Maccabee, his new surname meaning “men who are as strong as

hammers.”

The triumphant Jews immediately moved to rededicate the Temple for

their worship but only one day’s supply of purified oil could be

found to light the Temple’s menorah, or candlestick, which was

designated by God to be a perpetual light.

Men were assigned to purify more oil fit to be used in the Temple,

but such purification would take at least eight days. To the Jews’

great joy, their one-day’s worth of oil miraculously lasted eight,

which is why Hanukkah is celebrated for eight days.

I was fortunate to experience Hanukkah in Israel during the year I

lived there but, this year, I found a website, https://www.

VirtualChanukah.com, that makes Hanukkah more tangible to anyone who

visits it.

The site, which has pages of information about Hanukkah in 11

languages, is produced by the Chabad Lubavitch Media Center, an

Orthodox Jewish organization.

It tells the story of Hanukkah, sometimes called the Festival of

Lights, in far more detail than I am able to tell it here. Directions

for celebrating the holiday are provided along with games and

recipes. The blessings recited during Hanukkah are given in English,

Hebrew and a transliteration of Hebrew.

One of my favorite features is dubbed “Chanukah Tidbits,”

interesting bits and pieces of facts about Hanukkah and its

celebration.

I learned, for example, that the Menorah in the Temple in

Jerusalem was decorated with 22 cups, each one turned upside down as

a sign of God’s blessing pouring out into the world.

And who knew the first large public menorah lighting was in 1975

at San Francisco’s Union Square with the menorah built by music

producer Bill Graham? Or that in 1987, a large menorah was placed on

top of the Statue of Liberty? On Hanukkah, the website will show

video feeds of menorah lightings around the world but if you’d rather

see a live one, you can look up the location of the one nearest to

you by using your zip code.

For Huntington Beach, the closest lightening will take place at 5

p.m. on Dec. 7, at Rossmoor Center in Seal Beach, at 12452 Seal Beach Blvd.

Several other websites or pages are also dedicated to Hanukkah.

There’s the Orthodox Union’s https://www.ou.org/ chagim/chanukah and

www.hanukah.com, as well as a number of pages at https://

www.holidays.net/chanukah and https://people.howstuffworks.

com/hanukkah.htm.

In my opinion, though, none of them quite hold a candle to Virtual

Chanukah.

* MICHELE MARR is a freelance writer from Huntington Beach. She

can be reached at [email protected].