Lighting the Hanukkah Candles and Remembering the First Flag of Israel that Flew in Boston

Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights, begins on the 25th day of the Jewish month of Kislev -- in 2016, it begins at sundown on December 24 -- and lasts for eight days. • • • A SHORT HISTORY OF HANUKKAH. The Hebrew word Hanukkah means "dedication." In the 2nd century BC, during the time of the Second Holy Temple, the Syrian-Greek regime of Antiochus sought to pull Jews away from Judaism, with the hope of assimilating them into Greek culture. Antiochus outlawed Jewish observance -- including circumcision, Shabbat, and Torah study -- under penalty of death. As well, many Jews -- called Hellenists -- began to assimilate into Greek culture, taking on Greek names and marrying non-Jews. This began to decay the foundation of Jewish life and practice. • When the Greeks challenged the Jews to sacrifice a pig to a Greek god, a few courageous Jews took to the hills of Judea in open revolt against this threat to Jewish life. Led by Matitiyahu, and later his son Judah the Maccabee, this small band of pious Jews led guerrilla warfare against the Syrian-Greek army. Antiochus sent thousands of well-armed troops to crush the rebellion, but after three years the Maccabees beat incredible odds and miraculously succeeded in driving the foreigners from their land. The victory was on the scale of Israel defeating the combined super-powers of today. • Jewish fighters entered Jerusalem and found the Holy Temple in shambles and desecrated with idols. The Maccabees cleansed the Temple and re-dedicated it on the 25th of Kislev. When it came time to re-light the Menorah, they searched the entire Temple, but found only one jar of pure oil bearing the seal of the High Priest. The group of believers lit the Menorah anyway and were rewarded with a miracle : That small jar of oil burned for eight days, until a new supply of oil could be brought. • From then on, Jews have observed a holiday for eight days, in honor of this historic victory and the miracle of the oil. To celebrate the Hanukkah miracle, Jews light a menorah during the eight nights of Hanukkah. • • • LIGHTING THE MENORAH. To show which night of Hanukkah it is, all eight candles on the menorah should be at the same height -- and preferably in a straight line. Otherwise, the candles may not be easily distinguishable and may appear like a big torch. In addition to the eight main lights, the menorah has an extra helper candle called the "Shamash." Since the Shamash does not count as one of the eight regular lights, your menorah should have the Shamash set apart in some way -- either placed higher than the other candles, or off to the side. • The most important thing is that that your candles must burn for at least 30 minutes after nightfall. Actually, it is even better to use olive oil, since the miracle of the Maccabees occurred with olive oil. Glass cups containing oil can be placed in the candle holders of any standard menorah. Many Jewish bookstores even sell kits of pre-measured oil in disposable cups. • To best publicize the miracle of the Maccabees, the menorah is ideally lit outside the doorway of the house, on the left side when entering. In Israel, many people have the light outside in special glass boxes built for a menorah. If this is not practical, the menorah should be lit in a window facing the street. Someone who lives on an upper floor should light in a window. If for some reason the menorah cannot be lit in or near a window, it may be lit inside the house on a table, because this will also fulfill the goal of "publicizing the miracle" for all the members of the household. • The preferable time to light the menorah is at nightfall. On the first night, place one candle at the far right, as you face the menorah. Another taller candle is placed for the Shamash, which is used to light the others. First, light the Shamash, then recite the blessings, and then use the Shamash to light the Hanukkah candle. On the second night, place two candles in the two far-right positions -- and use the Shamash to light the left one first. The third night, place three candles in the three far-right positions -- and use the Shamash to light them in order, from left to right. Follow this same procedure each night of Hanukkah, until all the lights are kindled and glowing brightly for the Festival of Lights! • • • THE BLESSINGS. The first two blessings are said with the Shamash already lit, but before lighting the Hanukkah candles. • Blessing #1 : Blessed are You, the Lord our God, King of the universe, Who sanctified us with His commandments, and commanded us to kindle the Hanukkah light. • Blessing #2 : Blessed are You, the Lord our God, King of the universe, Who made miracles for our forefathers, in those days at this season. • Blessing #3 (This blessing is said on the first night only.) Blessed are You, the Lord our God, King of the universe, Who has kept us alive, sustained us, and brought us to this season. • The following paragraph is said each night, after the first light has been kindled : We kindle these lights for the miracles and for the wonders, for the redemption and the battles which You performed for our forefathers in those days at this season through Your holy priests. During all eight days of Hanukkah these lights are sacred, and we are not permitted to make ordinary use of them, but only to look at them -- in order to express thanks and praise to Your great Name, for Your miracles, Your wonders, and Your salvation. • After lighting the Hanukkah menorah, families enjoy singing Hanukkah songs and recalling the miracles of yesterday and today. Other customs have developed, including eating "oily" foods like fried potato latkes (pancakes) and sufganiyot (jelly donuts), in commemoration of the miracle of the oil, giving Hanukkah gelt (coins) to children, and spinning the dreidel, a four-sided top with a Hebrew letter on each side. This commemmorates times of persecution when Torah study was forbidden, but Jewish children would learn anyway. When soldiers would investigate, the children would pull out a dreidel and pretend to be playing. The letters on the dreidel are nun, gimmel, hey, shin -- the first letters of Nes Gadol Haya Sham – "A Great Miracle Happened There." [I want to recognize the aish.com site for providing a good explanation of Hanukkah for non-Jews, and to thank Rabbi Shraga Simmons, an American who grew up in Buffalo, New York, has a degree in journalism from the University of Texas at Austin, and received his rabbinic ordination from the Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem. He is the co-founder of aish.com, and founder of the Torah study site, JewishPathways.com. He is also the co-founder of HonestReporting.com, and author of "David & Goliath", the definitive treatment of media bias against Israel (2012). He lives with his wife and children in Israel.] • • • In a December 7, 2012, New York Times article, a Jewish contributor, Hilary Leila Krieger, who was the Washington bureau chief for the Jerusalem Times, described Hanukkah this way : "Many Americans, Jews as well as Christians, think that the legend of the long-lasting oil is the root of Hanukkah’s commemoration. And perhaps that mistake is no surprise, given that for many the holiday has morphed into “Christmas for Jews,” echoing the message of peace on earth accompanied by gift giving. In doing so, the holiday’s own message of Jewish survival and faith has been diluted. Hanukkah is one of the most widely celebrated Jewish holidays in America. But unlike Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur and Passover (or even the lesser-known Sukkot and Shavuot), all of which are explicitly mentioned in the Torah, Hanukkah gets only a brief, sketchy reference in the Talmud, the voluminous collection of Jewish oral law and tradition written down hundreds of years after the Maccabees’ revolt. There for the first time the miracle of the oil is recorded: the ancient temple in Jerusalem held an eternal flame, but after the desecration by the foreign invaders -- including the sacrificing of pigs, a non-kosher animal, on the altar -- only one day’s worth of purified oil remained. Yet the faithful went ahead and lighted it. The oil burned in the rededicated temple for eight days, long enough for a new supply to arrive. Hence the practice of lighting candles for eight nights to observe Hanukkah, which means dedication in Hebrew. (Perhaps just as significantly, the reference to oil also gave rise to a holiday tradition of eating foods like potato pancakes and doughnuts that had been cooked in it.) Though Hanukkah is a minor Jewish holiday, 19th-century activists in America promoted it to encourage their co-religionists to take pride in their heritage. During the 20th century it was embraced more broadly by Jews who wanted to fit in with other Americans celebrating the holiday season -- and to make their kids feel better about not getting anything from Santa. It helped, of course, that Hanukkah falls near Christmas on the calendar and traditionally involved candles and small monetary gifts. Over time, children began receiving grander presents, and Hanukkah-themed season’s greeting cards proliferated. Some families even started to purchase “Hanukkah bushes,” small trees often decked out with Stars of David and miniature Maccabees. By the 1980s, when I was a child, menorahs had been placed next to mangers in the public square and Hanukkah songs had been incorporated into winter holiday concerts. Despite this recognition, I still felt excluded enough to brag to classmates that my holiday was better than Christmas, since it had eight days of gift giving, instead of one. While elevating Hanukkah does a lot of good for children’s morale, ignoring or sanitizing its historical basis does a great disservice to the Jewish past and present. The original miracle of Hanukkah was that a committed band of people led a successful uprising against a much larger force, paving the way for Jewish independence and perhaps keeping Judaism itself from disappearing. It’s an amazing story, resonant with America’s own founding, that offers powerful lessons about standing up for one’s convictions and challenging those in power. Many believe the rabbis in the Talmud recounted the miracle of the light alongside the military victory because they did not want to glorify war. That in itself is an important teaching, as are the holiday’s related messages of renewal, hope and turning away from darkness." • • • American Christians may be in part responsible for diluting the Jewish Hanukkah Festival of Lights -- a dear Jewish friend long years gone from us on earth once told me the story of her deciding to put up a Christmas tree in her home for her young children, and when her mother visited and saw it, she told her daughter to take it down, telling her 'We don't have Christmas trees.' But, the JTA news outlet offers an account that brings Israel even closer to America, which was the first country to officially, de facto, recognize the State of Israel. Here is JTA's story : "If a blue-and-white flag with a Star of David and two horizontal stripes were to hang proudly outside a Jewish organization in Boston, it would hardly be news. Unless, of course, if that happened in 1891 -- nearly 60 years before the founding of the State of Israel. The flag that today is synonymous with the Jewish state has a uniquely American history, reveals new research by Jonathan Sarna, professor of American Jewish history at Brandeis University in suburban Boston. Scholars previously knew about the existence of the Boston flag, but Sarna’s research -- which was presented in early December during a meeting in Jerusalem between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker -- illuminated additional points in the flag’s history that helped show its connection to the modern Israeli flag. The flag was created in 1891 by Rabbi Jacob Baruch Askowith, a Lithuanian immigrant who settled in Boston, for a local Jewish organization, B’nai Zion. It bore striking similarities to today’s Israeli flag -- except for the fact that the Star of David in the middle contained the word 'Maccabee' in Hebrew letters, referring to the famed Jewish warrior family that defended Jerusalem against the Greeks. A year later the 'flag of Judah,' as it was then called, was paraded in the streets of Boston at an event celebrating the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s arrival in America. The only difference : “Maccabee” had been replaced with another Hebrew word, 'Zion.' From there, the 'flag of Judah' started to gain traction. The flag -- minus the Hebrew words in the middle -- made its way to the Second Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland, in 1898, Sarna found. At the Third Zionist Congress a year later, a different flag was displayed -- one created by Theodor Herzl that featured a lion and seven stars. But Askowith’s flag had already captured the attention of American Jews. In 1904, it was flown along with the flags of the rest of the world at the World’s Fair in St. Louis, solidifying its status for American Jews as 'an emblem of the unified Jewish people,' Sarna told JTA. 'That was absolutely a turning point -- it was the first time that a Zionist flag was flown along with all the other flags of other countries,' he said. 'It was a huge deal that the flag was recognized, and because it was recognized and got so much attention, I think that that became the flag that American Jews knew.' So, when time came to pick a flag in 1948 for the newly established State of Israel, American Zionists would not budge, rejecting some 164 other flag proposals. Ultimately they got their way, and today the flag recognized as representing Israel worldwide looks an awful lot like the flag that hung outside Boston’s B’nai Zion building in 1891. 'Every so often, vivid colors that create the rich tapestry of Israel-US history and relations are illuminated -- and this is one of those moments,' Sarna said. 'To think that 57 years before the founding of the modern state of Israel, Americans in Boston were proudly parading a flag so closely reminiscent to the present-day version is extraordinary, and is further indicative of the impassioned and prominent role that American Jews, even in the 1800s, had in shaping the future State of Israel.' ” • • • DEAR READERS, that is a lovely shared US-Israel history to tell your children -- Jewish or Christian, Israeli or American -- during this year's Hanukkah. And, if Christians would like to pause during the Christmas festivities to light a candle to commemmorate an ancient Jewish feat and miracle, I feel sure our Jewish friends would be happy knowing that we are honoring the courage of the Maccabees and their determination to be free to practice their religion. • Happy Hanukkah to all our Jewish brothers and sisters.