Hanukkah: The Holiday of Doing It Ourselves

Hi friends, and an early chag urim sameach.

Hanukkah starts at sundown on Friday, December 4 this year, and we've been thinking about what the holiday actually marks. Most of us grew up with the oil: one small jar, eight nights of light. It's a lovely story. It's also the later one. The Books of Maccabees, written within a few generations of the events, never mention the oil. They tell a story about a small people deciding to run their own lives in their own land.

What happened in Modi'in
Around 167 BCE, the Seleucid king Antiochus IV outlawed Shabbat, circumcision, and Torah study in Judea, and turned the Temple in Jerusalem over to Zeus. In the hill town of Modi'in, an old priest named Mattathias refused to sacrifice to the Greek gods. He and his five sons took to the hills. One of them, Judah, nicknamed the Maccabee (usually translated as "the hammer"), led a guerrilla army that took Jerusalem back three years later.

On the 25th of Kislev, they cleaned out the Temple and rededicated it. That's the word itself: Hanukkah means "dedication." What followed was the Hasmonean kingdom, the better part of a century of Jews governing themselves in their homeland. It would be two thousand years before that happened again.

Why it still lands
During Hanukkah we add Al HaNissim to our prayers, which gives thanks for delivering "the strong into the hands of the weak, the many into the hands of the few." Early Zionists read that line and saw themselves in it. They named sports clubs after the Maccabees. The first Maccabiah Games were held in Tel Aviv in 1932, and Jewish athletes from around the world still compete in them. Every Hanukkah, a torch is lit in Modi'in and carried by runners to Jerusalem. The Hebrew song Mi Yimalel takes a verse from Psalms about God's mighty deeds and gives the credit to the people of Israel.

The point was hard to miss. The Maccabees didn't wait to be rescued. They decided who they were, where they lived, and how they prayed, and then did the work of keeping it that way. Modern Israel is the same idea in the same hills. Modi'in is a city again, about halfway between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, and you can light candles there this year a few miles from where the whole thing started.

Light it where people can see it
Jewish law asks us to set the hanukkiah where the street can see it. The rabbis called it pirsumei nisa, publicizing the miracle. We've always loved that the holiday's main ritual is a public one: for eight nights, Jewish homes announce themselves. A lot of us have thought hard lately about how visible to be. This is a good year to put the candles in the window on purpose.

A few ideas for your eight nights

• Tell the Modi'in story first and the oil story second, especially to the kids.
• Fry the latkes in Israeli olive oil and pour something from the Judean Hills.
• Look up Mi Yimalel and sing it at least once, badly if necessary.
• Light at the window, every night.

Join the conversation
What does your family's Hanukkah lean toward: the Maccabees, the miracle, or the latkes? Tell us in the comments. And if you need somewhere to sit on night one, our Hanukkah throws are in the shop.

Chag Hanukkah sameach,
The Nova Nostalgia Team