Tag: miracle

Categories
Holidays

Chanukah, Day 4

To make up for my recent lack of attention to this blog, I’m posting thoughts about Chanukah for each day of the eight-day festival. Today, I’m talking about:

SEVIVON

Sevivon is Hebrew for spinning top. In Yiddish, it’s called a dreidel.

Don McLean wrote a song about it.

On the each of the four vertical sides of the spinning top cube is a single letter that stand for a word in a sentence:

נ – Nנס – Nesmiracle
ג – Gגדול – Gadolbig
ה – Hהיה – Hayawas
פ – Pפה – Pohere

In other words: A big miracle happened here.

But that’s only in Israel. In other countries, the last letter is ש – Sh, standing for שם – Sham, meaning: there.

I’m not sure I’ve ever played with a sevivon, but there’s a tradition of playing with it while the candles are alight, usually trying to win chocolate money or low denomination coins.

Categories
Holidays

Chanukah, Day 2

To make up for my recent lack of attention to this blog, I’m posting thoughts about Chanukah for each day of the eight-day festival. Today, I’m talking about:

STORY

Do you know the story of Chanukah?

The generally accepted (though disputed) story took place in the middle of the second century B.C.E (or B.C.) when the Second Temple stood in Jerusalem. The ruler of the Land of Israel at the time, Antiochus IV of Syria, led his soldiers to massacre thousands of Jews and desecrate the Temple. A rebellion was led by Mattityahu (Mattathias) and later his son, Yehuda (Judah) the Maccabee. The Jews drove the Syrians out of Jerusalem and set about cleansing the Temple.

The seven-branched candelabrum, representing knowledge and creation, was supposed to be kept burning every day, but there was only enough olive oil to burn for one day. By a miracle, the flames kept alight for eight days, leaving the people time to find a fresh supply of oil.

Jerusalem: a light show on the Old City walls.

The festival of Chanukah concentrates on the miracle and not on massacres. It’s a fun festival and also a minor one. In recent times, its proximity to Christmas (this year they coincide) has raised its status.

Categories
Holidays

Chanukah, Day 1

To make up for my recent lack of attention to this blog, I’m posting thoughts about Chanukah for each day of the eight-day festival. Today, I’m talking about:

SPELLING

How do you spell it? I saw this list, today:

There are many more variants in Latin script. French speakers, for instance, tend to place an o before the u. Fortunately, there’s only one spelling in Hebrew:

חנוכה

Possibly, it’s significant that the topic of spelling comes up each year. The story of Chanukah involves a ‘spell’, which is called a miracle. I’ll write more about that on another day.

Whatever you’re celebrating at this season, enjoy it.

Vietnam, 2018