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Jewish Holy Day of Hanukkah
With many religions worldwide, there are special and dedicated times of the year where followers celebrate the associated holidays with the religion practiced. I had the privilege of celebrating one of the historic Jewish Holy Days called Hanukkah or Chanukah with my friends from the Jewish community. Chanukah or Hanukkah celebrates Jewish rededication of their temple in Jerusalem during the second century.
Chanukah or Hanukkah as I came to learn means dedication in Hebrew and it commemorates a miracle which is oil based. The festival ran for eight consecutive days and each of the days was marked with games, dances, songs, oily fried foods, candle lighting and a lot of joy and laughter.
Each day of Hanukkah we thanked God by reciting a complete ‘Hallel’ during the Morning Prayer service. We also inserted a special thanks giving prayer and read from the Torah. After each Morning Prayer service we ate oily fried foods such as fried potato pancakes also known as latkes, deep fried doughnuts also known as sufganiyot, cheese and a lot of dairy foods.
We also got to play dreidel games. From the brief history given I came to learn that during the ancient days, the Greek oppressors banned Torah schools and so the young children would study deep in the forest. All this while, they would post sentry to make them aware of Greek patrols. When the soldiers came, the kids would hide or bury their texts into the soil and start playing with dreidels. We too played dreidels as a way to commemorate the courage displayed by these heroic children.
I was surprised by the no of times we were called up to light candles each day. I later learnt that each candle is lit at different times of the day to bring out different effects. I also noted that the Jew people love living as one in a community and are very friendly and welcoming. The eight days festival was celebrated with family friends and neighbours. I was also touched by their show of giving back to the community. During Hanukkah it is customary to hand out gelt (money) to kids so as to teach them how to donate and give to charity.