AND - hopefully you'll read this after sundown...
HAPPY HANUKKAH!!! This is for Hubby and all my Jewish friends. Hope you have a great 8 days of celebration!
And here is a brief history on Hanukkah for the rest of you:
The Hebrew word Hanukkah means "dedication" and the holiday that bears the name commemorates the rededication of the holy temple in Jerusalem after the Jews defeated the Syrians in 165 B.C. Prior to the defeat, the King of Syria had outlawed all Jewish rituals and demanded that the Jews worship traditional Greek Gods. Some Jews decided to fight back.
The story that most tell in association with the holiday is that of Judah Maccabee and his soldiers, who entered the temple to clean and prepare it for rededication. The men were distressed to find that many things in the temple had been removed by the Syrians or were broken, including the sacred golden menorah. When they were through making repairs, the soldiers decided to would be appropriate to once again light the menorah. However, when they began searching for oil, they found only a very small flask that would last perhaps one day. But a miracle occurred – the tiny amount of oil lasted for eight days!
Today, in commemoration of the miracle, Jewish families light eight candles on their menorah, one for each night of the holiday. Also, many traditional foods are cooked in oil, further celebrating the miracle of long ago. Children receive gifts of gelt (chocolate coins) to commemorate the money that was minted by the new independent Maccabee state. The tradition of receiving one gift on each night of the holiday, however, is fairly recent and is much more common in America than in Israel and other countries.
And here is my Hanukkah gift to Hubby - a Waterford® crystal dreidel:
Comments (1)
Beautiful!!!!
Posted by Brittany Newberry | December 5, 2007 2:32 PM
Posted on December 5, 2007 14:32