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Holidays: For some a time of grief
Pastoral Pondering: Take a walk
along the `Washington Bridge'
Sorting
through the
Khanuka celebration |
Some believe the Jewish holiday began with the
commemoration of the coming of the winter solstice |
By Schellene Clendenin, Newberg
Graphic reporter
E-mail Schellene at sclendenin@eaglenewspapers.com
|
There are many spellings of the word, but from Hanukah to Chanuka and
Khanukah the pronunciation is the same — khä’ noo kä.’
Khanukah, said Jane Goldhamer, founder of the congregation of Kol Shalom in
Portland and office coordinator there, is a Hebrew word. When it is transliterated into
English the spelling is changed to suit the person doing the translation. But the closest
translation is with a “kh.”
Goldhamer points out that, like many of the world’s cultures, the
legends of Khanukah began with the Pagan ritual commemorating the coming of the winter
solstice.
According to Paul Anderson, professor of biblical and Quaker studies at
George Fox University, the legend of Khanukah, also known as the Jewish festival of
lights, tends to fall in December.
“It celebrated the rededication of the temple in Jerusalem after it was
defiled by Antiochus IV Epiphanes — which means ‘God made manifest,’”
Anderson said.
Antiochus was a Syrian king who around 175 BC sought to Helenize the land of
Judea. To create a less sectarian and more cosmopolitan land he did several things
unfriendly to the Jewish religious communities.
He ruled between 175 to 164 BC and after a battle with the Egyptians south of
Israel, he marched soldiers through Jerusalem. When the people of Judea came out to see
the parade, the soldiers turned on the masses and killed the spectators, Anderson said.
According to the books of the Maccabees, Antiochus then forbade the reading of the Torah
and had Jewish bibles burned.
To add to the insult Antiochus also outlawed the practice of circumcision,
then sacrificed a pig on the alter of a temple — an act considered highly offensive.
Finally, to complete the act of humiliation, Antiochus erected a statue of Zeus, the Greek
god, in the temple courtyard.
This caused a strong reaction, Anderson said, and in 167 BC Judas Maccabeus
and others opposed the Greek influences, launching a set of wars intended to drive the
Syrians from Israel. These were the first of the Maccabean resistances.
Eventually they succeeded, and the temple was rededicated in 164 BC.
Goldhamer said that since the wars led by the Maccabees were not considered
religious wars but human wars, the Rabbi’s determined that the celebration of lights
should not be part of the religious festivals. Rabbis tried to discourage the celebration;
however, it had already become a popular event for people of the culture.
Goldhamer said Rabbis made up the story of the oil in the lamp to give it
more of a religious feel.
“It’s obviously one of the legends which abound in an ancient
culture and has become part of the Khanukah celebration,” she said.
The legend, according to Anderson, was that during the rededication of the
temple, the Rabbis prepared to light the oil lamp and discovered they had little oil
remaining.
“After the rededication all they had was enough oil for one day to light
the lamp in the temple, but miraculously, the flame stayed alight for eight days, which is
why the festival commemorating the event is called the Festival of Lights,” he said.
The event involved the purification of the temple and its rededication.
The legends, Goldhamer said, are being researched as part of the Old
Testament that includes looking at the stories of the Bible in a less literal manner and
seeing the stories as tales told to the populace, tales that became tradition, and
eventually considered as fact.
In the contemporary version of the celebration, potato latkes and Sufganiyot (jelly
doughnuts) are served during Khanukah because they are deep fried in oil. Their connection
with oil connects them to the miracle of the oil in the lamp.
Dreidels, a part of the tradition, are four-sided tops. Children play a game
spinning the top and watching how it lands. Each of the four sides of the dreidel has
Hebrew letter on it. The four letters stand for Babylon, Persia, Greece and Rome and mean
“A great miracle happened here.” Children play the game with candy or money and
try to win the most from one another.
Also a part of the Khanukah tradition are gelt, Goldhamer said.
“Originally gelt was money, but generally speaking, chocolate coins wrapped in gold
foil is a modern version of gelt.”
Children receive Khanukah gelt and small Khanukah gifts, one a night until
the last candle is lit, while some get one main present on the final evening of the
celebration. |
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From Dec. 20,
2003, Newberg Graphic
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