{"id":744,"date":"2020-10-09T02:58:39","date_gmt":"2020-10-09T02:58:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fredgrams.com\/blog\/?p=744"},"modified":"2020-10-13T09:46:46","modified_gmt":"2020-10-13T09:46:46","slug":"fredgrams-history-chanukah","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fredgrams.com\/blog\/fredgrams-history-chanukah\/","title":{"rendered":"FredGrams: A History of Chanukah"},"content":{"rendered":"

Go directly to the musical CHANUKAH CARDS at FREDGRAMS.COM.<\/strong><\/a><\/h3>\n

\"2-R41-Z40-1860-10<\/a><\/p>\n

The\u00a0importance of the Jewish holiday\u00a0Chanukah\u00a0\u00a0revolves around the story of the Macabees, the 5 sons of Mattathias who liberated the Second Temple of Jerusalem and the Jewish people in a three year\u00a0war (167-164 B.C.E) against Syrian King Antiochus IV Epiphanes. There is no mention of this in the Old Testament(Torah) having occurred long after the Jewish Bible was set down, and\u00a0various aspects of the story as it’s come down to us took shape in written accounts over at least 6 centuries after the event.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

It was 250 years after that historian Flavius Josephus (37 A.D-100 A.D)\u00a0commemorates\u00a0the\u00a0victory of Judah Macabee and his 4 brothers as the Festival of Lights.\u00a0<\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

A century later,\u00a0 in the Mishnah section of the Talmud<\/a>, (the ancient\u00a0 interpretative guide to the law<\/span> as laid down in the Torah), it would be\u00a0called Chanukah [“dedication”]<\/em><\/span> in reference to the\u00a0r<\/strong>e-dedication of the Temple after years of defilement by Antiochus. This took place at the direction of the Macabees on the 25th day of the month Kislev on the Jewish calendar<\/a> (November\/December) as a late celebration of Sukkot, the Festival of the Harvest. It is in the Gemara section of the Babylonian Talmud that\u00a0details of\u00a0Chanukah’s formal observance\u00a0are more specifically described.<\/strong>
\n\"menorah<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

As Dostoyevsky’s cynical Grand Inquisitor understood, religious faith acquires its mystical power over people through miracle, mystery and authority.<\/a>\u00a0So it is suspected that early rabbinic scholars\u00a0expanded upon\u00a0the stirring Macabee story of\u00a0freedom with\u00a0the supernatural Miracle of the Oil that burned without replenishment for 8 days in the Temple. Thus, the lighting of candles over 8 days of Chanukah, a miraculous Festival of Lights, renewal and liberation.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"suganiyot\"<\/a>The frying of foods in oil such as latkes (potato pancakes) and suganiyot (jelly donuts) is a\u00a0celebratory reference to the Miracle.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Chanukah’s close\u00a0proximity to Christmas on the civil Western calendar now provides\u00a0a doubly joyful celebration of our modern Western society’s Judeo-Christian roots<\/em><\/span> at year’s end.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The\u00a0key events of Judaism in the last century gives further significance to Chanukah. The rise of Zionism, the yearning for a permanent Jewish State homeland; the Holocaust; Israel’s miraculous founding and flowering; its ongoing fight for life waged to this day\u00a0on the very soil on which the Macabees fought only underscore the relevance of Chanukah’s central themes of oppression, survival, human liberty triumphant. There is no story that better embodies\u00a0the reality of the Jewish saga, past, present and future.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Go directly to the musical CHANUKAH CARDS at FREDGRAMS.COM.<\/strong><\/a><\/h3>\n

\"chanukah<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Go directly to the musical CHANUKAH CARDS at FREDGRAMS.COM. The\u00a0importance of the Jewish holiday\u00a0Chanukah\u00a0\u00a0revolves around the story of the Macabees, the 5 sons of Mattathias who liberated the Second Temple of Jerusalem and the Jewish people in a three year\u00a0war…<\/p>\n

Read more →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1258,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,16,28,14,3,15,10,1,12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fredgrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/744"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fredgrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fredgrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fredgrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/\/fredgrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=744"}],"version-history":[{"count":40,"href":"https:\/\/fredgrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/744\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1311,"href":"https:\/\/fredgrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/744\/revisions\/1311"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fredgrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/\/fredgrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/\/fredgrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/\/fredgrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}