OMGJ Flashbacks Presents: Your Personal Guide to Chanukah
Yay Chanukah! It’s one of my favourite festivals, but I think it is also one of the most misunderstood. By the way, that’s not why it’s one of my favourites. And make no mistake, when I say it’s one of my favourites, it is one among many favourites. However, it’s not quite at the CHRISTMAS IS THE MOST FUN EVER LET US DEDICATE SEVERAL MONTHS TO HYPE IT UP level of favourite. In fact, I don’t think any Jewish festival is at that level. Probably because there are so damn many of them and that’s not how I roll.
So 2,300 years ago there’s this Greek King. And he was all, “Hey, you Jews! It’s now a crime to be an observant Jew. Have a nice day. Actually, don’t.” This made a lot of Jewish people rather angry but, not wanting to die an immediate and painful death, most Jews acquiesced and gave up practising Judaism. At least in public. Prayer and study went on in secret and a variety of sneaky little tricks were used to stop the Greeks finding out.
Chief among these sneaky little tricks was the use of the Dreidl, which translates roughly as Four-Sided Spinny Top Thing. This was a gambling game that children would play to mask their illegal learning of the rich and varied tapestry that is Jewish history. Not an actual tapestry, mind you, just that the history is analogous to a tapestry in that it is made of many different threads that have been weaved together over time to make poorly rendered pictures of things. Imagine playing poker, but written on each of the cards is a page from a philosophy textbook or something. That’s kind of what Driedl was.
BEHOLD, the way an entire culture learned religion.
Also during this time the King busted into the Temple in Jerusalem and started desecrating it gangster style. We’re talking pigs sacrificed on the altar, filthy idols put up everywhere and bad Hanson impersonators performing round the clock. Dark times whichever way you want to cut it.
So, to recap, we have Judaism outlawed, the Temple desecrated, and Jews carrying on being Jewish in secret through cunning use of gambling. Pretty soon, it all got a bit much for some of the Jews and they formed a roving band of vigilantes called the Maccabees. This translates as The Hammers (no joke, it really was hammertime) and they began a guerrilla war against the more numerous and better armed Greeks. This went on for a couple of years with the Jews generally cleaning the Greek’s clocks (winning) until eventually the Greeks had enough and were all, “Screw this, let’s go institutionalise sports or something”.
Such poor losers.
After cleaning up the pig’s blood, burning all the idols and kicking the Hanson tribute act in their collective blonde throats, the Maccabees turned to the serious business of getting the Temple in normal-working order again. First task was to relight the Everlasting Light, which was (amazingly enough) supposed to be burning all the time. Of course, you couldn’t use any old supermarket Flora to light this bad boy – it had to be sanctified oil, but the Greeks had smashed all the pots and it would take eight days for new oil to be made. Eventually the Maccabees were able to unearth one small pot containing enough oil for about a day. Deciding that something is better than nothing they lit it and here’s where the MIRACLE HAPPENED!
Yes, instead of burning for just one day, the oil lasted for EIGHT WHOLE DAYS! Yowza!
And that’s what we celebrate on Chanukah. Not that we opened up a giant can of smackdown on the Greeks, but that the oil lasted 8 times longer than it had any right to.
Chanukah is not really a family-comes-together-from-miles-around festival – that honour is reserved for Pesach (Passover), so it is usually just my parents, my brother and I. My grandparents would usually come around for a couple of the nights and occasionally my Uncle too, but it has always mostly been the four of us. Each of the eight (ooh symbolism) evenings has a short service with lots of out-of-tune singing and includes the lighting of the menorah.
And here you thought it was just a swank looking way to light your dorm on the cheap.
Menorah literally means Nine-Branched-Candle-Holder-But-One-Of-The-Branches-Is -A-Bit-Higher-Than-The-Other-Eight. Also I may be lying, but that is an accurate description of what it is. The number of candles lit goes from 2 to 9 throughout the 8 days (the extra candle is lit first and used to light all the others – for more information consult your local Rabbi). When we were younger my brother and I used to play Dreidl, but we tended to get bored with gambling for matchsticks and the whole experience would quickly descend into us hurling the Driedl back and forth with deadly intent. We don’t play Dreidl anymore.
Food eaten during Chanukah-time tends towards being The Same As The Rest Of The Year, but we do eat more latkes. They are fried. In OIL! Do you see the links here? They are quite subtle, so it’s ok if you’re missing them.
Now, the gift-giving. This is the one that makes people loudly claim “CHANKUAH IS CHRISTMAS FOR THEM JEWISH FOLK!” Yes, in my family it is traditional for the parents to give gifts to the children. A small token gift each night. Like a sock or a button. Maybe one nice thing on the very last night. Like a lego set or a hairdryer. Note the gift giving is only from parents to children. It is not the obscene gift orgies that seem to be part and parcel (ha) of the Christmas celebration where everyone buys everyone a thousand items and subsequently drowns in the rising tide of wrapping paper and emotion.
Your typical Chanukah present. It keeps your foot warm!
I am convinced that the only reason gifts exchange hands at all during Chanukah is to placate the monster children and stop them feeling victimised at schools when kids ask them why their parents are mean enough to ban Christmas. When I stop to think about it I kind of get annoyed that the holiday most involved with battling assimilation and staying true to Jewish culture is the one that has become the most secular and assimilated, but then I remember I got a nifty lego set out of it and the whole thing is suddenly a lot less painful.
This has got a bit long and confusing and I can’t even remember what I was supposed to write about, so I shall end with this Childhood Lament. Once upon a time when I was a young and innocent child I learnt the story of Chanukah. Afterwards I simply could not fathom why my primary school was putting on a play of the story of Christmas. I mean, sure it had shepherds and angels and births and whatnot, but 7 year old Trevor would much rather have been involved in a story of gambling, guerrilla warfare and burning stuff.
It just seemed more Hollywood, you know?
