Hanukkah

The story behind the day

Hanukkah, meaning "dedication", is an eight-day winter festival that begins on the 25th of Kislev. It recalls the rededication of the Jerusalem Temple after the Maccabees, a priestly family, rose against the Seleucid king Antiochus IV in the second century BCE. The books of the Maccabees tell the military story; the Talmud, centuries later, adds a tale of one jar of oil that lasted eight nights, and that tale shaped the main rite of lighting a menorah with one more light each night.^[1–7]

Origins

Temple rededication, the menorah lit, Maccabean eraIllustration · AI-generated

The Seleucid king Antiochus IV Epiphanes ordered sacrifices to Greek gods in the Temple, and sources describe a ban on Shabbat, festivals and circumcision. A priestly family led the resistance: Mattathias, and after him his son Judah, called Maccabee. The First Book of Maccabees dates the rededication of the altar to the 25th of Kislev and says it was celebrated for eight days. First and Second Maccabees, which are apocryphal books, are the main sources for how the festival began.^{[1–3, 8]}

What it marks

Historically the festival marks the purifying and rededication of the Temple. According to the Second Book of Maccabees the eight days were chosen because the Jews, in the middle of the war, had been unable to keep the eight-day festival of Sukkot. The oil story is rabbinic: the Talmud, in Shabbat 21b, relates that only one small sealed jar of pure oil was found, enough for a night, and that it burned for eight. Neither of the Maccabean books mentions it, and the earliest sources know nothing of a festival of lights.^{[4–5, 9–10]}

How it came to be

The rabbis of the Talmudic age cast the event less as a victory of the Hasmonean armies and more as a miraculous deliverance by God, and one Conservative teacher notes that in their telling God, not the fighters, is the hero. The oil story led to the nightly lighting, and it helps explain why the holiday is centred today on the home rather than the battlefield.^{[6, 11]}

How it is kept

lamp in a window, latkes on a table — Lamp in a window, latkes on a tableIllustration · AI-generated

One light is kindled on the first night, and another is added each night, the shamash being used to light the rest. The menorah stands in a window so that the miracle is seen from outside. Two blessings are said, a thanksgiving for the victory is added to the daily prayers, and the older fuel was olive oil, though candles are now in wide use. Fried foods recall the oil, and children spin the dreidel, whose letters stand for "a great miracle happened there". Money for children is an older custom, but the exchange of wrapped presents is a later addition that an encyclopedia entry and a Reform essay both tie to Christmas.^{[6, 12–18]}

Across traditions

Orthodox sources, such as the Orthodox Union and Chabad, tie the lighting to the miracle of the oil. In Israel bakeries specialise in the sufganiya, a filled doughnut that is the festival's most iconic food. Israeli dreidels read "a great miracle happened here".^{[15–16, 19]}

Sources

Each statement above was checked against published sources; the verdict says whether it stood as written, was corrected or was hedged.