Question of the Week: What is the eighth letter of the

aleph-bet (like the eight nights of Chanukah)?

helping jewish families grow-

,,•uolnuoup n pJOM
eLp sui6aci Oslo '16nouG Apu!isaJelu! 'LIDNAA
uemsuvi

Light Of Our Lives

The saces tell us that
Chanukah is a holiday of
many miracles.

Elizabeth Applebaum
AppleTree Editor

Alexander the
Great approaches
the walls of
Jerusalem.

famous passage in the Talmud.
t seems that everyone knows
Although this explanation has
why we celebrate
become
the most prominent
Chanukah. As any child
source of our celebration, it is
who attends day school, after-
not the only reason to rejoice.
noon or synagogue Sunday
The siddur, the Jewish prayer
school can tell us, we light can-
book, gives us a broader basis
dles for eight nights to com-
for celebrating Chanukah.
memorate the miracle of a sin-
During the holiday, in all three
gle jar of oil that should have
daily prayers, as well as in
been enough for only one day,
birkat haMazon (the grace after
but instead burned for eight.
meals), we recite the prayer Al
Secularists point to Chanukah
haNisim ("For
as a celebration
the Miracles"),
of religious free-
mum me
a list of
Atz
dom. Some
declaratory
Christians, puz-
ito
statements
zled by the
We celebrate our
regarding
absence of trees
survival not by might
Chanukah
and tinsel in Jew-
alone, but with
(there is anoth-
ish homes,
Go d's help.
er
Al haNisim
explain
for Purim).
Chanukah as th
In this prayer,
"Jewish Christ-
we acknowledge that it was
mas."
God, working through the Has-
Others concoct anthropologi-
moneans, who rescued Israel
cal explanations for the holi-
from
the Greek oppressors. "You
day,. asserting that Chanukah is
delivered the strong into the
nothing more than "sympathetic
hands of the weak, the many into
magic'': the onset of win-
the hands of the few, the impure
ter brings short days
into the hands of the pure, the
with early darkness, and
wicked into the hands of the
by kindling lights, Jews
righteous, and the wanton into
coax back the long hours
the hands of the diligent students
of sunlight.
of your Torah."
What, then, is the
The crowning moment of the
rationale for Chanukah?
heroes
of Israel Al haNisim
In a basic sense, our
tells us, was their entry into the
children have it right.
pagan defiled Temple in
The holiday is a com-

I

-
..„

.

memoration of the miracle
oil, which we know from a

Sf

12/15
2000

64

LIGHT OF OUR LIVES

on page 66

