Gift Guice
ess.. .age of
Chai .1/1kah
Four Rabbis
share their
thoughts on
the Festival
of Lights.
hanukah arrives as a reflec-
tion of our natural world. It
occurs at the darkest
moment of the year, around,
and often on, the winter solstice when
the sun is at its farthest distance from
earth. Beginning on the 25th day of
the month of Kislev, it is the waning
of the Jewish month as well — when
the moon has all but disappeared. By
the third night of
Chanukah, the sliver
that was the moon is
only darkness, but by
the sixth night of
Chanukah it has begun
to appear again. Thus,
as we enter Chanukah,
no time of the year is
KLEIN on page G6
he zeal and valor of the
Maccabees, which is com-
memorated by the festival of
Chanukah, took place more
than 21 centuries ago. At that dark
period, it seemed as though the light
of Judaism was about to be extin-
auished. Yet our ancestors resisted and
proved victorious in their struggle.
They chose 'to fight rather than
switch." Their stub-
bornness against the
forces of assimilation
won for them and for
us, their descendants, a
continued lease on life.
Still the battle is not
entirely won, nor is it
a permanent victory,.
NELSON on page G6
fter the Maccabees succeeded
in thwarting the substitution
of Hellenism for Judaism in
64 BCE, they rededicated
the seven-branched menorah inside
the Second Temple in Jerusalem. Our
universal custom today of lighting an
eight-branched candelabrum on
Chanukah commemorates the unex-
pected burning for eight days of a
one-day supply of oil
in that menorah. The
eighth branch symbol-
izes a critical distinc-
tion between Judaism
and Hellenism.
The Midrash com-
pares the seven branch-
es to:
SHAPERO on page G7
hanukah for me is an ever-
evolving holiday; every year
it means something differ-
ent. This year I find myself
inspired and challenged by the story
in II Maccabees of a mother and her
seven sons, a mother who believed
with such faith in the ideals of
Judaism that she stood by and
watched, even encouraged, each of her
sons as they were bru-
tally tortured and mur-
dered before she herself
met her death. The
king tried to force them
to eat pork, against our
tradition and laws, but
they refused. They
chose death instead. The Rabbi Amy
Ruth Bolton
BOLTON on page G8
C
Rabbi Joseph
Klein
Rabbi David
A. Nelson
Rabbi David
Shapero
11/23
2001
G5