Hanukkah – December 9th
guest | December 9th, 2012 in : about cross-culture, cultural diversity, days of significance, General, social practices
Today is Hanukkah, the Jewish festival of lights.
Hanukkah is celebrated by lighting one candle on the Hanukiah each day.
Hanukkah dates back two centuries before Christianity and literally means rededication. Hanukkah symbolizes how God looked after Jewish people in hard times.
The story goes that an ancient king in Syria tried to make Jewish people worship Greek gods. He built a statue of one Greek god in a big Jewish temple and ordered people to bow to it. The Ten Commandments forbid the worshipping of idols and the Jewish people refused. Three years of war and unrest followed these events. Eventually, lead by a small group called the Maccabees, Jewish people claimed back Jerusalem from the Syrians. Their temple, however, was destroyed. Jewish people then rebuilt the temple and purified it by burning ritual oil.
The purification of the temple marks one of the biggest miracles in Jewish history: only a small amount of oil was found (enough to last for a day) but the lamp in the temple burned a total of eight days.
Hanukkah is celebrated by lighting one candle on the Hanukiah (an eight-stemmed candelabrum) each day.
Happy Hanukkah everyone!
Hello, I'm Deborah Swallow and, for the last fifteen years, I've worked in over thirty countries addressing the complexities of people working internationally across multiple cultures, so individuals and organisations alike can gain an authentic competitive edge and win in international markets. 