A bit of curiosity on my part - while I know that the events which Hanukkah celebrates occured nearly 2,500 years ago, I’m curious about the present-day celebration of it.
Certain aspects of it’s celebration appear to be older traditions that were probably instituted not long after rededication of the temple. For example, the Hanukkah menorah with its eight lower candles and a ninth higher candle representing the eight nights of unconsecrated oil followed by the new oil. While other traditions (like exchanging of gifts) would seem to be a more modern contrivance.
Is this a case of “keeping up with the Jones’s”? Or more specifically, keeping up with the modern celebration of Christmas which, for whatever reason, has come to include a tradition of gift-giving. Or is it just the spirit of secularization/capitalization operating on both religious observations in the same way? Apart from the means of celebration, what about the emphasis placed on the holiday? I’ve had a couple Jewish friends comment that Hanukkah is (or was) a fairly minor holiday in the first place, but that various interests (the Hallmark conspiracy :D) were trying to inflate it into a major holiday. Would you agree with that assesment? Are the methods of celebration and the relative emphasis on Hanukkah different outside of the U.S.? What about in predominantly non-Christian countries? What about in Israel?
Note: I’m in no way trying to “bash” Hanukkah here or imply that celebrating it by any means is disingenuous. I’m just curious about the history of the celebration of Hanukkah (i.e. when and how it has been celebrated over the ages). And I’m (perhaps morbidly) curious if it’s undergoing the same sort of secularization that Christmas has, and to what this process might be attributed to.
Hanukkah is a very minor holiday. It does have a tradition of giving gifts, but small ones, like candies. That it has been inflated to be a big holiday is directly as a result of it happening to occur close to Christmas. Since Hanukkah isn’t a terribly religious holiday in the first place (it isn’t mentioned in the Tanakh), it’s not too hard to “secularize” it.
When I was at school in Israel, we did get the first day of Hanukkah off to create a three-day weekend, and it was quite festive. People eat sufganyiot (jelly doughnuts), and give small gifts. It’s nice, but pretty low-key. In comparison, we had the entire month of High Holidays off (or rather, school didn’t start til they were over, in mid-October) and we had all of Pesach off.
I don’t know that it has been inflated in recent years. What is true is that the practice of giving gifts is apparently an American rip-off from Christmas. Back in Europe the custom was to give money.
What was and remains different that Christmas is that the presents (& money) are given to children only. There wasn’t (& isn’t, AFAIK) any custom of giving anything to adults.
It is a religious holiday. The reason it isn’t mentioned in Tanach is because it took place after Tanach had been completed.
Interestingly, though, it is only mentioned in passing in the Mishna. There are several pages in the Talmud devoted to it, though. And a whole lot more in medieval works.
Sufganiyot in Israel are the equivalent of latkes elsewhere. In general, the tradition is to eat things made in oil, in commemoration of the miracle of the lights.
Really, Izzy? Just compare the number of Jews who’ve heard of Hanukkah to the number who’ve heard of Sukkos or Shavuos. Few of us religious Jews would deny that the latter two had always been more prominent on the Jewish calendar…until American Jews felt they “needed to compete” with Christmas.
Well in a relative sense that is true. But this does not imply that Chanukka used to be a smaller holiday than it is today and that it is now inflated - only that the other holidays have become a lot more deflated in irreligious circles (along with the rest of Judaism). So if you are dealing with why people who don’t pay attention to much of Judaism still pay attention to Chanukka, I’m with you. But if you are claiming that Chanukka used to be a minor holiday and has been inflated in recent years, I would be inclined to disagree with you.
It used to be a relatively minor holiday here, too, until public schools made it a big one. How? Simple. They close for the whole 8 days of Hannukah…
So now you have
Lots of kids with too much time on their hands
Lots of parents trying to figure out what to do with said bored kids…
==> immediate Major Event.
So it has come to be that all the kiddie musicals and shows are geared to Hannukah, etc…
Izzy - The reason Hannukah is not in the Tanakh is not precisely chronology. The events of Hannukah took place several hundred years B.C (and under Helenistic occupation), while the Tanakh was only sealed, IIRC, around 100 AD (and under Roman occupation).
The book of Maccabim simply didn’t make it… and was relegated to the Apocrypha (“Sefarim Hizoniyim”) by the editors of the Tanakh - along with other books such as Judith.
Perhaps the reason that Maccabim wasn’t included in the Tanakh is that the editorial board considered the events to be too recent to be sure that they merited inclusion in the Holiest of Holy books… but the events happened before the sealing.
But in any event, you will notice that none of the works that are included in the Tanach are from the Second Temple period. So chronology is clearly the issue. (IOW, whatever point it is that you claim the Bible was “sealed”, clearly nothing was included from past a point that predated Chanukka).
Fascinating…I am a historian and find this interesting even from a purely academic level, but this does provide me with some answers for my goyische friends when they ask these kinds of questions. Being the “token Jew” pretty much all my life, most of my friends have “the basics” down, but I lack biblical/midrashic/talmudic/etc. knowledge to answer some of their more in-depth questions. Thanks!
When I was a kid (I am currently 66), we got a small amount of money (“Hanukah geld”) and there was no big deal. No one exchanged cards. It has grown enormously in recent years. But then so has Christmas. And did I mention Halloween?
Actually, it is quite common to have a festival of lights around the winter solstice. And why not. If you don’t, the days might continue to get shorter and maybe disappear entirely.
End of the sixth chapter of Bava Kama, in connection with tort law. (Available online here). The more extensive Talmudic discussion is elsewhere, in Shabbos (beginning here)
Well I don’t go much for modern scholarship, and more importantly, neither did the guys who decided what is or is not included in the Bible, so I don’t know how relevant such scholarship is to this issue.
But at the very least, those books describe events that predate the second temple.
