Yes, and note also that Hanukkah is not historically a truly religious holiday to begin with. The original Hanukkah story does not appear in the Old Testament and isn’t mandated to be a religious holiday (in contrast, e.g., to Yom Kippur). The story appears in the apocryphal Book of Maccabees (I Maccabees I think) which is not part of either the Jewish nor Protestant Bible. (The Apocrypha is part of the Catholic official holy scripture, is that correct? If so, it should be Catholics celebrating Hanukkah! )
Historically, over the past two millennia, Hanukkah has always been a relatively obscure and unimportant Jewish festival. The modern hoopla is pretty much strictly an American invention, prompted by crass commercialism and a fairly direct result of the same in the modern Christian commercialization of Christmas.
Not that this is totally a problem. Many people criticize the commercialism of it all. But aside from that, both are still fun-filled festive parties for a lot of children especially.
I’m not sure why the op expects anybody to understand the rituals of any particular religion. They did their best to help. Candles in the candle department. have a wallyworld day. You’re lucky you found a clerk at all.
As for the spelling, it’s obviously in English which is not the language it comes from. Blame the fucktard who translated it in the first place and not the minimum wage clerk who is pronouncing it as written.
And as an end note -anyone shopping at Walmart for religious products (specifically Jewish) really needs to rethink the dynamics of that unless the store is in Israel in which case you probably have a 50/50 chance of being helped.
Well yeah, but still, even if you don’t know the Hanukkah ritual or that the menorah doesn’t use special candles, you at least know what Hanukkah is. It never even occurred to me that someone in the United States, particularly someone in the Boston area, would not know this.
I do not know what it is beyond a Jewish holiday that is near the Christmas holiday.
I am thoroughly confused on the candles since it’s a celebration of a miracle involving oil. How are the candles different than any other? they look like standard candles to me and I failed to find out how they’re different beyond a need to package them in groups of 9.
Please don’t take this as a personal jab, but I found it highly amusing that the OP who titled his thread “Are people really this clueless about Hanukah?” is also the poster asking this question.
Incidentally, yesterday was a Buddhist holy day, Bodhi Day (and Wesak, I think, too) which celebrates the enlightenment of the Buddha. One of the rituals associated with this is lighting a candle every day for 30 days.
Which brings me to my own question. When you light the menorah, does it have to stay lit the entire time? What happens when you leave the house?
As a rule, you’re never allowed to put out any candles used in Jewish ritual (except for the *havdala *candle, where putting it out is part of the ritual). Just don’t put them next to anything flammable.
That said, if you don’t feel safe, then you can put them out.
Could be that the clerk didn’t know that the word spelled “Chanukah” on a box was the word for that Jewish Christmas celebration. They might not know that hors d’ouvres are appetizers either. The exchange in the OP didn’t have the clerk not knowing the holiday, just not the spelling and pronunciation.
I have a friend who gleefully mocked (to me) the guy at the bakery because he didn’t know what to put on a “bon voyage” cake, and had her spell it out for him so he could write it down. Can you imagine? Not knowing what “bon voyage” was! Except when she told the story, I didn’t know what a “bon voyage” cake was either - she speaks French and knows how to put on a French accent so instead of pronouncing it “bon voy-aahj” like an American she was saying something akin to that, but while swallowing her tongue and eating a boiled egg. It didn’t sound like “bon voyage” at all.
I’m betting to a lot of people “Chanukah” doesn’t look like “hawn-ookah” either.
common people, fight my ignorance. What is special about the Chanukah candle that is different than other stick candles? I’ve bought single stick candles before and they look the same.
They’re smaller in diameter. The standard sockets in a menorah are too small for regular tapers to fit into. They also burn a shorter time, since you’re not supposed to put them out until they burn down and a regular taper burns for hours.
It’s just a common size for menorahs. They’re not the dripless type, and multi-colored for decoration. There are also larger menorahs that ordinary candles are used in, and smaller ones that take birthday candles. Some menorahs have oil lamps. But if you have the typical menorah, Chanukah candles are likely the only ones you’ll find that fit.
BTW: The proper term to use here is Chanukah Menorah. These have 9 candles. There are also 7 candle memorahs.
Thanks. Follow up question. If you’re not suppose to put them out after lit and they burn faster then this sounds like you’d be digging wax out of the menorah all the time so that a new candle could be used.
It’s already been pointed out there isn’t anything more special about Hanuka candles than birthday candles, except they’re sized for your average menorah.
BTW, just got back from my local Safeway grocery store. The Yahrzeits & (Hebrew language) candles sold in a box of two times nine candles are in the ethic food section between Hispanic and Asian stuff. There’s a decent selection of other Jewish stuff there.
Hanuka or Chanuka?
Seen it spelled both ways - no wonder people get confused.
When I was living in Chicago, almost all of my friends were Jewish.
Then I moved to NYC and, surprisingly, also met many Jewish people.
Despite knowing so many, I only got little bits and pieces of information about Jewish holidays, and usually there was the proverbial shrug of shoulder and a kind of “it’s a Jewish thing” answer whenever I asked for specifics about holidays or Jewish celebrations. I did get invited to a Seder once - that was very cool!
The point is, even with knowing so many Jewish people over the years, I don’t really know that much about Hunuka/Chanuka (but I can pronounce it) other than 8 gifts over 8 days.
I was also surprised when I drove to Skokie, Illinois to visit friends (a predominately Jewish area, at least back in the day) and saw lots of “Christmas-looking” decorations on most of the houses. My friends told me that growing up, as kids they all wanted to have the lights and Santa and all that stuff, so many family simply tweaked the traditions and made it more of a non-secular holiday festival, letting their kids have more gifts and things to go along with what they saw their other schoolmates get at Christmas. I guess you can only have kids of all religions watch a gazillion Christmas shows on TV and eventually you have to bend a bit and give them some Rudolf and Frosty decorations and a couple nice toys/gifts to match what the other kids get.
As long as we’re asking questions, what’s the deal with latkes? I know that they are delicious, but are they only made on the first night? All 8 nights? Are there other traditional foods associated with the holiday?
Surely they make disposable inserts for them. That would have gotten on my last nerve after the first go around. I’d be lining them with aluminum foil so it just pulls out.
I’m not Jewish, but you know what I learned about Hanuka? Fried foods! Fry it in oil, it’s Hanuka! Donuts, latkes (basically hashbrowns), deep fried anything you want!
The oil thing is because the whole holiday is about some candle oil that should have lasted one day but (via miracle) lasted eight days.
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