First Night of Chanukah

Well, tonight is the first night of Chanukah and I just lit my Menorah (not pictured above). Which makes me think about Chanukah and what it symbolizes. The Greek Empire wanted to rule the world and spread their hellenistic ways of life to all of mankind. Nearly all adapted to the Greeks or were killed, except the Jews. The Jews carried on learning the Jewish bible and doing the commandments God commanded, despite the threat of life if they were to be caught.

When the Greeks erected statues of their gods in Jewish cities and forced Jews to bow to them, the Jews realized that the only way for Judaism to survive would be to show the mighty Greeks the door. The Macabees started with an old man in the city of Modi'in, and his five sons. Their ranks grew by the day as did their strength and weapon cache. They started out with small raids on Greek soldiers, ambushes and hit-and-run attacks. But as their experience grew they started attacking bigger Greek installations. After many miraculously victorious battles, in which they were heavily outnumbered, they were able to drive the Greeks out of the capital, Jerusalem.

When they entered the Temple they found it in terrible shape. After cleaning it and removing the impurities the Greeks had placed there, they were ready to continue the services of the Temple. However, one of the services was to light a Menorah with pure olive oil but they were not able to find any olive oil. The Greeks had broken all the seals to the oil jugs, rendering them impure for use in the Temple. But after a long search they were able to find a small jug with enough oil to burn for one day. The only problem was that it took eight days to make new oil. But God performed a miracle and the oil burned for eight days and nights until new oil was made.

To commemorate this great miracle we light the Menorah every year for eight nights.