Tonight marks the start of the Hanukkah holiday, a festival lasting eight nights. Each night an additional candle is lit on the Mennorah, Hanukkah being the festival of lights. Most non-Jews know that it is a holiday, but not what it is about.

Hanukkah celebrates the rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem. In 168 BCE (Before the Common Era) an army of Hellenistic Syrians invaded and conquered Israel. The Syrian king, Antiochus, decreed that everyone had to adopt the customs of Greece. He outlawed the practice of Jewish rituals, even the observance of Sabbath and worshiping in the Temple. The Greeks used the Temple as a shrine to worship Zeus. Jews were forced to worship idols and to eat forbidden pork. A rebellion ensued, led by an elderly priest named Mattathias and his five sons. They took the name Maccabee, which means Hammer. In a climactic battle outside the city of Jerusalem the Jewish army, outnumbered and for the most part lacking in armor, defeated the larger Syrian army.

Tradition has it that when the Jews reclaimed the Temple and began the cleansing, they found the golden Menorrah broken. (A Menorrah is a candle holder with a central candle that is used to light eight additional candles.The Mennorah in the Temple was the Eternal Light and never allowed to go out.) Even after repairing the Menorrah, there was only enough purified oil to last for one night. It would take eight days for more purified oil to be brought to the city. Somehow, however, the oil lasted eight days!

So the Hanukkah holiday celebrates two things: The victory over the Syrians and the Miracle of the Oil. At Hanukkah, children spin Dreidels. The four letters on the Dreidel stand for the Hebrew words that mean "A great miracle happened there." (In Israel, Dreidels are different, with the letters standing for "A great miracle happened here.")

To me the Hanukkah holiday has always been about a people refusing to bow before the will of a tyrant, resisting oppression.

If you would like to see a Dreidel or have one spinning on your desk, you can download one from the DesktopX section at Wincustomize. You will need to have DesktopX installed, but you can even use the shareware version. You can downlaod DesktopX from https://www.stardock.com/products/desktopx/downloads.asp and the Dreidel is at https://www.wincustomize.com/skins.asp?searchtext=dreidel&sort=Skin&order=Descending&library=3 My good friend AlexG made it at my request! Happy Hanukkah!