Through the year

Chanukah: how to light, and what actually happened

The order of the candles, where the menorah goes, the words to say — and the history underneath a story most people know a slightly wrong version of.

How to light — the whole thing, in order

This is the mitzvah of the holiday, and it takes about four minutes a night. Everything else is optional.

1. Set up before dark. Put the menorah where it will stand for the evening — see below on where. Fill the oil cups or set the candles.
2. Place the candles right to left. Night one: one candle at the far right. Night two: one at the far right and one immediately to its left. And so on, so that on night eight the row is full. The shamash — the ninth, helper light — sits apart from the row, usually higher.
3. Light the shamash and hold it.
4. Say the blessings while holding it, before lighting anything else. Two blessings every night, three on the first.
5. Light left to right. The newest candle — the one added for tonight, at the left end — goes first, then the next one to its right, and so on. So you add from the right and light from the left. This is the part people get wrong, and getting it wrong is not a disaster.
6. Put the shamash in its holder and say or sing Haneirot Halalu.
7. Stay with them. The custom is to sit for at least half an hour and not use the light for anything — no reading by it, no working by it. This is the actual holiday.

The blessings

Every night: Baruch atah Ado-nai, Elo-heinu melech ha’olam, asher kideshanu bemitzvotav vetzivanu lehadlik ner Chanukah. — who has sanctified us with His commandments and commanded us to kindle the Chanukah light.

Every night: … she’asa nissim la’avoteinu bayamim haheim bizman hazeh. — who performed miracles for our ancestors in those days, at this time.

First night only: … shehecheyanu vekiyemanu vehigi’anu lizman hazeh. — who has kept us alive and brought us to this moment.

One small Chabad note on wording: Chabad says ner Chanukah rather than ner shel Chanukah. Another: Chabad does not sing Maoz Tzur after lighting — a surprise to people who grew up with it, and not a criticism of anyone who does. Haneirot Halalu is said in every custom.

Where the menorah goes

The whole obligation is pirsumei nisa — publicising the miracle — so placement is not decoration, it is the mitzvah.

• Chabad custom: indoors, in the doorway of the room where the family eats, on the side opposite the mezuzah, and low — ideally under about three feet from the ground rather than up on a shelf. The idea is that you pass between two mitzvot as you walk through.
• Very widespread practice: on a windowsill facing the street, so that people outside see it. If your window is high above the ground, this is less effective and a doorway is better.
• Either way: somewhere safe, away from curtains, on a surface that will not scorch, and not somewhere a child or a cat will reach it.

Timing, and the two awkward nights

Chabad custom is to light after sunset, with enough fuel to burn for fifty minutes. Two nights need planning:

• Friday. Chanukah candles are lit before Shabbat candles, so noticeably earlier than on other nights — and they still have to be burning well past nightfall. Use longer candles or more oil. Check Friday’s candle lighting time on the times page and work backwards.
• Saturday night. At home, Shabbat is ended with havdalah first, then the menorah is lit. (In shul the order is the other way round.)

What actually happened

The half-remembered version is: the Greeks oppressed the Jews, the Maccabees won, there was only enough oil for one day and it lasted eight. Every clause of that is roughly true and each one is missing something.

The empire was the Seleucid one — a Greek-speaking successor state to Alexander’s empire, ruled from Syria. In the 160s BCE its king, Antiochus IV, intervened in a fight that was already going on inside Judea, between Jews who wanted Jerusalem to become a Greek-style city and Jews who did not. Hellenised Jews were not a footnote to the story; they were one of its two sides. Chanukah is, among other things, the memory of a civil war, and the traditional sources do not hide this.

Antiochus banned circumcision, Shabbat and Torah study on pain of death, and had the Temple rededicated to Zeus. The revolt began in the village of Modi’in with a priest named Mattityahu, and was led after his death by his son Judah, called Maccabee. In 164 BCE they retook Jerusalem and purified the Temple. That rededication — chanukah means dedication — is the event the holiday is named for.

A few things worth knowing that the popular version leaves out:

• The story is not in the Hebrew Bible. The main accounts are the books of Maccabees, which are not part of the Jewish canon.
• The oil miracle appears late. The books of Maccabees describe an eight-day festival modelled on Sukkot, which they had been unable to keep that year. The jug of oil that burned for eight days is told in the Talmud, several centuries later.
• The liturgy foregrounds the war, not the oil. Al HaNisim, the paragraph added to prayers and grace after meals for the eight days, is entirely about the military victory: the many delivered into the hands of the few. The oil is not mentioned in it.
• The Hasmonean dynasty ended badly. The family that led the revolt became kings, took the High Priesthood they had no hereditary right to, fought each other, and eventually invited Rome in. The tradition knows this. It is part of why the emphasis shifted, over time, from a victory to a lamp.

None of that makes the holiday smaller. It makes it a more interesting holiday than the greeting-card version, and it is a better story to tell children who are old enough for it.

The rest of the eight days

• Full Hallel — psalms of praise — is said every morning, all eight days.
• Al HaNisim is added to the Amidah and to grace after meals.
• No fasting and no eulogies, and no tachanun.
• Work is permitted. Chanukah is not a festival in the legal sense: no work restrictions at all, on any of the eight days.
• Gelt — money given to children, and by extension a good week to increase what you give to tzedakah generally.
• Dreidel — the four letters stand for nes gadol hayah sham, a great miracle happened there. In Israel the last letter changes and it reads po, here.

Latkes and sufganiyot

Both are fried, and that is the whole rationale: food cooked in oil, for a holiday about oil. Beyond that they are a geography lesson.

Latkes are eastern European. The potato version is younger than people assume — potatoes only became a staple in that part of the world in the nineteenth century, and the earlier Chanukah pancake was a cheese one. Which points at a second thread: dairy foods on Chanukah are connected to Judith, who in the tradition fed an enemy general salty cheese, then wine, and dealt with him when he fell asleep.

Sufganiyot — jam doughnuts — are the Israeli standard, and are now what most of the world associates with the holiday. If you have opinions about which is better, you are in good company; the argument is part of the holiday at this point.

Neither is obligatory, and there is no requirement to eat anything at all on Chanukah. There is also no requirement to give presents, though there is nothing wrong with it.

Locally

We light publicly as well as at home — a community menorah lighting, and things for children. This year’s dates, times and location are on the Chanukah page and the calendar as soon as they are set.

If you do not have a menorah, ask us for one. We would rather hand you one than have a window stay dark, and that is not a figure of speech — call or email the office.

Questions people ask

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