![]() ![]() Either way the same number of candles would be lit to have a full celebration.Īccording to Rabbi Irving Greenberg in The Jewish Way (1988), on p. These are two possible ways to celebrate the miracle. Rabbi Hillel advocated for increasing the number of candles by one each day, This includes how to light the Chanukah lights. In the Talmud ( Berakhot), Rabbis Hillel and Shammai are famous for debating almost anything about Jewish practice. Then we use the shamash to light the Chanukah candles: one on the first night (25 Kislev, 5783 / December 18, 2022, at sundown - 4:24 pm here in Toronto), two on the second, three the third, and so on to eight candles on the eighth evening.īut two thousand years ago, this order was up for debate. This candle doesn’t count as one of the candles that represent the Miracle of Chanukah. In this period of history, we first light the shamash (the helping candle) on every one of the eight nights of Chanukah. ![]() So, yesterday we had that beautiful moment when we lit the Chanukah Menorah for the first time this year 5783/2022. “Celebration will include the lighting of the candles on the Menorah, the candelabra with places for up to eight candles, plus the Shamash, the candle which is responsible for lighting the candles that celebrate the Miracle of Chanukah.” And we’ll continue until the spectacular last lighting at the sunset that begins Yom sheni, 2 Tevet, 5783. The second lighting will be that evening, while the first would have been at the previous sunset, the first of eight nights of Chanukah for 5783. “Next Monday will be Yom sheni, 25 Kislev, 5783, and we’ll already be celebrating Chanukah. Member Education might remember that, on December 12, I blogged here that: Thankful for the Light He has given to the world through a tiny nation the world loves to hate.First Posted Monday, Decem/ Yom sheni, 25 Kislev, 5783. ![]() So, tonight, we light the first candle on our menorah, as Christians, with thankful hearts. Jesus, who we believe to be the Messiah and the Savior of the world, may never had been born, His offer of salvation to anyone who would believe would never have been made. Consider how much different the world story might be had the Jewish people been destroyed. Third, for Christians, Hanukkah is especially meaningful, for without it there would be no Christmas. Army officer famously stated to his Nazi captors, “We are all Jews here.” Lighting the menorah reminds us of our duty to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the Jewish people in effect, saying to Israel’s enemies, as one U.S. The shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue ought to be a wake-up call to the non-Jewish world that something sinister is afoot, an ancient hatred that continues to fester to this day. Second, by lighting the menorah, we are reminded of the biblical injunction to love our Jewish neighbors and to speak out when the world seeks to destroy them, an occasion not limited to the days of the Maccabees. Such knowledge demands heart-felt worship of this great God. He kept His promise to preserve the Jewish people for His purposes and for His glory. But God is faithful in spite of man’s unfaithfulness. The nation Israel was, when Antiochus Epiphanies barged onto the scene, largely a nation in rebellion against God (see the Old Testament prophets’ rebukes). First, we are reminded of God’s faithfulness.
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