Light In Time Of Darkness

 

   I think we know the story in general, but I will post a long quote here. The photo is mine from last year, four days into the eight day holiday, along with the gummi snakes. They were quite good, by the way.  Chaotic as usual around here.

   Hannukah is not one of the Hebrew holidays in scripture, it's just traditional.  

   But it is a nice remembrance of God's provision in time of darkness.  

   It is traditional also to put the lights in your window so that your neighbors passing by will see them and be encouraged.  It does take some courage to show yourself of the Jewish persuasion, this year, all of a sudden.

   What a year it has been!

   

Hanukkah: A Great Miracle Happened Here

The word Hanukkah comes from the Hebrew word hanukh, which means dedication or education.

Hanukkah is celebrated as the Feast of Dedication to remember the re-dedication of the Temple after God faithfully delivered Israel from her oppressors.

In fact, the reason for lighting eight candles and celebrating Hanukkah for eight nights relates to God’s faithfulness and the miraculous story of Hanukkah.
Between the years 175 to 163 BC, after the death of Alexander the Great, who had conquered and divided the entire ancient world of the Eastern Mediterranean, the area of Judea came under control of the Greek king Antiochus IV Epiphanes.

Antiochus tried to force the Jews to accept Greek culture. He even defiled the Beit HaMikdash (Temple in Jerusalem) by sacrificing a pig on the altar and desecrating this holy place with the blood of this unclean animal.

As described in the book of the Maccabees in the Apocrypha, this wicked ruler forbade the Jewish people from keeping God’s laws. In fact, the penalty for keeping the Torah was death. Many Jewish people chose martyrdom over defying God’s commandments.


(Since the Greeks outlawed the study of the Torah, it was hidden whenever someone approached. Instead, the dreidels were taken out and played like a game of chance. The letters nun, gimmel, hey, shin stand for nes gadol haya sham, meaning a great miracle happened there. In Israel, however, the letters are nun, gimmel, hey, pey meaning a great miracle happened here.)

Antiochus also erected a statue of the Greek false god, Zeus, in the Holy of Holies!

As horrible as this was, it was fulfillment of the Hebrew Prophet Daniel’s prophecy concerning the “abomination of desolation.”

The Prophet Daniel wrote: “His armed forces will rise up to desecrate the temple fortress and will abolish the daily sacrifice. Then they will set up the abomination that causes desolation. With flattery he will corrupt those who have violated the covenant, but the people who know their God will firmly resist him.” (Daniel 11:31–32)

A Jewish revolt against this assault on Judaism rose up. It was led by the courageous freedom fighters called the Maccabees.

This word is an acronym standing for the Hebrew phrase Mi kamocha ba’elim Adonai, which means Who is like you, Lord, among the gods?

Although greatly outnumbered and overpowered, Yehudah (Judah) the Maccabee led his brothers and some other Jewish men in a valiant battle to drive out tens of thousands of Greeks and re-claim the Temple.

God helped this small group of men, and they won the victory in 163 BC, taking back Jerusalem and rededicating the Temple to God.

Tradition has it that they only found a one-day supply of sealed, consecrated oil for the Temple Menorah; however, the oil miraculously burned for a whole eight days—the time it took to prepare the sanctified oil.