Torah and Jewish Idea > Torah and Jewish Idea
The Truth of Channukah
Sephirath:
Ps. muman613, The Hasmoneans didn't listen to a direct commandment of Hashem (For the House of Zadok to only light his offerings). These men may have fought for the God of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob yet they were not perfect. In my article 'The Truth of Channukah' I make a modern distinction, this being the adaption of presents borrowed from christmas. In the eyes of the wayward Jew the reason for the practice isn't important only assimilation is.
muman613:
The Chanukah Chanukiah is not a menorah... It is called a Menorah in order to compare it to the Menorah which stood in the Holy Temple. There is no prohibition from displaying a Chanukiah in your home as we do on Chanukah.
There is no mitzvah of giving presents on Chanukah, I don't know what is being implied by this:
--- Quote ---In my article 'The Truth of Channukah' I make a modern distinction, this being the adaption of presents borrowed from christmas.
--- End quote ---
Obviously the Hasmoneans weren't perfect, as our Holy Tanakh relates what befell the Jewish nation as a result of their arrogance for taking the Kingship in Israel. But that is part of the divine plan, and a part of the miracle of the Jewish people.
I don't really understand what Serophath Ben Baruch is trying to say. It is obvious that our sages, our Talmud, our Shulchan Aruch, and all mordern Jewish scholars have no problem with Chanukah and their is no question as to why we celebrate it.
It is ridiculous to claim that Chanukah was a response to the solar solistice. As you state it is a lunar calender which is aligned to the solar cycle by adding leap months according to a calculation. There is no way that Chanukah would correspond to the winter solistace due to this fact.
http://ohr.edu/ask_db/ask_main.php/331/Q1/
--- Quote ---
Dear Debra R.,
When reading a question like yours - which is basically a question of semantics - some people will say, "who cares?"
Those people are anti-semantic. What they don't realize is that a situation could arise where someone says, "pass the menorah" and everybody reaches for something different and all havoc breaks loose. So, I think your question deserves special attention and that the answer will resolve an argument between you and your friend and bring peace on earth.
Menorah means candelabra (Exodus 25). A gold menorah with seven lamps was part of the "furnishings" in the ancient Temple. This was chosen by Israel as a national symbol, and it appears on some Israeli coins.
On Chanukah we light a special eight-candle menorah. There is a ninth candle to provide light because the Chanukah candles themselves may not be used for light. Modern Hebrew has coined the word "chanukiah" to refer to this Chanukah menorah. This new word, while not in any classical Jewish text such as the Talmud or Shulchan Aruch, is nevertheless quite a clear and useful word.
So, in the classical sense, the clerk and tour guide are wrong. But in the modern Hebrew sense, I think they are right. So…please pass the chanukiah!
--- End quote ---
Sephirath:
--- Quote from: Dan Ben Noah on January 15, 2012, 11:15:44 PM ---If you keep reading you'll see that there were 7 lamps. It would have been 6 on the branches, and 1 on the shaft itself:
Exodus 25:37
37. And you shall make its lamps seven, and he shall kindle its lamps [so that they] shed light toward its face.
Joshua also wrote his own ordinance with the Torah:
Joshua 24:25-26
25. And Joshua made a covenant with the people that day, and set them a statute and an ordinance in Shechem.
26. And Joshua wrote these words in the book of the law of G-d, and took a great stone, and set it under the doorpost which is in the sanctuary of the Lord.
Also, if you say no holidays can be commemorated unless they are in the Pentateuch, you would have to throw out the book of Esther, which says this about Purim:
--- End quote ---
I wasn't talking about the lamps you fool, get it straight. The only reason this is an issue is so you can ignore the message. Keep your excuses, I don't want them!
muman613:
--- Quote from: Dan Ben Noah on January 16, 2012, 12:33:04 AM ---Why did you have an issue with edu's post on the branches? What he was saying was correct.
Are you a Karaite? Exactly what is your connection to historic Judaism?
--- End quote ---
Good questions. I suspect this is not a Jew...
edu:
I agree with the response of Dan Ben Noah and Muman613 to Sephirath Ben Baruch
I will also add that Karaites and Saducees are very subjective about when yes to rely on the Sanhedrin and when not to.
They often rely on the Sanhedrin's determination, what is a book worthy of being in the Tanakh and what isn't.
Who is a valid prophet and who is not. Or how to properly read the text of the Tanakh, which is written without vowels and is dependent upon the oral tradition on how to properly read the text by inserting vowels and punctuation marks.
For Kahane-Was-Right BT . The following is not my interpretation of the Chanuka Miracle, but it is based on how Rabbi Yisrael Ariel of Machon Hamikdash once explained the Chanuka miracle to me.
He taught at the time he gave the shiur ( I don't know what he holds today) that the Chashmonim in order to preserve the pure oil, made special types of wicks that could burn longer on less oil.
He didn't spell the following points out explicitly but If I understood correctly from him, the fact that these special wicks could fulfill all the halachic requirements without going out, was interpreted by the Babylonian Talmud as a miracle, while other sources such as Talmud Yerushalami, saw this as not being, so much out of the natural order of the laws of nature to label it as an explicit miracle.
A final point to Sephirath Ben Baruch. Ezra and the prophets who initiated the Second Temple did not build that Temple in accordance to the prophecy of Yechezkel. There were differences in the structure, size, etc.
Just as the architectural models were different. The laws of who could perform the sacrificial service were different.
Any valid Cohain, even not from the sons of Zadok, could perform the sacrificial offerings in the second Temple.
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