Chanukah Insights: Light & Holiness
If you think about Chanukah, new ideas occur. Chanukah, the Festival of Lights, occurs at the darkest time of the year — the time when you would least expect it. And...
See the Light
I would like to study with you several talmudic and halachic statements and teachings that deal superficially with Jewish legal details of lighting the Chanukah lights, and attempt to find within...
Chanukah: Al HaNisim
The Al HaNisim prayer which is recited during Shmoneh Esrei and Birkat HaMazon on Chanukah is quite lengthy. Unlike the Al HaNisim of Purim, which very briefly relates the basics of...
The Recitation of Hallel
Hallel consists of six Psalms (113-118), which are said as a unit, on joyous occasions, when the praise of G-d is particularly appropriate, immediately following the Shacharit “Shemoneh Esrei.” These occasions...
Zot Chanukah: The 8th Day of Chanukah
The “simple” explanation for this special name for the last day of Chanuka is the Torah reading from the end of Parshat Naso that emphatically announces ZOT CHANUKAT HA-MIZBEI’ACH (when the...
Chanukah Primer with Torah Tidbits
Chanukah Primer (and then some!) This will be a combination of a halachic review, practical suggestions, useful information, and more. Do not take anything written here as “the last word”; if...
Fate of the Chashmonaim
It is a historical fact that the great Chashmonai family disappeared completely from the historical scene within only two hundred years of the first Chanukah. The question arises, “Why was such...
Chanukah: History and Thought
The following material is adapted with permission from The Book of Our Heritage by Rabbi Eliyahu Kitov and other sources… War between Sanctity and Defilement The war waged by the Hasmoneans...
Who were the Greeks?
“In Bereshit (9:26), the Torah says “The L-rd has given Yephet beauty; let him reside in the Tents of Shem.” In Yephet, come together reason and the desire for the Spiritual,…Yephet...
S’more Chanukah Rituals
In addition to the lighting of the Chanukah lights, there are several other important changes made on Chanukah to the daily ritual. They are: Recital of the Complete “Hallel” on all...
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- Asarah B'Tevet
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- Chanukah
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- Four Shabbatot
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