Medieval Hanukah Celebration

By Eleazar ha-Levi

Hanukah is a celebration of the ancient Israelites victory over Syria in 135 B.C.E.  (Before Common Era).  Syria was actually a Hellenistic state ruled by Antiochus, the descendent of Seleucus, one of Alexander the Great’s generals, who took Mesopotamia and Persia as his own after Alexander’s death.

 

Antiochus tried to force the Israelites to adopt the Greek religion.  Some did, but others, under the leadership of the priest, Mattathias, and his son, Judah Maccabee, revolted.  The revolt was a success, and the descendents of Mattathias became the Hashmonean dynasty, which ruled an independent land until the Roman conquest.

 

When the victorious Israelites re-took the Great Temple in Jerusalem, they found it defiled.  Only enough ritually pure oil to last one day could be found for the Candelabrum within.  It took eight days to purify more oil, but the small amount they found lasted that long.  Hanukah means “Dedication” in Hebrew, and the holiday celebrates that rededication and the miracle of the oil as much -- if not more -- than it celebrates the victory over Antiochus.

 

Period or modern, a Hanukah celebration begins with the lighting of the Hanukah menorah (candelabrum) or hanukiah.  The original hanukiahs were oil lamps with eight wicks.  Around Roman times, the bench hanukiah appeared.  This was a low, narrow platform, with holders for eight candles.  A ninth candle, the shamos (helper), lights the other eight.  One candle is placed in the hanukiah the first night, two the second, and so on.  Candles are placed in the hanukiah from left to right, but they’re lit right to left.

 

The hanukiah was supposed to be prominently displayed in a window or hung on a wall for all to see, as a way of announcing the celebration.  Some hanukiahs had elaborate backs to make hanging on the wall easier.  In the best of times, the hanukiah was actually hung on an outer wall of the house.  In medieval Venice, the custom was for Jewish families to row through the streets/canals of the Jewish section in gondolas.  When they passed a house with a hanukiah mounted on the wall (or by the windows), they greeted the people in the house with a blessing and the song, Ma'oz Tzur (Stronghold of Rock, a name of G-d), which was written in the 13^th century. The first letters of the first five stanzas form an acrostic of the composer's name, Mordechai.

 

Period synagogues had a larger bench hanukiahs which were lit each night as part of the evening prayer service.  Jewish travelers were often given the chance to light the hanukiah as a way of fulfilling the commandment to light it, while they were away from their homes.  However, the bench hanukiah was ungainly.  In the fourteenth century, the eight-branch hanukiah was developed for the synagogue.  Within a century, smaller ones were used in private homes.

 

After the candles were lit, Jewish families would settle in for their evening meal.  A custom of Jewish life from Period times to this day, are table songs, songs that the attendees at a meal might spontaneously begin to sing.  One fourteenth century table song, describes a Friday night Hanukah feast:

 

Your chattels and your lands, go and pledge, go and sell.

Put money in your hands, to feast Hanukah well.

Capons of finest breed from off the well-turned spit,

The roasts that next succeed each palate will surely fit.

 

Joints tender, poultry young, rich cakes baked brown in pan;

‘Agreed’ is on every tongue.  ‘Set-to’ laughs every man.

No water here they carry, their steps fade fast away;

Over wine we all will tarry, two nights in every day.

 

Capons and roasts notwithstanding, Hanukah often featured dairy meals, especially cheese.  This custom is based on the story of Judith.  Holofernes, an Assyrian general, had surrounded the village of Bethulia. Judith, a pious widow, went to his camp. Holofernes was smitten by her beauty. She went back to his tent and plied him with cheese and wine. When he fell into a drunken sleep, Judith beheaded him and escaped, taking the severed head with her. When Holofernes' soldiers found his corpse, they were overcome with fear; the Jews, on the other hand, were emboldened, and launched a successful counterattack. Some versions of the story claim that Holofernes was actually one of Antiochus’ generals and that Judith was the daughter of Mattathias, the Hasmonean High Priest, and sister to Judah the Maccabee.

 

The most common type of Hanukah foods are things cooked in oil, fried meat, crepes, fritters, the more modern (potato) latke, and the Israeli sufganiot (jelly donut).  One explanation is that this evolved from eating dairy foods; that is, foods cooked in butter.  Another links this to the miracle of the oil that lasted for eight days.  A third, involving the sort of wordplay that is common on Hanukah and will be discussed later in this article is that the Hebrew words for the Hashmoneans and for eight (Hashmonaim and shemoneh) both contain the Hebrew word shemen (oil).  When I was in Hebrew school, one of my teachers told the class that modern Jews ate potato latkes because that was what the Maccabees ate before they went into battle.  That would be the third miracle of Hanukah, New World foods being available to be eaten in ancient Israel.

 

          

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