"Love follows knowledge."
"Beauty above all beauty!"
– St. Catherine of Siena

Tuesday, December 16, 2014

Chanuka, Oh Chanukah

Today is the first night of Chanukah.  What a blessing to have a Jewish side of the family.  Here is the blessing over the candles in English.  You can read it in Hebrew.

Blessed are you, Lord, our God, sovereign of the universe
Who has sanctified us with His commandments and commanded us
to light the lights of Chanukkah. (Amen)


There are so many ways to spell Hanukkah in English that I just don't which to pick.  And now for your listening pleasure, here is a Hanukkah song, "Chanuka, Oh Chanukah, sung by a Theodore Bikel.  I've never heard of him, but he sings this wonderfully.  I've been to synagogue for some family affair, and I have to say the Jewish Cantors out do our Catholic choruses.






May God bless you all.

6 comments:

  1. Happy Hanukkah to you and your family Manny.

    Do you know why sometimes there are 7 candles and sometimes 9? See video at point 2:06 and 2:24.

    God bless.

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    1. Very perceptive. Yes, the 7 candle menorah is for most synagogue use while the 9 candle is strictly for Hanukkah. It should explain in Wikipedia:
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menorah_(Temple)

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  2. Dear Manny,

    I enjoyed looking at this Chanuka and I did see the 7 candles and also sometimes the 9 candles setup that Victor #1 mentioned.

    I should thank you cause after looking at this video, I was encouraged to learn a little more about this celebration that some Jewish people are so found of.

    Before doing a little search, I let my imagination take me for a ride and thought for a moment that the seven candles represented the seven days of the week which GOD (Good Old Dad) took to create the heavens and... I then took a close look in the middle 5th stem of the 9th candles and saw a star which appeared to me as two interlocked inverted large triangles and on another 7 and/or 9, I saw what appeared to look like two inverted time capsules... looking at the video a second time, I noticed that they were just stars and one star was hiding behind the candle holder making it look like two time capsels with no sand.

    I had fun thinking that maybe the eight candle might have represented a couple of Bush angels from Texas who go by the name of "I" think, By George as explained below...lol

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hw_f7eIjjFk

    All kidding aside, I was encouraged by this video and wanted to know how this Holy Day impacked our Catholic Christmas and long story short, I read this peace of Myths About Hanukkah found here below

    http://www.catholic.com/blog/michelle-arnold/myths-about-hanukkah

    Anyway, there's still so much more to learn and I can't wait for Victor # 1 to tell all your readers why sometimes there are 7 candles and sometimes 9... who knows maybe he's already posted something on his blog.

    Thanks again

    God Bless

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    Replies
    1. I explained the differences between 7 and 9 candle to the other Victor. The 7 is the menorah used for most sacred functions while the 9 is strictly for Hanukkah. The nine come about from the eight days that candle burned during the defense of the temple in Maccabees war. Look at the link I provided in the post above.

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  3. I personally prefer the Adam Sandler Hanukkah song. Ah well.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hmm, that's like preferring Frosty the Snowman over Silent Night on Christmas. ;)

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