A ... Touching ... Chanukah Story!

It's that time of year again folks.

Deck the halls with your favourite menorahs, bring out your dreidels, put on your yarmulkas: Here comes Chanukah!

I'm reading a book that explains the myriad historical/biblical events which form the basis for Jewish holidays. If you're interested in reading more after reviewing what I have to say here, pick up "The Book of Our Heritage" by Eliyahu Kitov.

The first interesting tidbit that I noticed from Kitov's treatment of chanukah is the etymology of the word Chanukah. According to Kitov, Chanukah, or חנוכה, can be broken down in to two portions: חנו/Chanu and כה/chuf-hay (two letters of the hebrew alphabet). The reader learns that Chanu is a past tense conjugation of the verb "Rest", They Rested, while the chuf-hay refers to the number 25. This becomes significant when you learn that the day of the Hebrew Calendar that Chanukah falls on is the 25th of Kislev! What complicates matters a little bit is that not everyone really rests on Chanukah. The book explains how some people do no work for all the eight days of Chanukah, whereas others only abstain from work during the 30 minutes prior to the Candle Lighting. Here's the thing that confuses me (if someone is an expert in the older variations of Hebrew, or proficient in Aramaic please explain this): the modern hebrew verb for 'rest' is נח/Nach, not חן/Chan. Kind of strange in my opinion. Why would it get inverted like that? To further show the difference: If I wanted to say "They rested on the 25th of Kislev", in Modern Hebrew, I would say "נחו על ה'כה כסלו". That first word there (read from right to left) is NACHU, not CHANU.

Anyway, on with the interesting story! The book brings up a story that supposedly takes place, on Chanukah, during a time when Syrian powers were controlling Israel.

The daughter of Yochanan Cohen Gadol was especially beautiful and the tyrant-king desired her. She seemingly acquiesced, came before him and fed him cheese foods till he became thirsty. she then gave him wine to drink till he became intoxicated and fell asleep, whereupon she severed his head and brought it to Yerushalayim. When the Syrian soldiers saw that the king had perished, they fled.

Touching story isn't it? Surely one of those stories that encourages girl power in a Jewish context. Moral of the story: The way to a man's head is through his stomach!

More on Chanukah to come as I get through this chapter.

Rabbinically,

- Inkhorn