Though I am not Jewish, I can still join and participate and say chag sameach! Happy Chanukah!
So, what's this Hanukah? It is the "feast of dedication [of the temple]", which Jesus, too, participated according to John 10:22.
It is celebrated in memory of the time when a small group of Maccabees, faithful to the Lord, revolted against the commonplace Hellenistic culture, that tried in all ways to strip the Jewish people of their national and religious heritage. They fought, and took back Jerusalem, and restored the Temple of Lord into the position it should have. But for the Menorah, which is the seven-branched lampstand in the temple (Ex. 25:31-40), they had enough oil to last for only one day. It was a highly pure type of oil that would have taken eight days to prepare in the situation. God however reciprocated, and through a miracle, the oil that was supposed to last for one day lasted for the entire eight days until new oil was available. The events are described in the apocryphal Maccabean books.
For us, this festival of light teaches, that we should not accommodate and incorporate the spirit of today's world, but to always exalt God's Word (Torah) and to strive for what is right. For He will empower us and fulfill our every need.
And no, I did not copypaste this from anywhere.And unlike Christmas, Chanukah is not rootedinsun-god/Nimrod worship.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
Is it bad that I'm Jewish and only learned when Hannukah was because of this topic?
I blame it on coming from the very secular former USSR, where we celebrated New Years' as the dominant holiday, moreso than Hannukah. And to reinforce what an awful Jew I am, I had no idea what a latka was until looking it up. Although I have eaten several at parties!
I did know the stuff about the Maccabees though, mostly because more religious friends of mine recited it at our holiday parties when I was younger...
Happy Hannukah to all the Jewish members of the forum and elsewhere.
Hope someday people will know at least the basics about other cultures
Yeah, I find it especially sad that people who say that they follow Jesus (asking themselves, "what would Jesus do?", WWJD), do not even know anything about the feasts that Jesus was attending all the time.
Sorry about talking about Jesus in a Jewish thread, but for many western "christians" Jesus is the best connection to Jewishness they could have, if they just could be bothered.
I mean, they all have a Bible, but not many of them have any Jewish friends, nor a Haggadah or any similar article, nor a synagogue anywhere nearby, nor the know-how to access any rabbi's writings, and so on. This may be difficult to understand to someone from USA where Jews are ubiquitous, but in Finland they are quite secluded. In Finland, if a non-Jew visits the Helsinki synagogue, they are pretty much treated as a spy or potential terrorist.
Then again, the Bible does not include the word "hanukkah" (or any variation in spelling thereof) anywhere, so it still does require some extracurricular study.
(And yes, I am aware that many Jews are secularized and more or less atheist, but the fact is that the central character to nearly all of Jewish culture and traditions, is still the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.)
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Bisqwit wrote:
Then again, the Bible does not include the word "hanukkah" (or any variation in spelling thereof) anywhere, so it still does require some extracurricular study.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
Then again, the Bible does not include the word "hanukkah" (or any variation in spelling thereof) anywhere, so it still does require some extracurricular study.
I mean, in the Finnish or English translations thereof. Nor "pesach", or "sukkot" either.
You can find pesach though by knowing that it is the passover, and sukkot by knowing it's the feast of tabernacles. But even if you know hanukkah is the feast of dedication, it's the dedication of the temple (at least if you read the verse in the Gospel of John). That part in Nehemiah speaks about the wall of Jerusalem.
EDIT: And you can find a dedication celebration in 2. Chronicles 7:9 (of the altar), and in Leviticus 8:33 (of the sons of Aaron).
In Psalms 30:1 there is a mention of the dedication of the temple, though Mechon-Mamre translates it as "of the house", and the song does not mention the feast or the circumstances thereof. It is also attributed to David, which means that temporally it is a different event alltogether. Parts of the chapter are often quoted in varying contexts.
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
Bisqwit wrote:
In Psalms 30:1 there is a mention of the dedication of the temple, though Mechon-Mamre translates it as "of the house"
The term in Hebrew for the temple is always "House", "Holy house", and "House of G-d". You can only differentiate which house we're talking about based on context.
Bisqwit wrote:
It is also attributed to David, which means that temporally it is a different event alltogether.
Of course it's attributed to David, he's the one who started it.
In Chronicles I chapter 17, David is outraged that G-d does not have a house to represent him here.
After he is told he can't built it himself, he buys the land it will be built on, and in chapter 22 he commands his son to build it. In chapter 28, he gives his son blueprints and supplies to build the house.
In Chronicles II chapter 3, David's son builds the house according to his father's wishes. The text constantly and consistently points out that Solomon is acting in David's stead.
A similar but less detailed account is also found in Kings.
If you read the verses closely, you see that the "Temple of Solomon" has David's name written all over it. The songs they sang at the dedication and later were also composed by David as stated in the text.
Being that David is the primary author of Psalms, he started the groundwork for building the temple, planned the whole thing, begged his son to complete it, and would have built the whole thing himself if the Prophet didn't tell him not to, the most likely thing that is David's house that is being dedicated is the temple.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
