Ask any child – or adult for that matter – how we celebrate Chanukah and chances are beyond pretty good that the answer will be by lighting the…
Asara b'Tevet and Christmas
For better or worse, in the minds of many—Jew and non-Jew alike—Chanukah and Christmas are two sides of a similar, if not the same, coin. Chanukah is…
Chanukah: Clothes Make the Man
There is no more powerful symbol than light in our tradition. It is how we usher in the Shabbat, march down the wedding aisle, mark the yahrzeit of a…
Chanukah: Back to the Future
Mai Chanukah? What is Chanukah? the Talmud (Shabbat 21ba) queries, a question we find with respect to no other holiday. The Talmud explains that…
Chanukah: Timing the Market
Before there were clocks and standard time, time was determined in relation to the position of the sun—hence, the importance of the sundial. As…
Chanukah: An Eternal Message
One of the painful realties of Jewish life is that the Jewish people are often judged by a double standard. What in other cultures is done with…
Chanukah: Looking Backward and Forward
The holiday of Chanukah is a most beloved one. Lighting the candles is the only mitzvah that has, built into its performance, a three-tiered system:…
Chanukah: 70 Bulls and 8 Lights
Perhaps the greatest challenge facing Jewishly conscious people in the modern world is figuring out the proper relationship we are to have vis a vis…
Chanukah: The Dark Days of Winter
Of all our holidays, only that of Chanukah begins in the second half of the month. Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and Shavuot occur towards the beginning…
Mai Chanukah
"Mai Chanukah? What is Chanukah?" (Shabbat 21b). To this rather strange question, the Gemara answers, "Our Rabbis taught: From the twenty-fifth of…
Chanukah: Moving Home
On the surface, it is difficult to understand why we celebrate Chanukah, a festival commemorating the rededication of the Temple and Jewish…
Chanukah: Turkey and Latkes
Chanukah is a most popular holiday, even amongst “secular” Jews. For those living in Israel, the vastly outnumbered Maccabees defeating…
Rabbi Kalonymos Kalman Shapira: Jewish Spirituality and the Holocaust, Chanukah 1942
Dr. Don Seeman will present a lecture on Rabbi Kalonymos Kalman Shapira: Jewish Spirituality and the Holocaust, Chanukah 1942. Shapira's…
Chanukah: Down Memory Lane
We tend to assume that, with the recital of the shir shel yom, the daily psalm—or Aleinu if you daven nusach sefarad, Shacharit is over.…