All Things Christmas (4 page)

Punch dough down, cover and let rest 10 minutes. Turn out onto lightly floured surface and divide in half. Pat or roll each half into 8x14 inch oval and spread lightly with softened butter. Fold dough in half lengthwise, bringing upper half not quite to edge of lower half, and press firmly along edge to secure. Place loaves on lightly greased 15x10 inch baking sheet. Cover and let rise in warm place until doubled in bulk, about 30 minutes.

Uncover and bake in preheated 350 degree oven until loaves are golden and sound hollow when lightly tapped, 25 to 30 minutes. Transfer to wire racks and cool completely. Sprinkle with powdered sugar.

—
Bon Appétit
—

Chapter
F
our

CHANUKAH,
THE FESTIVAL OF LIGHT

A Priest Fills the Menorah with Oil

Although the two festivals have no relationship to each other, t
he Jewish Festival of
Chanukah and the Christian celebration of the Christmas season often overlap so it seems appropriate to include Ch
anukah in a study of Christmas.

In the Jewish calendar of Feasts and Festivals,
Chanukah, or
the festival of light
s,
begins on the eve of Kislev 25
,
and lasts eight days. It is the newest of the Jewish Feast and Festivals in that it was first celebrated in 165 BC.
The date varies. For instance,
Chanukah occur
red
between December 1
st
to December 9
th
in 2010
…i
n 2011:
December 20
th
—
28
th
 
2012: December 8
th
—
16
th
  2
013: November 27
th
—
December 5
th
and 2014:
December 16
th
—
24
th
.

Chanukah
celebrates the triumph of light over darkness, purity over adulteration, spirituality over materiality.
It memorializes events recorded in the Biblical Books,
1 & 2 Maccabees.

The History
of
Chanukah

The Chanukah story begins with Alexander the Great. Following his untimely death, his Empire was divided among his generals. Ptolemy, for instance, took Egypt and most of the Holy Land.
Seleucius
took the adjoining area north and east of Ptolemy’s which included
central Anatolia, the Levant, Mesopotamia, Persia, today's Turkmenistan, Pamir and parts of Pakistan. Much of the eastern part of the empire was conquered by the Parthians under
Mithridates
I of Parthia in the mid-2nd century BC
.
Seleucid kings continued to rule from Syria until their
eventual
overthrow by the Roman general Pompey.

About
170 years before the birth of Christ
,
the Jewish nation was ruled by the
Seleuc
id king,
Antiochus IV
called
Epiphanes
,
meaning
“Manifest of God
.
”
However,
the historian
Polebius
gave him the epithet
Epimanes
—
madman
— because of his cruelty
.
Antiochus
tried to impose
his
Hellenistic beliefs upon the Jews. He removed their High Priest and installed his own man,
Menelaus
. He then marched on Egypt. When Rome overpowered
Antiochus
in Egypt,
a rumor spread that Antiochus
was dead. The former high priest, Jason, raised an army and led
the pe
ople in a rebellion, driving Menelaus him out.

Enraged by his defeat, Antiochus attacked Jerusalem and restored Menelaus. He ordered his soldiers to cut down anyone they met and to slay those who took refuge in their houses. They massacred young and old, killing women, children, and infants. In the space of three days, eighty thousand were lost. Forty thousand met a violent death, and an equal
number were sold into slavery.

Channah Laments her
Seven
Sons

2 Maccabees
tells the story of
Chan
n
ah and her seven sons
. The sons
were arrested
and taken before the king. One-by-one, he ordered the sons to abandon their religio
us beliefs
and one-by-one they refused and were killed. As they took the last boy away Channah told him, “T
ell your ancestor Abraham,
‘
You
bound only one son upon an altar, but I bound seven.
’”

The Book of Judith

The story of
Yehudit
is told in the
Book of Judith
which is read in every Synagogue during Chanukah. Her city
came under siege
by a
huge
Seleucid
army.
Rather than starve to death, the people appealed to their leader to surrender. The Jewish leader asked for five days of prayer before he decided whether or not to surrender. Meanwhile, Judith, a young widow, went to meet with the general. He invited her to dinner and she fed him her homemade cheese and wine. He got drunk and passed out. In an act reminiscent of David and Goliath, she cut off his head with his own sword, put it in her picnic basket and took it to the leader of the Jews. The soldiers panicked when they realized their general was dead and the Jews defeated his army.

The
Maccabean
War

Judah was the third son of
Mattathias
the
Hasmonean
,
a Jewish priest from the village of
Modiin
.
He and his brothers led
a
rebellion
against the Sel
euc
ids. He was a great general and defeated Antiochus’s armies
time and again
though often greatly outnumbered. For this reason people began to call him Juda
s
Maccabe
us, or
Judah the Hammer
.
When the war was over, he and his family ruled the country for the next 100 years. His descendents are often referred to as the
Maccabees
or the
Hasmoneans
.

O
nce the
Maccabees
were
victorious
, the Jews set about to purify the Temple that the Hellenists had defiled. When
they enter
ed the Temple,
however,
they could find only one
jug of
oil with the high priest’s seal
of purity still
intact.  Worse
yet
,
there was only enough
oil in the jug
to last for
a single
day.
Regardless, they
used it to light the menorah
and this one day’s worth of oil miraculously burned for the full eight days of the purification. This miracle has been celebrated ever since as the
Festival of Light, or Chanukah.

Special Chanukah Celebrations

Chanukah commemorates an oil-based miracle
,
which explains why
Jews
eat oily foods to commemorate it. Some eat fried potato pancakes
known as
latkes
, while others eat
sufganiyot
,
deep-fried doughnuts.
It is also customary to eat cheese since one of the
greatest victories result
ed from Judith
feeding the enemy cheese
.

During Chanukah it is
also
customary to give
gelt
(money) to children, so they can be taught the value of charity. During the Hellenistic oppression, t
he Greek
s
outlawed Torah schools, so the children
had to
study in the forests
. They
post
ed
a sentry to alert them of patrols
, and w
hen the alert came, the children would hide their texts and start playing with
dreidels
(spinning tops).

By playing with a
dreidel
during Chanukah,
children
commemorate the courage of th
o
se heroic children.
A
driedel
, by the way,
is four-sided top with the letters
nun
נ
gimmel
ג
hay
ה
and
shin
ש
carved on its
sides, which stand for the words
nes
gadol
hayah
sham
―
A
great miracle happened here
.

Each day of Chanukah
Jews
recit
e
the complete
Hallel
in the
ir
morning prayer
service.
They
also insert a special prayer of thanksgiving,
V'al
Hanissim
, in the prayers and Grace after Meals. Every morning
they
read from the Torah about the inauguration offerings brought in honor of the dedication of the Tabernacle—reminiscent of the
Maccabean
re
-
dedication of the defiled Temple.

On Friday afternoon
,
the menorah
is lit
before lighting the
Shabbat
candles. T
radition says t
he
se
Friday night Chanukah candles must burn for at least 1½ hours
. O
n Saturday night
they
light the menorah after dark
following
the
Havdallah
ceremony
which concludes the Shabbat
.

Chapter
Five

Laganum
Fr
uctus
– A
n
Ancient
Fruitcake