What is Hanukkah anyway.

Tonight is the first night of Hanukkah which is also a season I celebrate. I usually get a few interesting looks from people when they hear that I also celebrate Hanukkah and the first thing they say is "Jon, you're not Jewish." I usually laugh a little and say "You're correct, I'm not Jewish, but Hanukkah is a biblical celebration none-the-less."

Honestly, me celebrating Hanukkah is a fairly recent thing. I only started really celebrating it about 6 years ago and that was because I had a coworker who grew up Jewish and still celebrated Hanukkah. They were often a bit sad because they didn't have anyone else to celebrate with so I offered to learn and celebrate with them so they wouldn't be alone. The more I learned the more I realized it's kind of silly to be a Christian and not acknowledge the Hanukkah season.

Hanukkah is known as the "Festival of Lights." The word "Hanukkah" (also spelled Chanukah) is a hebrew word which means "dedication." At the time the Syrian army had taken over Israel and the King of Syria attempted to force those of the Jewish faith to observe greek traditions and outlawed the reading of the Torah as well as following it's commandments and placed greek idols in the jewish temple. Judah the Maccabee lead a revolt with a very faithful albeit very poorly armed group of people and they managed to drive the Syrian army out of their land. At the time the Syrian army was known as the most powerful army in the known world. This victory lead to Judah getting probably one of the coolest nicknames in the bible, "Judah the Hammer!" When rededicating the temple to God they discovered that the Syrian looters had fouled all the oil found except for one small cruse of oil which was only enough to burn for a single night. They opted to use the oil and it lasted for 8 complete nights until more oil arrived.

Hanukkah is a time to remember our faith in God and with his power we can stand against oppression and the evils of this world.

So to everyone have a very happy first night of Hanukkah!