Almost everybody has heard of Chanukah, often spelled Hanukkah, and they know a little bit about lighting candles for eight days in the Hebrew month of Kislev, during December each year. They might also know there were political events which led to the miracles that Jews continue to remember every year at Chanukah.

These political events spanned a 112-year time period, between 175 to 63 BCE, which means the conclusion of this period occurred over 2000 years ago. The Chanukah story is over 2000 years old.  But Jews choose to remember it every year because Chanukah represents victory over a battle Jews are still fighting in different ways today.

The Second Holy Temple in Jerusalem was ransacked, and Judaism was outlawed by the Greeks in 167 BCE. An altar to the Greek god Zeus was set up in the Temple instead, and pigs were sacrificed to this Greek god. The Jews rebelled against the Greek’s desecration of the Holy Temple. This rebellion lasted until 164 BCE when the Jewish freedom fighters finally liberated the Holy Temple and set about to cleanse it, including building a new altar and making new vessels to conduct Temple services once again.

Holy Temple Menorah and Chanukah

After all those years, the freedom fighters found only one remaining container of oil with the stamp of the High Priest on it. They could not resume lighting the menorah in the reclaimed Holy Temple without enough consecrated oil for its ongoing, daily use. But the container they found had only enough oil for one day’s use.

Miraculously, they lit the menorah on the 25 th of Kislev and it burned for eight days, long enough for more oil to be made properly and transported to the Temple. The sages of that generation determined that the eight days beginning with the 25th of Kislev would become a Jewish holiday. Those days should be observed with rejoicing and celebrating.

Special 9-light Chanukah menorahs are called Chanukias or Hanukkias, and they burn oil or wax candles that Jews light on each of the eight nights to this day, to remember and display the surprising miracle of the oil in the Holy Temple.