B'nai B'rith Jewish World: Celebrating Chanukah: Chanukah Challenge'

Chanukah Challenge

So, you think you’re a Chanukah expert?
Take our quiz and see how you do.
Answers appear below. Good luck!

There are many traditions associated with Chanukah, but only one essential ritual. What is it?

Answers

An anonymous Jewish historian who lived in the land of Judea in the second century B.C.E. wrote the First Book of Maccabees. It is one of the Apocrypha, or “Outside Books”—ancient writings that were not included in the Bible.

While the word “Chanukah” has the same core as the word “chinuch,” which means education, it actually means dedication and refers to the rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem.

The ninth candle on the chanukiah is called the shamash, which comes from the word leheeshtamesh (to use). The eight Chanukah candles cannot be used for any purpose; the only thing Jews are allowed to do with the lights of the Chanukah menorah is to look at them. Thus, the ninth candle, the shamash , exists only to light the other eight Chanukah candles.

Mattathias was Judah’s father. He was the religious leader of the Hasmonean family, and is credited with sparking the Maccabean revolt. When Greek forces arrived at his home and ordered Mattathias to make a sacrifice to a pagan god, he refused. When another Jew started to make the sacrifice, Mattathias became enraged and killed him, and then attacked the Greek soldiers. Mattathias’s action is considered the beginning of the Maccabean revolt.

When Assyrian forces laid siege to Jerusalem, its residents almost were ready to surrender. Then a widow named Judith (Yehudit) came to their rescue with a plan to seduce and kill the Assyrian commander, Holifernes. Judith left the city and requested an audience with the general. She spent three days with him. On the fourth day, he invited Judith to a private meal in an effort to seduce her. Judith gave the general salty cheese to make him thirsty, and then got him drunk. When he fell asleep, Judith took his sword and decapitated him. Judith left the camp with Holifernes’ head in a sack, and it was later displayed in Jerusalem. When the Assyrian soldiers saw their general was decapitated, they fled. Thus, Judith saved Jerusalem.

The letters on a dreidel are nun, gimel, hay, and shin, which stand for Nes gadol hayah sham, or a great miracle happened there.

On Israeli dreidels, the shin is replaced with a pay, the first letter in the Hebrew word poh . This changes the translation from a great miracle happened there to a great miracle happened here.