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Eric, his brother and his Bubbie showing off some Chanukah gifts, circa 1991.

Ever wonder what the deal was with celebrating Chanukah (Sidebar:  I prefer to spell Chanukah as such, as opposed to Hannukah.  You will see why later) for eight nights?  Why all of the greasy, oil drenched food? For the love of g’d, why do Jews spin wooden tops on Chanukah?  Why in the world are there 40 different variations of spelling for Chanukah??

Look no further.  After discussing the basics of Chanukah with some of my Christian team members, it was determined that a post like this could be fitting, simply because if one person has these questions, many more might as well.

Depending on where you grew up or if you were raised in an area with a minimal Jewish population, Chanukah could be difficult for you to understand.  It’s one of those holidays that does not seem to get much media attention, except for the obligatory “Tonight is the first night of Chanukah, so Happy Chanukah to our Jewish readers and watchers out there,” from major news outlets.

For those out there wondering about the stories behind Chanukah, this one’s for you.

Chanukah is a holiday that is celebrated by Jewish people all across the world to commemorate the rededication of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem during the Maccabean Revolt of the 2^nd Century BCE.  See, the Macabees were ticked off at King Antiochus who passed decrees forbidding the practice of Judaism, and said, “No way, you are not going to tell us that we cannot practice our religion without us having anything to say about it.”

So they fought.  They fought many battles as a matter of fact, and the Macabees were just too much for the Antiochus’ Seleucids to handle.  The Macabees reclaimed the Holy Temple and went through the process of purifying it, but there was one small problem:  They did not have any light except for a small jug of oil.

The one jug of oil that was supposed to only last for a day actually, miraculously, lit the menorah for eight days, hence the eight days of Chanukah.  Jews will light a candle on their menorah, a nine-arm candleholder, every night for eight nights to remember the miracle of the one drop of oil lasting for eight nights.  And yes, we do traditionally exchange gifts for all eight nights.

Which brings me to the significance of the oil yet again.  As a result of the miracle of the oil, Chanukah more or less gives all Jews a green light to eat as much oily food as possible.  Latkes, or potato pancakes, are commonplace during Chanukah because they are fried in oil, as are blintzes (stuffed crepes) for the same reason – fried in oil.

What about the wooden tops?  Those are called dreidels, which is yiddush for “to turn.”  The Hebrew word for these toys is “sevivon,” Hebrew for “to turn” as well, but the yiddush term is more commonplace in the United States.

There is one Hebrew letter on each side of the dreidel: a gimmel, hey, shin and nun.  Each letter represents the first letter of the Hebrew saying “Nes gadol hayah sham,” which translates to “A great miracle happened there,” referring to Jerusalem.  In Israel, however, the hey is replaced with a pei to change the expression to “Nes gadol hayah po” or “A great miracle happened here.”

The dreidel game is pretty simple.  Before each round, each participant puts a piece into the pot – anything from pennies to chocolate coins to Rice Chex, like my brother and I used to do.  Each player takes turns spinning the dreidel, and what letter it lands on determines the action: a nun means the player does nothing, gimmel means the player gets everything in the pot, hey means the player gets half of the pot, and shin means the player adds a piece to the pot.

You will be hard pressed to find a game with better odds of winning than dreidel.

As for the spelling of Chanukah, that is a little more complicated to explain.  The Hebrew spelling of Chanukah starts off with a chet, so technically it should start off with a “ch.”  However, people have a hard time pronouncing the guttural noise of the chet – think trying clear your throat – so Hanukah came to be to make it a little easier.

As for the single or double n and k, and  no ‘h’ at the end vs. ‘h’ at the end, that is a “to each his own” type deal.  I’ve always gone with Chanukah and don’t plan on changing any time soon.

Hopefully you learned something new by the time you finished reading this and you can go impress your friends later.

Eric Mally is a writer for Quicken Loans, an amazing place to work.  Find out more about being a part of our team at Quicken Loans and learn how we Amaze our clients.

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