“HAPPY HANUKAH”. The Jewish Hanukkah Festival of Lights kicks off this Sunday evening. But what is its origin and what does it commemorate? The Internet user reveals his secrets to you.
[Mis à jour le 18 décembre 2022 à 10h00] The Hanukkah 2022 “Jewish Festival of Lights” begins this Sunday evening, December 18, and continues until Monday, December 26. The celebration is spread over eight days, the dates of which vary according to the Moon, by which the Jewish calendar is governed. Story of the miracle of lights, date, prayers, “Happy Hanukkah” wishes… Linternaute.com tells you more about the subtleties of this major holiday in the Jewish religion. Navigate the page using the summary opposite.
The Jewish celebration of Hanukkah is celebrated over eight days, from the 25th of the month of Kislev to the 2nd of the month of Tebeth in the schedule Hebrew. Generally, this slot of festivities corresponds to a week of the month of December in the Gregorian calendar currently used in our regions, and is located not far from Saint Nicolas on December 6. As Hanukkah takes place in winter shortly before Christmasshe has often been seen as the “Advent of Israel”, contextualizes the French poet of Jewish and Israeli origin Claude Vigée in the work “A basket of hops”. The first Hanukkah candle is lit on the eve of Kislev 25. A central candlestick then makes it possible to animate, one day after another, the lights of the eight other branches.
In 2022, Hanukkah begins on Sunday, December 18 and runs until Monday, December 26. The celebration therefore takes place several months after Yom Kippur, or Day of Atonement, considered by believers to be the “holiest of Jewish holidays” and celebrated in 2022 on October 4 and 5 (see our special file Yom Kippur). In 2016, the Jewish Festival of Lights began on New Year’s Eve Christmas (!), a Saturday, in the middle of shabbat.
Symbolic, the fact of gradually lighting the traditional candlestick or making dishes with oil (the “latkès”, potato pancakes; and other donuts) for Hanukkah commemorate the “miracle of the vial of oil”. For believers in Judaism, this miracle took place 23 centuries ago, after the re-dedication of the temple of Israel by the Jews. The latter then come to recover it, following an unexpected victory over the Greek-Syrian troops of Antiochus Epiphanes, who sought to submit them. In the Judaic story, thanks to a small vial unearthed somehow far from the temple, a candlestick lights up the place of worship for eight days against one normally.
What rituals are on the program of the Jewish liturgy? The Hanukkah parenthesis is made up of blessings and songs, fried food in oil, but above all, the famous traditional Jewish candlestick. Baptized “menorah”, this nine-pointed object has a very special resonance. Each evening of this week of the “Jewish festival of lights”, believers in Judaism light one of the branches. They specifically illuminate the first on the eve of the first full day of Hanukkah, which is December 18 evening this year. By burning their menorah a little more each day, Torah practitioners commemorate “the miracle of lights”.
During Hanukkah, the usual liturgy does not give rise to an additional prayer service: without holy character and non-holiday except in Israel, this feast is in fact not linked to any prayer ritual indicated in the Bible. They say she is rabbinical and not biblical. But several readings are added to the ordinary liturgy, varying over time, to signal that Hanukkah is taking place. At the synagogue, we begin to recite special prayers such as Al Hanissim, a blessing integrated into the Amida, the morning office prayer, but also the Birkat Hamazon, a Jewish after-meal prayer; the Hallel, read every day in full, with the value of praise and thanks and used for the joyful Jewish holidays; or even the reading of very specific passages from the Torah, like the one on the sacrifices made at the time of the inauguration of the Temple. The latter had then just been returned to the Jews after they regained their independence from the Greeks in the 2nd century BC.
How do you wish Hanukkah? You can say “Hag Hanukkah sameah” or “Hag sameah” for short, which means “Happy Holidays” or even “Hanukkah samear” (“Happy Hanukkah”). And if you want to go further, offer a menorah to your friend or boyfriend celebrating Hanukkah, this inexpensive traditional candlestick, and the candles that go with it. Making donuts, garnished with mint tea, is also a special attention at the time of the Festival of Lights. But don’t panic: at each “edition” of these festivities, you have eight days to surprise the loved one(s) possibly concerned…
Years ahead Jewish Hanukkah celebrations will take place at very different dates. Enot 2023 : from Thursday December 7 to Friday December 15; in 2024 : from Wednesday 25 December to Thursday 2 January; in 2025 : from Sunday 14 to Monday 22 December.