Rabbi Nachum Chaimowitz - Chanukah Customs

welcome the topic for today is hanukkah customs what are those activities or customs that we do on chanukah to enhance our hanukkah experience one of the biggest questions in understanding the miracle of chanukah that comes around each and every year is why did the sanhedrin see it fit to make hanukkah eight days the sanhedrin the great rabbinic assembly of the time instructed us that each and every year when chanukah comes around we light candles for eight nights yet when we look at what the miracle was we said the miracle was only for seven nights remember when the mahmeen came back when the kashmir name came back to the base of miktech when they came back to the temple and they looked for some pure oil that they could light they found enough oil for one day the miracle was that that oil one day actually stayed lit for eight days but remember for one day they did have so the question is well what was the miracle the first day the miracle seemingly was only the last seven days so why did sanhedrin choose to make it eight days this question is asked by the halachic authority no other than the author of the code of jewish law himself rabbi yosef caro in his famous compilation the best joseph he asks this question why should chanaka be eight days there are many answers given one of the answers being that the first day we're not really celebrating the miracle of the candles at all the first day we celebrate the miracle of winning the war that was the day when they finally won against the greek army and so that's the celebration the first day now the seven days is a celebration of the miracle of the candles but there's a very beautiful answer that's given by the great posik the two reserve who lived approximately 300 years 50 years ago that gives us an amazing insight that we can even use in our lives today he bases the insight on the following there was a story that took place that's related to us from the time of elisha the prophet alicia novi alicia the prophet was the main disciple of elio navi elisha was once faced with the following question a young woman unfortunately whose husband had passed away whose husband was also one of the great prophets according to what we have passed down it was ovadia the prophet and once avadya the prophet had passed away his wife and children were left without much support and so his wife came beggingly to the great prophet alicia and she said i hardly have anything left in the house i've already borrowed as much as i can in fact i owe so much in debt that i don't even know how i'm even going to pay back and just recently the debtors have come and said that we're going to take away your children if you can't pay the debt we're going to take away the children and so she asked the prophet could you please pray to god he should make a miracle for us that my children shouldn't have to be taken away alicia asked her what does she have left at home she said i don't really have much anything in the home in one cabinet i have a container with a little bit of oil a small amount of oil is left said alicia so what you should do is the following go around to all the neighbors borrow as many containers as you can borrow dishes borrow pots borrow containers as many as you can fill your house with containers you'll give them back afterwards but borrow them and then go in the house and close yourself in with your children take the little bit of oil that you had and start to pour it in the first container once it fills the first container continue to pour fill up the second one the third one the fourth one keep on pouring don't stop until you fill up all the containers and so even though it didn't make much sense to her but she did so she went and borrowed containers that filled her whole small apartment and she closed the door with her small children and each time as she started to pour the oil and she filled the whole container said bring me the next one and the next one and the next one until she filled all the containers at a certain point she said okay give me the next one and the children said but there are no more we don't have any more containers and the oil stopped so she came back to the prophet alicia and she said okay so what do i do now with all this miraculous oil he said take all the oil in those containers take it slowly day by day take it over to the marketplace and sell it once you sell it take the money and it will be more than enough to pay up all your debtors and afterwards you'll actually have enough from that money to live for many years to come and that's what she did and the question we have when we learn this story in the prophets it's in king's b malachan base is if elisha prayed to god and he asked god to do a miracle for this woman why was it necessary that he have to ask her what she has in the house a little bit of oil and the miracle has to come through the oil it was a miracle you might as well have prayed in that something should just show up next morning she should get up open up a door and find on her doorstep a lot of money or food or gold or silver why did he have to take that same item that she had in the house and the whole miracle come out of that and the great poetic details tells us an amazing concept it says the following he says that since god has created the world there are no miracles that take place just out of nothing there are no miracles that god does that just appear suddenly that's not the way it works every miracle that god does and you'll be able to follow this throughout the scriptures every miracle is always connected to some sort of pre-existing substance now why does god do that because what god wants is that we should see the connection to his creation to his handiwork yes it is true when the world was initially created we believe it came into existence from nothing but once it's past that first point of creation every miracle takes place always has to take place from some substance that already exists and so therefore elisha was telling the wife of avadya yeah i could pray for you and god can do a miracle but it must be from something that's already pre-existing what do you have in the house she said the only thing i have is oil okay the miracle will take place through the oil says the great taz now we understand why chanukah is eight days because remember the amount of oil that was found was enough to burn for one night for one day which is one night in the temple and they filled up all the candles and they had enough for one night what should have logically taken place is that all the oils should have burned through but what did take place says the taz is that as the oil burned throughout the night when the kohanim came back in the morning they found that a little was left with that oil they were able to light the next night and the next night and the next day and the next night for all eight nights because god does not do a miracle on the other seven nights without some pre-existing substance so there had to remain a little bit of oil from that oil of the first night it says the ta's that's why chanukah is eight nights there was no less of a miracle that took place on the first night than the eighth night and what all this teaches us is that everything that we experience ultimately connects back to god's amazing creation the message of chanukah is not only about the miracles that god did many years ago it's about the miracles that god does with us today each and every day everywhere in our lives if we just take out the time to think a little to watch the science of the world the sunrise the cycles of oxygen carbon dioxide food the systems in the human body all the organisms of the world and how it all works together it's all one ongoing miracle everything that god does is miraculous but it's all connected back to the fact that he created it originally from the first point so today we wanted to discuss some of the customs of chanukah of course chanukah is not similar to the other types of holidays the other types of yemen yamatova and all the other yemen type and from the toru we know that we're not allowed to do work that's not on hanukkah and hanukkah we're allowed to do work during the day hanukkah are just days of holiday for praise and thanks to god for the great miracle similarly on chanaka we don't have to have any special meals it's not like the other days of yamta from the torah that we need to have a meal at night and by day no obligation for any meals it's just about praying to hashem thanking hashem for the miracles however there are rabbi moshe issalis who notes writes in his actual annotations to shuffle if a person makes a meal on hanukkah and we sing at the meal we praise hashem we tell of hashem's miracles the meal itself becomes a meal of mitzvah no less than it would be on any other one of the year and so therefore it's customary to try and make meals on hanukkah get togethers either with the family with groups of of people for praise of hashem to sing songs of thanks to appreciate our life to appreciate the direction that god has given us another custom that takes place on hanukkah is that we have certain foods that are customary to iran hanukkah one of the foods obviously has to do with oil because the miracle was done with oil so therefore anything that's made in oil is customary to eat on chanukah the customary food for this presently in israel today is what's called jelly doughnuts those type of donuts are deep fried in oil and so therefore they remind us of the idea of oil outside of israel many people have the custom of making what's called potato latkes shredding a potato and then frying it in oil these are customary foods to eat on hanukkah also the rama brings that it's customary to eat milk products on chanaka milk foods why is that because one of the aspects of the miracle that took place one of the incidents that led to the actual victory of the hashmonoim over the greeks was a certain incident that took place with a young jewish maiden a very important jewish maiden yehudis her name was abducted by a greek general and during that time she prepared him something to eat she was wise and what she did was initially she gave him a lot of cheese cheese in those days was preserved with a lot of salt it was very salty made him very thirsty he said okay can you bring me something to drink i'm so thirsty and she brought him wine so this is all is all that i could find she brought him wine he had no problem drinking the wine but obviously he had drunk it so much that he went to sleep once he went to sleep you this was able able to overcome him and then that incident led to the victory of the entire nation of the jewish people over the greek empire and since that original miracle was done with milk foods done with cheese we try to have milk foods to remember the miracle on hanukkah another custom on chanukah that many know is to play with dreidel to play with a little utensil that's known as the dreidel there's no way really to describe it you just have to have scene one but customarily the drill has four sides and on each one of the sides had a special hebrew letter the hebrew letters are the letters of nais gadal nun neis gimo gadal haya there a great nace took place over there meaning in israel in israel customarily today many people right on the dreidel nesca it was a great miracle that took place here in israel in any case those letters themselves have great meaning and when we play with the dreidel what we try to have in mind is just like down here we turn the dreidel and it falls on whatever side is already decreed from above so too in our lives we know that everything follows an exact plan of hashem another reason given for playing with dreidel is that initially the greeks had prohibited the jewish people from learning torah from torah's study with their children what the fathers did is that they would get together their children in a large group and they would teach them torah and when the greek guards came around to check where they're actually learning torah they would quickly take out the dreidels and show that they were having a game of dread so to remember the great miracles of hashem we customarily try to play dreidel on hanukkah other customs include some women have a custom of not doing any work for a half an hour while the candles are lit this is indeference to the chanukah candles and to remember that we don't do any work that it's such a holy light that we don't do any work opposite the candles also according to this the days of chanukah prohibited to fast they prohibited in fasting a lot of times the days of hanukkah are the shortest days of the year in some place in the world they might end as early as 4 30 in the afternoon sometimes 3 30 in the afternoon if it really is so early it's important to remember to eat something in the morning of chanukah once midday goes by in some way it might already be considered a fast and although it's not prohibited as long as a person eats something before the sun goes down it's better that a person should be careful to eat something every day of hanukkah to celebrate the great miracles i got help and with everything that we do today all the customs that we do to bring out the feeling of hanukkah may we be able to connect to those great miracles that took place back then by yom in those days and we'd be able to realize through our experience of these wonderful days how god not only did miracles but yum and muhammad in those days but does miracles with us even today each and every day constantly in our lives you