Hebrew

Why isn’t the miracle of the oil mentioned in the Hanukkah prayer “Al Hanissim”?

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From the website MyJewishLearning. The hard-to-read text at the bottom of the image says “Illustration in an 1880 newspaper of a Hanukkah celebration at the Young Men’s Hebrew Association at the Academy of Music in New York City. (U.S. Library of Congress)” Isn’t that, like, totally cool?

Whew. I had no idea that the story of Hanukkah was so complicated. My previous posts about this Jewish holiday have for the most part focused on the eight days that the menorah in the Temple at Jerusalem burned from a flask of oil that should have lasted only one day, with the ensuing symbolism of lights and candles, feasting and celebration. (Latkes, anyone?) But the actual Hebrew prayers, including “Al Hanissim”1 recited as part of the celebrations, say nothing about the miracle of the long-lasting oil. Why is that, and when did the oil miracle become part of the story? I will say up front that there are no completely definitive answers to be found here. It’s been fascinating, though, to dig through quite a few sources and see how the subject is handled. Here’s an overview about the holiday as a whole and also what I’ve found out about this particular prayer.2

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The story behind the Whitacre/Plitmann “Five Hebrew Love Songs”

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The German town of Speyer, where the Five Hebrew Love Songs was first performed. Image accessed via Pixabay.

Sometimes the genesis of a now-popular piece can be almost unbearably poignant in light of the present. Such is the case with the popular Five Hebrew Love Songs with music by Eric Whitacre and lyrics by Hila Plitmann. Both composer and lyricist have been extremely open about the meaning of the words. Here, for example, is a relevant paragraph from Whitacre’s website, describing how the songs came about in 1996 as the result of a request from the violinist Friedemann Eichhorn:

Because we were appearing as a band of traveling musicians, ‘Friedy’ asked me to write a set of troubadour songs for piano, violin and soprano. I asked [then-girlfriend] Hila (who was born and raised in Jerusalem) to write me a few ‘postcards’ in her native tongue, and a few days later she presented me with these exquisite and delicate Hebrew poems. I set them while we vacationed in a small skiing village in the Swiss Alps, and we performed them [Plitmann sang the soprano part] for the first time a week later in Speyer.

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Hallelujah and Alleluia–from the Psalms to Shrek

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Image by Avery Fan from Pixabay

I’m not really going to cover the millennia of this word’s usage; there are whole books on the subject. Instead, I’ll concentrate on the word itself and on pieces my choir has sung that include it. I will include a brief foray into its usage in Shrek, though, so keep going to the end if you want to get that!

It’s stunning to look at the pieces that are either totally built around this one word or include it as a significant part of the lyrics. Why is it so powerful and attractive? Such questions are always in the end unanswerable. I’d postulate, though, that the sound of the word itself and its use as an exclamation of praise can claim at least partial credit.  Why are there two spellings, by the way? Very simple: “hallelujah” is a transliteration from the Hebrew Old Testament and “alleluia” is a Latinized version of the same word in Greek.

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Is There Any Serious History Behind Our Selection “Ocho Kandelikas”?

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Talk about a leading question! The answer is a resounding “yes.” There’s so much to be said about this supposedly simple song that I just don’t know where to begin.

Let me start with a brief summary of the meaning of Hanukkah, or Chanukah (both spellings are simply transliterations from the Hebrew word meaning “dedication”– חֲנֻכָּה ḥanuka), a holiday referring to an event first recorded in the first and second Books of Maccabees, part of the intertestamental books collectively known as the Apocrypha. (These books are not part of the canonized Tanakh [Hebrew Bible] used by modern Jews, though the Catholic and Orthodox Churches consider them part of the Bible.) While the re-dedication of the Temple and the lighting of the menorah are recorded in these books, there is nothing in that original story about the miracle of the long-lasting oil. That story didn’t come until about 600 years later, in the Talmud, a set of commentaries that is at least partly made up of oral traditions. The Talmud says there was only one small flask of properly dedicated oil available, enough to last one day, after the Maccabees had driven out the Roman army and re-dedicated the Temple. But the oil lasted eight days, thus allowing time for new oil to be properly prepared.

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What Are the “Gates” in “Eil Nora Alilah”?

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This piece repeats the phrase “bish’al han’ilah”–”as the gates begin to close.” So what are these gates?

So much to say here! Let’s start out with the context of these particular words and indeed of the lyrics as a whole. It’s not tied to Hanukkah but to Yom Kippur, the “Day of Atonement,” and is typically sung at the closing service in observance of this special date on the Jewish calendar. But where did the whole thing start? To find that out we have to go back to the book of Leviticus in the Hebrew Bible, in which God spells out the ceremonies that are to take place on the original Day of Atonement:God spoke to Moses:

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What’s the Source of the Hebrew Text in “On Justice, Truth and Peace”?

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PictureWhat a wonderful message is contained in this song! Let me answer the question above first, and then I’ll cover some other issues. So the Hebrew words “Hine ma tov uma naim shevet achim gam yachad” are from Psalm 133 in the Hebrew Bible. I have always loved this psalm, and since the entire thing is so short I’m quoting it in full:

Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!

It is like the precious ointment upon the head, that ran down upon the beard, even Aaron’s beard: that went down to the skirts of his garments;

​As the dew of Hermon, and as the dew that descended upon the mountains of Zion: for there the Lord commanded the blessing, even life for evermore. (KJV)

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What is distinctive about Ron Jeffers, composer of “Hanukkah Blessings”?

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What’s distinctive about Ron Jeffers is that he’s a living composer who has produced a significant amount of original music and arrangements, all for sale as sheet music from various outlets including his own company, Earthsongs, and whose music is performed quite frequently if YouTube is anything to go by, and yet . . . he has no online presence whatsoever.  No personal website.  No blog, No (worst of all) Wikipedia entry!  How is this possible?  In fact, if I hadn’t looked under “Ronald Jeffers” instead of either “Ron Jeffers” or “Ronald Harrison Jeffers,” I wouldn’t have gotten much information beyond his date and place of birth and a list of his publications.

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Why Are Latkes–Fried Potato Pancakes–Especially Tied to Hanukkah?

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Image by Andreas Lischka from Pixabay

Answer: It’s all about the oil. You may think that candles and their light are the quintessential symbols of this holiday, but the origin story of this Jewish holiday centers on an oil-fueled lamp with multiple branches, not a candle holder. And the number of lights on the Temple menorah vs. the number on a Hannukah one don’t match. You may want to read my post about the menorah vs. the Hanukkah lampstand to find out more on this subject.

It’s not surprising that the oil in the Hanukkah lamp led to the use of oil in other ways to celebrate the holiday. While latkes are a very popular Hanukkah food, in reality it’s fried foods in general that carry out one of the themes of this holiday. (There are several varieties of doughnuts that are also popular during Hanukkah, the most common being jelly-filled doughnuts called sufganiyot. As we know, doughnuts—real doughnuts, not those baked things—require a whole lotta oil.) Let me give you a brief overview of the historical roots of this holiday and then tell you more than you ever wanted to know about the origins of the humble latke.

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