## Rabbi Sacks on Siddur, Festivals, Candle Lighting for Hanukka

###### Rabbi Sacks on Siddur, Festivals, Candle Lighting for Hanukka 1
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**English Edition; Koren Publishers Jerusalem, 2017:**
ḤANNUKA
After the conquests of Alexander the Great, Israel came under the rule of Greece, in the third century BCE under the Ptolemies, based in Egypt; then in the second century BCE under the Seleucids, based in Syria. Beginning in 175 BCE, one of the Seleucid rulers, Antiochus Epiphanes, decided to embark on a campaign of enforced Hellenization of the Jews in Israel. A gymnasium was built at the foot of the Temple Mount. Temple funds were diverted to Greek athletic and cultural events. Eventually, in 167 BCE, the public practice of Judaism was forbidden and a statue of Zeus erected in the Temple. Many Jews went to their death as martyrs rather than abandon their faith.
A group of pious Jews, led by an elderly priest, Mattityahu, and his sons – including most famously Judah, known as the Maccabee – rose in revolt. Over the next three years they fought a successful campaign, driving the Greek forces out of Jerusalem and rededicating the desecrated Temple. Ḥanukka is the anniversary of that ceremony of rededication, celebrating not only the military victory and the restoration of Jewish self-government, but also the spiritual victory of Jewish faith over enforced assimilation. Shortly afterward, it was decided to hold an annual eight-day celebration in memory of those events, including the recitation of Hallel.
One incident came to hold immense symbolic significance: the fact that among the debris of the Temple, a single cruse of oil was found, its seal intact, with which the menora – the Temple candelabrum – could be lit. The oil that would normally have lasted for one day burned for eight, the full period of the rededication ceremony. Even after the Temple was destroyed more than two centuries later by the Romans, the Ḥanukka lights bore witness to the fact that after the worst desecration, something pure remains, lighting a way to the future. The Ḥanukka lights became one of the great symbols of Jewish hope.
They are lit at home, at nightfall or soon thereafter, preferably in a position where they can be seen by passersby. Our custom is to light one candle (or olive-oil lamp) on the first night, two on the second, and so on. The first candle is placed at the right of the menora; on each night, the first light to be lit is the leftmost.


###### Rabbi Sacks on Siddur, Festivals, Candle Lighting for Hanukka 7
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**English Edition; Koren Publishers Jerusalem, 2017:**
הַנֵּרוֹת הַלָּֽלוּ *We light these lights:* A hymn about the holiness of the lights and why we light them. The text is known from the rabbinic tractate, *Sofrim*, though it has undergone some changes in the intervening centuries.


###### Rabbi Sacks on Siddur, Festivals, Candle Lighting for Hanukka 8
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**English Edition; Koren Publishers Jerusalem, 2017:**
וְאֵין לָֽנוּ רְשׁוּת לְהִשְׁתַּמֵּשׁ בָּהֶם *We are not permitted to make any other use of them:* Unlike Shabbat lights, those of Ḥanukka are not lit for the sake of the light they give, but rather are lit in order to “publicize the miracle.” A separate light or candle, the *shamash*, is used to light the others, and is placed slightly higher, so that if we benefit from the light, it is from the *shamash*, and not those that form part of the mitzva itself.


###### Rabbi Sacks on Siddur, Festivals, Candle Lighting for Hanukka 10
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**English Edition; Koren Publishers Jerusalem, 2017:**
מָעוֹז צוּר יְשׁוּעָתִי *Refuge, Rock of my salvation:* Composed in Germany in the thirteenth century. The first letters of the verses spell out the name Mordekhai; other than this we cannot identify the author. The first verse recalls the rededication of the Temple and looks forward to its future restoration. The next four describe, sequentially, four crises and deliverances of Jewish history – slavery in Egypt, the Babylonian exile, Purim, and Ḥanukka itself. The last verse, missing from some manuscripts, may have been a later addition; alternatively it may have been part of the original text, Thut was censored by the non-Jewish authorities.