The First First Candle

Over the course of eight days, beginning on the 25th of Kislev (this year, the evening of December 7th), Jews around the world will light the Hanukkiah, or Hanukkah Menorah. Each night, a new candle is added, until the light from the Menorah is brilliant and fills the home with its life and luster. Almost twenty-two hundred years ago, the Jews sought to rededicate the Temple in Jerusalem. The Temple had been intentionally desecrated by Antiochus IV when he ordered a pig to be sacrificed on the altar and a statue of Zeus to be set up in the Holy of Holies. His was only the latest attempt to eradicate the Jews from the face of the Earth. It would not be the last. Nor would it be the last night that Jews around the world gathered around the menorah to remember the reasons that we light those lights…