The Coinciding Of Hanukkah And Christmas

As the holidays come close, men and women get into the buying spree for their family and loved ones. Even though most men and women all above the planet know about Christmas, made common by Santa, extremely couple of know about the Jewish festival of Hanukkah. Let's appear at the differences and similarities amongst Hanukkah and Christmas.

What?

Hanukkah is a Jewish vacation and is also known as the Festival of Lights. It is celebrated for eight days and begins on the 25th of the Jewish month of Kislev, which is for the duration of late November or December. The word Hanukkah implies "dedication".

It is celebrated to commemorate the re-dedication of the holy temple in Jerusalem following the victory above Syrian- Greeks by the Jews about 165 B.C.E.

The Story:

The most interesting element of a festival is the story connected to it. Hanukkah is no distinct. This is in which you will find the differences amongst Hanukkah and Christmas. It goes like this.

In 168 B.C.E. the Jewish temple was seized by the Syrian-Greek armies and then it was dedicated to worship Zeus. In 167 B.C.E. the emperor, Antiochus made the practise of Judaism an offense punishable by death and forced all Jews to worship Greek Gods. Both these events upset the Jewish men and women a lot but numerous have been afraid to fight.

In the village of Modiin, the villagers have been gathered and forced to bow to an idol and then consume the flesh of a pig. Both of these acts are not done by Jews. The Higher Priest, Mattathias killed the Greek officer and the other soldiers have been killed by the rest of the villagers. Even though Mattathias and his family fled to the mountains, the Jews who needed to fight against the Greeks joined him. These rebels have been referred to as the Maccabees and have been steadily effective in taking above their land.

After they regained the temple of Jerusalem, it was already spiritually defiled by the sacrificing of swine and worship of foreign gods in the temple. The Jews had to execute an oil ritual to purify the temple. They had to burn the oil for eight days, but discovered out that the oil obtainable was only for one day. They burned the oil anyway and surprisingly, it lasted eight days.