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The Chanukah and Shabbat lights and Lessons for Today

The Chanukah and Shabbat lights and Lessons for Today

ByDavid Harbater

The lighting of candles, or oil, plays a central role in Jewish life. Shabbat and festivals commence with the lighting of candles and Shabbat concludes with the lighting of a candle, we light candles to commemorate our loved ones, and we mark Chanukah with the lighting of candles in ascending order from the first to the eighth night. Since at least one of the eight days of Chanukah falls on Shabbat, and we have to, then, light two sets of candles, I would like to explain the difference between them and see what lessons we may learn that are relevant to our lives today.

Sukkot 2024-What Are We Celebrating?

ByDavid Harbater

The strangest thing about the Sukkot holiday is that we do not really know what we are celebrating. The Torah says: “You shall live in huts seven days; all citizens in Israel shall live in huts (sukkot), in order that future generations may know that I made the Israelite people live in huts when I brought them out of the land of Egypt (Leviticus 23:42-43)”. Yet, nowhere in the entire Exodus narrative does it say that God made us live in huts. Although “Sukkot” was the name of the first stop on the exodus route from Egypt (see Exodus 12:37), the Torah here is referring not to a particular place but to our entire desert experience. Thus, the question is why does the Torah here institute a seven-day holiday to celebrate an event that is related to the Exodus but that does not appear anywhere in the actual account of the Exodus?