There will not only be Christmas on December 25, 2024. The Hebrew calendar means that the Hanukkah holiday falls this year on December 25 and will last until January 2. This flagship celebration of Judaism, which literally means the “Feast of Edification”, is generally held in all Jewish families, whether they are observant or not.
A parallel can be made with Christmas, in the sense that it is a family holiday celebrated by all people of Jewish culture, during which gifts are available, particularly for children. But it obviously retains a deep religious meaning. If we refer to sacred texts, Hanukkah commemorates the victory of the Jews of Judea over the Greco-Syrian armies, but also according to rabbinic tradition, the miracle of the vial of oil.
According to a story that we can read in the Talmud, the Maccabees discovered after their victory in the Second Temple of Jerusalem the vials of oil to light the sacked candles. Only one of them, sufficient for only one day, was still intact. However, it was with this that they were able to light their candles for eight days.
This is the reason why the Hanukkah festival now lasts eight days each year, from the 25th of Kislev to the 2nd of Tebet (sometimes the 3rd) in the Hebrew calendar. This differs from the Gregorian calendar that we use, since it is lunar: each new moon determines the start of a month. Hence the changing dates each year if we refer to our Gregorian calendar.
During this holiday, Jews traditionally light one candle per evening which they place on a nine-branched candlestick, the menorah. The first one is lit the day before the start of Hanukkah and is then used to light the others gradually, from right to left. This lighting is followed by prayers, readings from the Torah and singing in practicing homes.
In the tradition of the miracle of the flask of oil, it is customary to eat dishes fried in oil, most often donuts, in both savory and sweet versions. The children also receive a little money each day with the aim of teaching them to give part of the total amount to the most deprived. They also often play with spinning tops on which four Hebrew letters are engraved, the initials of “Ness Gadol Haya Cham”, “A great miracle took place there”.
According to transpositions of the Hebrew calendar, the next Hanukkah celebrations will take place from December 14 to 22 in 2025 and from December 4 to 12 in 2026.
