Hanukkah In Our Time

The Hidden Candle

One year when lighting the first candle of Hanukkah with Rabbi Baruch from Mez'ibose' , the flame jumped and disappeared from the candle, with no signs of smoke. How does the flame, the darkness and the exile connect Hanukkah?

Hanukkah: A Lesson for Our Generation

On Chanukah are we celebrating our incredible victory in what looked like a suicidal war, the miracle of the pot of oil or both? How does this gives us much-needed insight into current events?

Western Culture – What to Accept and What to Reject

The House of Israel is unlike other nations. Every other nation can replace its culture for another without causing any damage whatsoever to the nation. This is not the case with the Jewish people. Our nation is no nation at all without its Torah.

Pre-Chanuka Thoughts

The rise of The Saducees, eventually encouraged by Alexander Yanai, the most powerful of the Hasmonean kings, undermined the peoples’ faith in Torah and rabbinic tradition. So why is there such a big deal over the matter of Chanuka?

What Is Jewish Culture?

“The light shall triumph,” proclaims the Chanukah candle. It conveys the story of the small Jewish nation that stood up to the colossal Greek culture and emerged victorious. Does it also have the power to reveal to me what Jewish culture is?

Chanukah and a Jam at the Jaffa Gate

On Purim, the faith in God's omnipotence and the Torah's divinity were revealed. On Chanukah, the faith in personal Divine Providence was revealed: God delivered the many into the hands of the few. We, too, must strive to see God's providence in all.

Hellenism's Value and Its Rectification via Judaism

The turning point in Hellenist culture came when classic paganism became a general idea. This happened when they stripped paganism of its religious content and transformed it into a cluster of ideas - purposive, active forces became laws and domains.

Believing in Belief