Festival of Lights
On the 21st of November in 164 BC, a Judean priest named Judas Maccabeus restored a temple in Jerusalem which had been taken from his people and used for Hellenistic rituals. When they began to rededicate the temple, they found they did not have enough oil for the menorah to burn throughout the nights.
Jewish Virtual Library: Chanukah
According to tradition as recorded in the Talmud, at the time of the rededication, there was very little oil left that had not been defiled by the Greeks. Oil was needed for the menorah (candelabrum) in the Temple, which was supposed to burn throughout the night every night. There was only enough oil to burn for one day, yet miraculously, it burned for eight days. An eight day festival was declared to commemorate this miracle. Note that the holiday commemorates the miracle of the oil, not the military victory.
This year Chanukah begins on the 12th of December (another Saturday!). Fried foods are traditionally eaten as a celebration of the oil, which makes this festival a winner in my book!
And on the 21st of November in 2009, people all over the world celebrated life with wonderful photographs for Saturday Scenes!
Take a look:
- Mt. Shasta
- Zürich
- Eschen
- Farnborough
- Jaffa
- Zürich
- South Mimms
- Genoa
- Kensington
- Newport, Wales
- Birmingham
- Worcester
- Providence
- Worcester
- Bern
- Birling Gap
And take a moment to pop by the Twitter streams of our participants:
- akaSylvia
- raumsinn
- Pewari
- JanetIsserlis
- akrabat
- RAFairman
- PCurd
- Korwhai
- tradingnothing
- CliffStanford
- pixelfreund
- elibrody
- Neal55
- vaxanta
- michrueg
- drewbenn
You can also keep track of everyone at once by checking out the Saturday Scenes list including all of our participants.
If you’d like to join in, just take a photograph on Saturday and send it to @SatScenes with the location! We’d love to see your corner of the world.