The Hannukah Holiday

Added: 04/13/2007

Holidays come once a year. Holidays have religious, historical, or cultural significance. There might even be special holiday traditions within different communities and families. In addition, there are Jewish holidays and there are Christian holidays; for example Christmas and Easter are Christian holidays and Passover and Hanukkah are Jewish holidays.

Holidays come once a year. Holidays have religious, historical, and cultural significance; for instance both the Hannukah holiday and the Passover holiday are Jewish religious holidays and both Christmas and Easter are both Christian religious holidays. On the other hand, Thanksgiving would be classified as an American historical holiday. Many of the religious holidays came about after huge and lengthy wars were fought and won. These religious holidays are observed to remember history and to celebrate victory. Moreover, some religious holidays celebrate great individuals in history. In addition, both of the religious holidays of Easter and Passover were just recently celebrated. Easter was celebrated on April 8th and there is an Easter egg hunt and roll on the White House lawn the morning of April 9th. Passover started on April 2nd and Passover ends on the evening of April 10th. The Hannukkah holiday begins either in November or December. All Christian religious holidays last for one day only. In contrast, Jewish religious holidays vary in length of time. The Hannukah holiday lasts for eight days and Passover lasts eight days. Rosh Hashanah and Purim last for two days. Yom Kippur only lasts for one day. Yom Kippur is a day in which Jewish people fast and ask God to forgive them for their hurtful deeds over the last year. Because fasting is a required part of Yom Kippur, Jewish people are glad that Yom Kippur is only a one day religious holiday.

The Christian religious holiday of Christmas can take place right alongside the Hannukah holiday. However, it usually comes after the Hannukah holiday. When both holidays are celebrated concurrently, Hanukkah either ends on Christmas Day or the day after Christmas or Hanukkah is celebrated through, at least New Year’s Eve. Of course, the religious significance of the Hannukah holiday is quite a bit different than the religious significance of the Christmas holiday. The religious significance of the Christian religious holiday of Christmas involves the celebration of Jesus’ birthday. Jewish people don’t believe that Jesus exists; therefore there is no such event and subsequent celebration of Jesus’ birthday. The religious holiday of Hanukkah involves the miracle and subsequent celebration of the fact that realistically there was only enough oil in the lamp to last one day but the oil in the lamp lasted a grand and glorious total of eight days. Therefore, the Hannukah holiday is sometimes called The Hanukkah Miracle.

It is very important to understand that most Jewish holidays have a religious significance associated with them such as Hanukah, Passover, and Purim. However, not all Jewish holidays have religious significance; for example, Rosh Hashanah is the Jewish New Year which is symbolized with sweet items such as apples and honey. Yom Kippur is the Jewish Day of Atonement when Jewish people ask God for forgiveness for all of their hurtful deeds towards others. Many non Jewish people are interested in learning Hanukkah about. The Hannukah holiday involves menorahs, candles, dredels made of clay and potato pancakes.

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