I am writing this article on Veterans Day.   I have always been respectful and appreciative of our veterans.  These men and women put themselves in harms way for us.  Home of the free because of the brave. In addition to always being respectful of our military, I get to look at it from a soldiers point of view. My husband William is a Marine veteran  I have heard the stories from the other side. Why do I begin my article focusing on soldiers ?  Because of Hanukkah of course. Our Temple was destroyed by the bad guys. It was our Macabee soldiers that fought them and succeeded in saving our precious Temple. We cleaned it  up and recovered our beautiful oil lamp. As you may remember there was not much oil left for the lamp. We needed to get to it it fast. It would take the Macabees days to get to the location where they could get more oil and then return to the Temple. They just had to take the risk and go there. They lit the lamp with the small amount of oil that they had and hoped it would make it for more than the day.

As we know there was a great miracle. The light lasted for eight nights which was just enough time for the Macabees to make it back with enough oil to fill the lamp and keep it going.

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Most people celebrate Hanukkah by lighting the Menorah by adding one candle each night. Others start by lighting eight candles and go down one each night.  This was really a common way they did it back in the day. Your light goes down every night  as the oil / candle goes down like in the days of the Macabees. 

 

If you have more than 1 Menorah this might be something you would want to try. However you choose to light your Menorah’s ( candle or oil) it is my hope that your Hanukkah is bright, beautiful and meaningful.

 

And may our Macabee soldiers and today’s Veterans and soldiers be honored and appreciated.

 

 

Sunday, January 12th—Craft Program

Saturday January 18th—Woman’s League Shabbat.

Please support our ladies with your attendance and participation.

 

Saturday, February 22nd—special event at 7:30 pm in the MPR. 

Stay tuned for more details!

 

We still need you.   If you still haven't paid your 2024-2025 dues, please do.  

We need all of you to help us continue our work for our beloved Temple Beth Emet.