{"id":6755,"date":"2018-11-19T09:59:12","date_gmt":"2018-11-19T07:59:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kol-ami.kulam.org\/2018\/11\/19\/the-deeper-meaning-of-the-word-hanukkah"},"modified":"2018-11-19T10:02:29","modified_gmt":"2018-11-19T08:02:29","slug":"the-deeper-meaning-of-the-word-hanukkah","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kol-ami.kulam.org\/en\/2018\/11\/19\/the-deeper-meaning-of-the-word-hanukkah\/","title":{"rendered":"The Deeper Meaning of the Word \u2018Hanukkah\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Written by Aviya Kushner<\/a>, the language columnist at The Forward, this article<\/a> explores the deeper meaning of the Hebrew word “Hannukah,” with an emphasis on the linguistic and thematic ties between “dedication” and “education.”<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\u2018Hanukkah\u2019 Means A Lot More Than You Think It Does<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n<\/div>\n
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What does the word \u201cHanukkah\u201d mean? For children, it often means the holiday of presents. For Tel Aviv doughnut obsessives, it means congregating on all eight days at bakeries with the most elaborate\u00a0sufganiyot.<\/em>\u00a0For many around the world, it\u2019s \u201cthe Festival of Lights,\u201d when seeing menorahs in the windows of neighbors\u2019 homes illuminates the darkness. Hanukkah, with its connotation of triumph over stronger enemies, has been a source of hope throughout the centuries. But what\u2019s most fascinating about Hanukkah is not its connotation but its roots, both historical and linguistic.<\/p>\n

The holiday itself commemorates a revolt. In the year 168 BCE, the Temple in Jerusalem was desecrated and renamed for the Greek god Zeus. Antiochus had outlawed Judaism, banning the observance of Shabbat and holidays. He set up altars to Greek gods in the Temple, and gave Jews a choice that unfortunately would become familiar in future centuries: Convert or die. The Maccabees decided to resist instead \u2014 and won, despite facing overwhelming odds.<\/p>\n

Keeping Hanukkah and lighting its lights became an act of defiance in later centuries \u2014 as the famous photo of a Hanukkah menorah in a window facing a swastika attests. But the dictionary meaning of the word, according to Even-Shoshan, the venerable Hebrew-Hebrew dictionary, is more utilitarian: simply the dedication of an object for its task, the opening ceremony or the first use of something in a new home.<\/p>\n

\u201cHanukkah,\u201d defined in one word, is \u201cdedication.\u201d Or more elaborately, for the holiday\u2019s namesake \u2014 \u201cthe re-dedication of the Temple as a temple.\u201d<\/p>\n

I admit that I never thought about what the word means, because it was so familiar. The word is all over the Psalms, but it usually appears in the construct form:\u00a0chanukat,<\/em>\u00a0or \u201cthe dedication of.\u201d For English readers, this word,\u00a0chanukat,<\/em>\u00a0is difficult to discern, simply because it is often translated as \u201cdedication.\u201d It\u2019s probably impossible to hear how that is connected to the Hebrew word\u00a0Hanukkah<\/em>\u00a0in the construct form, which means a noun attached to the following noun. Every noun in Hebrew has four forms \u2014 singular, plural, construct singular and construct plural.<\/p>\n

Consider the opening of the 30th Psalm. In Hebrew, Psalms 30:1 reads\u00a0mizmor shir chanukat habayit l\u2019David.<\/em>\u00a0In the 1985 Jewish Publication Society translation, it reads: \u201cA Psalm of David. A song for the dedication of the House.\u201d<\/p>\n

Without Hebrew knowledge, it\u2019s hard to guess that \u201cdedication\u201d is\u00a0chanukat,<\/em>\u00a0and there is no footnote to hint at it. It\u2019s impossible to know that this is a construct noun situation. Yet this\u00a0chanukat habayit,<\/em>\u00a0or \u201cdedication of the House (Temple)\u201d phrasing, is repeated throughout the Psalms \u2014 and since many psalms are part of daily prayers, this phrase appears in the prayers, too.<\/p>\n

But what about the word\u00a0Hanukkah,<\/em>\u00a0as a regular noun? That is also biblical. The word\u00a0Hanukkah<\/em>\u00a0alone appears in Nehemia 12:27. According to the Jewish Publication Society translation, \u201cAnd at the dedication of the wall of Jerusalem they sought the Levites out of all their places, to bring them to Jerusalem, to keep the dedication with gladness, both with thanksgivings, and with singing, with cymbals, psalteries, and with harps.\u201d<\/p>\n

What is especially fascinating about\u00a0Hanukkah<\/em>\u00a0is not its appearance in the Bible or the prayers, but the roots of the word. Hebrew, after all, is a language made of triliteral roots;\u00a0Hanukkah<\/em>\u00a0is constructed from the three-letter root\u00a0chet, nun, chaf,<\/em>\u00a0which also happens to be the root of words having to do with teaching and education.<\/p>\n

But it extends past that. Hebrew theoretically assigns up to seven different structures for any given verb, each of which has a different meaning. All of them share a deep kernel of meaning, sometimes quite fascinating to discover. In this case, with the root\u00a0chet, nun, chaf,<\/em>\u00a0one of these meanings is \u201cto dedicate anew,\u201d another is \u201cto educate others,\u201d and a third is \u201cto educate oneself.\u201d<\/p>\n

L\u2019hitchanech,<\/em>\u00a0or \u201cto educate oneself,\u201d is therefore linguistically related to the idea of using something for the first time and beginning to use something for what it is meant to be used as. Dedication and education share a root. And it\u2019s a beautiful connection \u2014 to educate a child, after all, is the beginning of a child dedicating himself to his task, which is educating himself.<\/p>\n

Ahad Ha\u2019am, who famously wrote that more than the Jewish people has kept Shabbat, keeping Shabbat has kept the Jewish people, used the word\u00a0nitchanech<\/em>\u00a0as he described the new generation of Jews \u2014 who he hoped would combine both modern freedoms and knowledge of the ancient. \u201cThe new generation, that was born and raised in freedom, and was educated (nitchanech)<\/em>\u00a0from youth on the knees of the great Torah,\u201d Ahad Ha\u2019am wrote.<\/p>\n

Ahad Ha\u2019am is on interesting terrain here, the terrain that the words\u00a0nitchanech<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Hanukkah<\/em>\u00a0\u2014 which share a root \u2014 both dwell in. The essence of the word\u00a0Hanukkah<\/em>\u00a0\u2014 a dedication \u2014 is the ability of Judaism to continue. And historically, continuity has meant three elements: remembrance, education and resistance. These elements seem especially resonant this year, when history, knowledge, and the ability of the individual and society to stand up are all under attack.<\/p>\n

Since the days of Antiochus in 168 BCE, Hanukkah has been about roots and holding on to them. We light to remember, to learn, and to honor resistance when who we are is threatened. And we light to dedicate ourselves, again, to the labor and responsibility of being free. This year, when calls to resist again punctuate the darkness, maybe the word we need to continue is\u00a0Hanukkah.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Written by Aviya Kushner, the language columnist at The Forward, this article explores the deeper meaning of the Hebrew word “Hannukah,” with an emphasis on the linguistic and thematic ties between “dedication” and “education.” \u2018Hanukkah\u2019 Means A Lot More Than You Think It Does What does the word \u201cHanukkah\u201d mean? For children, it often means […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":80,"featured_media":6879,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3769],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kol-ami.kulam.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6755\/"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kol-ami.kulam.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kol-ami.kulam.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post\/"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kol-ami.kulam.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/80\/"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kol-ami.kulam.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments\/?post=6755"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kol-ami.kulam.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6755\/revisions\/"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6878,"href":"https:\/\/kol-ami.kulam.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6755\/revisions\/6878\/"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kol-ami.kulam.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6879\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kol-ami.kulam.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/?parent=6755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kol-ami.kulam.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories\/?post=6755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kol-ami.kulam.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags\/?post=6755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}