Prof. Israel Knohl was interviewed by Dov Elbaum on his program Sod ha-Luaḥ ha-Ivri. The entire program can be found here. The interview is in Hebrew, but here is a summary of Knohl’s ideas. Knohl tries to minimize the importance of miracles in Judaism and the Bible, intentionally using the post-Biblical phrase “עולם כמנהגו נוהג”, [...]
Today is Eliezer Ben-Yehudah’s yarzheit. Ben-Yehudah died on 26 Kislev 5683/December 16, 1922. Not only did Ben-Yehudah die during Ḥanukkah, but his wife Hemda Ben-Yehudah invented the word חנוכייה. Here is a previous post that I wrote on the origins of the word חנוכייה.
There are two interesting posts about Hanukkah-related liturgical issues. The first is by Ophir Münz-Manor of the Talmud Blog and is on Hanukkah and Piyyut. The second is in the Musaf Shabbat of Makor Rishon and is by Akiba Zimmerman. Zimmerman writes (Hebrew) about the irony that Hanukkah, the holiday that celebrates the battle against [...]
The phenomenon of responsa on the Internet is a fascinating area of study, and it is not surprising that the first mention of the Maccabeats in the responsa literature was in a cyber-responsa. The following is from Kipa. תוכן השאלה שלום הרב! סרטון שרץ ברשת (וזכה למלא צפיות): זאת חבורה של אמריקאים עם כיפות ששרים [...]
See here for a nice discussion by Moshe Benovitz on the origin and history of Hanukkah. Happy Hannukah to all.
If one were to conduct any type of search for the word חנוכייה, Hanukkiyah, in Hebrew literature before the 20th century they would most likely come up empty. The word simply does not exist in Biblical, Talmudic, nor Medieval Hebrew literature. In the Temple there was the מנורה, and when describing what one lights during [...]
Martin Cohen explains here how the story of the Hanukkah “miracle oil” may be a midrash on the story of Elisha and the flask of oil in 2 Kings 9.
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