Lighting the menorah and playing the dreidel

Lighting the candles at Hanukah :
We place the candles in the hanukkiyah (8 branch menorah) from right to left. To light the menorah we us the highest candle on the menorah which is called the shamash, also known as the servant/helper candle. Once the shamash is lit two blessings are said. The first blessing is said over the hannukah candles :

Baruch atah Adonai, eloheinu melech ha'olam, asher kidushanu b'mitzvotav vitzinvanu l'hadlik ner shel hanukkah.

The second blessings gives thanks for all the miracles :

Baruch atah Adonai, eloheinu melech ha'olam, she-asah nissim lavoteinu ba-yamim hahem bazman hazeh.

On the first night, and only on the first night, a third prayer is added to giv thanks for being able to celebrate the holiday. This pray is also said at the beginning of most holidays and at a new and happy event :

Baruch ata Adonai, eloheinu melech ha-olam shehechiyanu vekiymanu vehigiany lazman hazeh.

Then using the shamash we light the first candle, and one by one every night starting with the newest candle and moving toward the right.

These small and pretty candles are a reminder taht even the small, when they stand together can light the darkness.

What is a dreidel :
A dreidel is a spinnng top. The word dreidel means "turn".
The dreidel has four sides, on each side there is a hebrew letter : Nun, gimel, hey and shin. These letters stand for the words, Nes Gadol Haya Sham which means A Miracle Happened There. There indicates Israel.

How did it all start :
Dreidel game began when the King Antiochus forbade the Jews to study Torah,the Jewish Bible. Grops of children who had secretly meorized the entire Torah studied together until they heard teh footsetps of the soldiers approaching. Then they quickly pulled out spinning tops and pretended to be playing games.

Rules to play the game:
Each child gets the same number of tokens, which are often nuts, candy, or coins. Each child puts two or three tokens into the middle. Then he/she takes a turn spinning the dreidel.
Usually you use candy or nuts to play this game. In case you don't have those items to play with, we've added points here for you to use.

- Nes ... N or nun stands for nisht or nothing. If the dreidel lands on nun, you do nothing.
No Points.


- Gadol ... G or gimel stands for ganz or all. Take everything in the middle.
Get all the tokens in the middle.

- Haya ... H or hay stands for halb or half. Take half of what is in the middle plus one if there is an odd number of objects.

- Sham ... S or shin stands for shtel or put in. Share , so give half into the middle.


Players who have nothing left are out of the game, and the player who outlasts the others is the winner...

Hanukkah : how did all come about...

On 25 Kislev on the Jewish calendar, which this year corresponds to December 1st on the secular calendar, the Jewish people celebrate Hanukkah, a wonderful holiday, one that commemorates events that took place in Jerusalem in 138 BC (year 3622 from the creation of the world). A miracle occurred in the Temple in Jerusalem, crowning one of the most brilliant pages in the history of the Jewish people.

The Hellenistic rulers (the Greeks) of that time tried to eradicate the Jewish culture using fire and sword. Under penalty of death, Jews could not study the Torah, observe the Sabbath, or keep the holidays. They installed a statue of Zeus in the Temple in Jerusalem. Then, Mattathias the Hasmonean, who refused to worship the Greek idols, raised an armed revolt against their oppressors with the appeal, “All those who are for the One God, stand with me!” This war was the first one fought in the world for religious freedom. After the death of Mattathias, his son Judah the Maccabean continued his cause, under whose leadership the Jews achieved one victory after another. Little by little, the Jews liberated their homeland from the enemy and in a decisive battle liberated Jerusalem.


Upon entering Jerusalem, the army of Judah the Maccabee went to work. It was necessary to clean the temple after its desecration, they had to take down the statue of Zeus, and they had to wash, clean, and repair everything within it. When the work was finished, the Temple was ready to receive the Torah scrolls and the other religious items. However, it was necessary to sanctify the temple, so that it was fit for the worship of the One God, as it was before. They needed to light the temple lamp, the menorah. The ordinary oil used in the temple rites would not do, they needed olive oil, purified and sanctified in a special way. There was not enough of this oil in the Temple because the Greeks had destroyed everything. Miraculously, they managed to find a small vessel with some of the special oil in it. However, it could last, at most, only one day. Nevertheless, it was impossible to postpone the ceremony. Judah decided to fill the menorah with the oil that was available. Then, a miracle happened, the fire burned for eight days, the time that was necessary to prepare a new portion of oil. To commemorate this miracle, Jews celebrate Hanukkah (in Hebrew, Hanukkah means “dedication”) and light Hanukkah candles.


Noting Hanukkah, we remember the Jewish revolt against their oppressors and rejoice in the victory of our ancestors over their enemies. However, the main thing that we celebrate these days is the miracle of the pitcher of oil. In memory of the eight days, we light the Hanukkah lamp, the Menorah. In these days, we treat everybody to sweet donuts and share funny gifts. The kids especially love this holiday because they get toys or we give them money, called Hanukkah geld, so that they can buy sweets.

Come and learn all about hanukkah !

Come and join us this Sunday, November 21st in Saint Germain-en-Laye at 3.30pm as we reach for the artist in us, sing songs, read the story of the Maccabees and play dreidel games and learn all about the traditions of hannukah.

Bring along your favourite story book and / or traditional hannukah snack.

See you there !

November Lesson Part II : Rosh Chodesh and mezuzahs in the making

Remember when you went back to school after the summer holidays we celebrated Rosh Hashanah. And we learn that Rosh means head and hashanah meant year and so Rosh Hashanah is the Jewish New Year.

Today our Sunday Funday class falls on the first day of Rosh Chodesh, which means :
Rosh = head, Chodesh = month, so rosh chodesh is the start of the new month.

More than a thousand years ago before calendars, telephones and emails, Rosh Chodesh was an important festival day. People would watch the sky carefully between the 29th and 30th day and when the a sliver of the moon appeared and became visible after dark, and was witnessed by at least two people, the new month was declared. They would light a fire on the hills of Jerusalem so that neighbouring towns could see, where more fires would be lit and so on. The next day the festivities would start, they would sound the shofar and festivities would begin. Then the same Syrain Greek king which caused the Maccabees to revolt (we will learn about this at our next lesson) and why we celebrate hannukah did not allow the jews to continue celebrating Rosh Chodesh. And much later, we calculated the months differently. Rosh chodesh is a celebration of starting anew. And this new month we’re entering is called Kislev on the hebrew calendar and during Kislev we celebrate Hannukah

Rosh Chodesh story read today :

In the beginning the sun and the moon were the same size,
Two equally great lights, lighting all creation

The moon dared to wonder... “Is it possible for two rulers to wear one crown?”

The Holy One responded by shrinking the moon to it’s present size to be ever smaller than the sun.

The moon was angry. “Just because I questionned the wisdom of creation should I be punished for all time?”

Ok, how about this said the Holy One,... “The sun shall rule by day, but you the moon shall rule by night”

“Oh that’s good” said the moon, “but not quite good enough”

“What about this... ” “The nations of the world will set their calendars by the sun, but the people of Israel will set their sacred times by the newest and fullness of the moon”

“This too is good, but not enough. You must find a way to fix all the brokeness and mistakes in your creation’

The Holy One thought a long time, and finally came back to the moon and said “When all creation will learn to live together and when all have an equal share in the blessings that fill the world, then you will be restored to your rightful size.”

“Oh this is good” said the moon
‘For this I and your smaller creations will wait’
And so the Holy One promised to fix all the mistakes in creation with the promise that one day all children will grow to be old, and all the oppressed will be set free and the world will know Shalom – Peace and so,
Once every month when the moon is full, we sing and dance in her light and remember the Holy Ones promise

May It Come so....

And we sang with our musical instruments :
Oseh shalom,
Bimromav hu ya’aseh
Shalom aleinu
v’al kol yisrael
v’imru amen

We also learnt to say good-bye together and wish our friends a good week :

Shavuah tov, shavuah tov, shavuah tov, shavuah tov (x 4 times again)

A good week, a week of peace,

May gladness reign and joy increase

A good week, a week of peace

May gladness reign and joy increase

And then our artists went to work...

And the hard work paid, they all went home with their very own mezuzah for their bedroom...

Next Sunday Funday, Nov 21 at 3.30pm in St Germain en Laye.

November lesson : Part 1 "My very own mezuzah" and shema

There are many symbols for the home, but the first one we usually see is a little box hung by the door, this box is called a mezuzah. Mezuzah is the hebrew word for doorposts.

Why do we fix a mezuzah to our doorposts? The passover story, which we will learn a little later on in the year, we see that the israelites followed a similar practice. During the last plague they smeared their doorposts and this sign kept their families safe.

Today a mezuzah is a sign that a jewish family lives in that house, it is reminds us that we want our home to be a jewish home. That we want our home to be filled with joy and love and family peace - shalom bayit and that it is a place God can be found.

Inside the mezzuzah is a special paper called parchment with the shema and vehaya. We learnt the shema in song today.

On the mezuzah is the hebrew letter 'shin' which stands for shaddai a hebrew word which means guardian of the doors of Israel. It is also the name of God.

When we hang a mezzuzah we have a ceremony. This is a dedication of our home, like when the Macabees cleaned up the Temple, they had a dedication ceremony to make it a place where God could be found. We will learn all about this at our next lesson.

Today we learn to sing the Shema :

Shema Israel , Adonai Eloheinu , Adonai Echad

Hear o Israel, Hashem is our God, Hashem is One

And with actions :

Shema (Listen) - so we hold our hands behind the ears

Israel (being the people, you and I) so we make a circle infront of us.

Hashem (being everywhere too, but we lift up as Adonai is above us, not specifically in the heavens though, but above our heads) raise both hands up.

Eloheinu (Our God) so we embrace and hug ourselves

Hashem- we raise the hands upward again

Echad (One ) so you point with one finger.