Today is the first ‘day’ of Chanukah, the Festival of Lights. Yippee. It actually started last night while I was out, kind’a caught me by surprise. So we lit our candle (singular; only one on the first night, increasing by approximately one more every day for 8 days… or 8 ‘nights-before-the-days’ really). And chanukah is unusual for a Jewish festival in that its happy. Most aren’t. They’re commemorating the history of a people who, basically, haven’t been treated too well by history. But on chanukah we’re happy, we light candles and we actually sing songs which, unlike on all other festivals, don’t sound like funeral marches. Kids get presents. Candles get lit. Food gets eaten. But all Jewish festivals are marked by food (or an absence thereof, I s’pose) because that’s what keeps the doctors happy.

Chanukah the food of choice is oil. Fat. Fried everything. Its like friday night in Glasgow. Because the oil is symbolic.
What happened was…

many years ago there was a war and a bunch of middle eastern horrible people, kind of proto-Assads. They sacked the Temple in Jerusalam, killed loads of Israelites, raped, pillaged and plundered and generally acted just like those Glaswegians on a Friday night. The Maccabees fought back and saved the Temple. For a while. It got sacked and wrecked so many times by so many persecutors that all that’s left is one wall; the Wailing/Western Wall.
But on that occasion all was well. Phew. Except… except…

Oh No, there’s only sufficient oil to keep the eternal lamp burning for one day, and it’ll take 7 days to get more because Amazon are out of stock. Because oil doesn’t just pour out of the ground. Because Tescos had a rush. Whatever. Seven days to go, one day’s worth of oil for the lamp. Which is in serious breach of the ‘eternal’ bit of its job description if it goes out for 6 days. So the rabbis, being pragmatic kind of dudes, did what they had to do.

Make oil? Buy oil? Steal oil?

No, they prayed. And a miracle happened and the oil lasted 7 more days and all was well until the Babylonians, Mesopotamians, Assyrians, Egyptians or whomsoever came to cause more bother a few years later.
Rinse and repeat.

That is the history of the Jews.

The oil is thus symbolic.

So we could bathe in it for the duration of chanukah, or we could increase the wholesale price set by OPEC, or we could eat things cooked in it. Hmmm…

Doughnuts become the order of the day. Fried potatoes. Fried fish, meat, vegetables, chocolate, mars bars, herring, bananas and fried chicken fat.
The Torah now has a health warning inserted on the sabbath before Chanukah starts. And the word: ‘statins’ appears in the ancient texts.
Its true; too much chanukah could kill ya. But a little of what you fancy…

Happy Chanukah

A xxxx