WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.241 Baruch atah Adonai Eloheinu melech haolam asher 00:00:03.269 --> 00:00:07.214 kideshanu bemitzvotav vetzivanu lehadlik ner shel Hanukkah. 00:00:07.264 --> 00:00:09.940 Hanukkah actually means dedication. 00:00:13.040 --> 00:00:15.840 Hanukkah is also known as the festival of lights. 00:00:15.890 --> 00:00:18.920 And Jews all around the world celebrate Hanukkah to remember 00:00:18.920 --> 00:00:22.072 an amazing miracle that happened two thousand years ago, 00:00:22.072 --> 00:00:26.062 when the Syrian-Greek army had trashed the Jewish Temple, 00:00:26.062 --> 00:00:28.477 and didn't want Jews to practise their religion. 00:00:28.484 --> 00:00:31.902 And when the Jews got back into their Temple they found a tiny bit of oil. 00:00:31.941 --> 00:00:33.715 And they thought it would last for a day, 00:00:33.715 --> 00:00:36.451 but when they put the oil in their oil lamp, the Menorah, 00:00:36.451 --> 00:00:39.951 it lasted for eight days. Giving them time to find more oil, 00:00:39.976 --> 00:00:43.553 and keep the lights burning to celebrate G-d's light. 00:00:43.603 --> 00:00:45.734 So that was a miracle. And the other miracle was that 00:00:45.734 --> 00:00:49.688 the Jews beat the Syrian-Greek army who were trying to stop 00:00:49.688 --> 00:00:52.389 them practising their religion. So it's basically a time to 00:00:52.389 --> 00:00:54.214 remember that we've got religious freedom. 00:00:55.152 --> 00:00:58.084 What we do at Hanukkah is we have our menorah, 00:00:58.124 --> 00:01:03.240 which represents the oil lamp that was in the Temple in Jerusalem 2000 years ago. 00:01:03.303 --> 00:01:05.921 The rules are, and sometimes I get them muddled up, 00:01:05.960 --> 00:01:08.821 you put the candles in right to left. 00:01:08.821 --> 00:01:12.114 So when I put these candles in, I put them in right to left. 00:01:12.164 --> 00:01:15.587 But when you light them, you light left to right. 00:01:15.650 --> 00:01:18.339 You have to light the "shamash" first. You light the "shamash", 00:01:18.393 --> 00:01:20.798 then you say the "brachot", which are the prayers, 00:01:20.837 --> 00:01:24.698 then you light the candles left to right. Every night you light one, 00:01:24.737 --> 00:01:28.825 second night you light two, until you've got all eight candles, 00:01:28.825 --> 00:01:31.182 and the "shamash", the helper, burning. 00:01:31.182 --> 00:01:32.406 Because it's the Festival of Lights. 00:01:32.437 --> 00:01:36.922 "Ner shel Hanukkah". Happy Hanukkah everybody. 00:01:36.972 --> 00:01:41.769 We tend to light the candles when the first stars come out. 00:01:41.832 --> 00:01:44.563 We light always the first candle on the 25th day 00:01:44.563 --> 00:01:46.521 of the Hebrew month of Kislev. 00:01:46.542 --> 00:01:50.050 Whether or not it's November or December, it's the same every year on the Hebrew calendar. 00:01:50.118 --> 00:01:52.828 Often what people do, my family does this as well, is when 00:01:52.846 --> 00:01:55.720 we've got the menorah lit, with the candles, we put it in 00:01:55.720 --> 00:01:58.931 our windows so that the whole neighbourhood can share 00:01:58.931 --> 00:02:01.731 in our joy and the Festival of Lights. 00:02:01.781 --> 00:02:06.281 Everybody can see our Festival of Light...there we are... 00:02:07.009 --> 00:02:09.924 Hanukkah is a time of happy memories. It's remembering 00:02:09.924 --> 00:02:12.810 the fact that we won our freedom. We invite family and 00:02:12.810 --> 00:02:15.904 friends round. We play games. It's a time of year where we 00:02:15.904 --> 00:02:18.940 also give things to other people. We give things to charity, 00:02:18.940 --> 00:02:21.226 and we also give each other presents as well, to show 00:02:21.226 --> 00:02:23.222 gratitude and appreciation of life. 00:02:23.222 --> 00:02:26.772 Let's flip it over... these "latkes" are cooking. 00:02:26.772 --> 00:02:30.128 We only want them to go for two and a half minutes on each side. 00:02:30.172 --> 00:02:33.804 And we have lots of fried food, and we have "latkes", 00:02:33.804 --> 00:02:37.619 which is potato pancakes that we fry. And we have donuts, 00:02:37.669 --> 00:02:42.250 full of jelly or jam, and that's one, because it's a sweet occasion, 00:02:42.289 --> 00:02:44.793 and secondly because the oil that we fry the latkes, 00:02:44.793 --> 00:02:48.293 the potato pancakes and the donuts in, reminds us of the oil 00:02:48.305 --> 00:02:50.558 that burnt in the temple in the miracle, 00:02:50.570 --> 00:02:52.527 where it lasted all those days. 00:02:52.953 --> 00:02:55.114 Let's do the "dreidel" song. 00:02:55.729 --> 00:02:59.416 Dreidel, dreidel, dreidel... I made it out of clay... 00:03:01.457 --> 00:03:05.074 Children play quite a big role in Hanukkah, 00:03:05.074 --> 00:03:08.055 2000 years ago when the Syrian-Greeks tried to stop 00:03:08.055 --> 00:03:11.247 us practising our religion, and they actually said Jews would 00:03:11.247 --> 00:03:13.204 be arrested and killed if they practised their religion, 00:03:13.204 --> 00:03:16.125 what the parents did was they would send their children off 00:03:16.125 --> 00:03:19.454 to the forest with Jewish text to learn. And one Jewish child 00:03:19.454 --> 00:03:22.078 will be on the lookout. And if they saw the Syrian-Greek 00:03:22.078 --> 00:03:24.709 soldiers approaching, they would put the religious texts 00:03:24.709 --> 00:03:26.861 behind them and get out this thing called a "dreidel", 00:03:26.861 --> 00:03:29.229 which was a spinning top, and say, "just playing here soldiers, 00:03:29.229 --> 00:03:31.727 there's nothing wrong". So children played quite 00:03:31.727 --> 00:03:33.744 a big role in trying to keep the religion going. 00:03:33.861 --> 00:03:37.317 So what happens at Hanukkah is that, a lot of it is based around 00:03:37.317 --> 00:03:40.543 children because we give them presents, or you can give them, 00:03:40.527 --> 00:03:44.443 what we call "Hanukkah Gelt". "Gelt" is an old Yiddish word meaning money. 00:03:44.474 --> 00:03:46.868 Very often we give them little gold chocolate coins. 00:03:46.899 --> 00:03:49.256 We play games with them and they love eating them. 00:03:55.064 --> 00:03:57.634 What we do with the "dreidel", which is the spinning top, 00:03:57.634 --> 00:04:01.134 that is very representative and symbolic of Hanukkah, 00:04:01.184 --> 00:04:08.171 It has four letters on it, "shin", "hei", "gimmel" and "nun". 00:04:08.221 --> 00:04:12.015 And what that means is, "a great miracle happened here". 00:04:12.045 --> 00:04:15.543 We spin it and depending on what letter it lands on, 00:04:15.555 --> 00:04:18.809 you either get a little bit more Hanukkah gelt, chocolate coins, 00:04:18.859 --> 00:04:21.016 or you have to put some of your Hanukkah gelt in the middle. 00:04:21.065 --> 00:04:23.812 So the object of the game is to try and get as much Hanukkah 00:04:23.812 --> 00:04:25.991 gelt for yourself as you possibly can 00:04:27.701 --> 00:04:31.367 Good spin...let's see what it lands on... 00:04:33.079 --> 00:04:35.827 It's very important for Jewish parents, and we're told this 00:04:35.827 --> 00:04:38.593 over and over again, is to pass these stories, 00:04:38.624 --> 00:04:41.197 these traditions, on to our children. 00:04:42.076 --> 00:04:43.972 Oh you're right... it's "nun". 00:04:44.050 --> 00:04:48.155 What's really lovely and awesome about the Jewish 00:04:48.155 --> 00:04:52.932 religion is that it's so old. Jews have been doing this for 2000 years. 00:04:52.971 --> 00:04:56.281 So, I'm very aware when I celebrate 00:04:56.281 --> 00:04:58.608 festivals like Hanukkah, of the weight of tradition and 00:04:58.608 --> 00:05:01.388 history behind me. It's a bit like carrying the Olympic Torch. 00:05:01.438 --> 00:05:04.069 I'm still doing it and passing it on to my kids, 00:05:04.069 --> 00:05:07.096 2000 years later. Hanukkah is all about remembrance. 00:05:07.096 --> 00:05:09.799 It's a time for the Jewish people to remember how good it is 00:05:09.799 --> 00:05:13.774 to be free. To remember the miracles, and to remember that God 00:05:13.774 --> 00:05:16.650 was looking after us. But what it really symbolises for me, 00:05:16.650 --> 00:05:19.411 is religious freedom and the importance of everybody to be 00:05:19.411 --> 00:05:21.621 able to practise their religion. Whoever they are, whatever 00:05:21.621 --> 00:05:24.137 their religion is. So it does make me think about other people 00:05:24.137 --> 00:05:27.332 around the world who maybe can't celebrate their religion, 00:05:27.332 --> 00:05:31.621 or who are living under oppression. It is a gift that we can't 00:05:31.621 --> 00:05:33.685 take for granted, To be able to practise our religion, 00:05:33.685 --> 00:05:35.785 and do what you believe in.