Chanukah - the festival of light

In this festive season Christians celebrate Christmas and Jews have already celebrated Chanukah. But what is Chanukah all about, this ‘Festival of Light’? What does it celebrates? Where does it take its name? From how far in history does it echo? And what is its message? Chanukah celebrates a miracle that happened about two thousand one hundred and fifty years ago. After the death of Alexander the great in 323BC when its empire was divided between his generals, the Seleucid dynasty came into being. The Seleucid, who ruled the area of Israel and Judea, continued Alexander’s policy of Hellenizing their territories. Around the year 200B.C the Seleucid Antiochus IV came to power. Frustrated with his inability to Hellenize the Jews he eventually converted The Second Temple in Jerusalem to a house of pagan idol worship. map of Jerusalem in antiquity. The Second Temple is considered to be one of the seven wonders old world In 167BC after three years of guerrilla warfare, against a numerically superior army, man named Yehuda haMaccabi(judas Maccabeus), son of Matityahu (Mattathias), recaptured Jerusalem and the Temple Mount, cleansing it from all idols. After the Temple was cleansed, Yehuda and his men wanted to rekindle the temple’s eternal flame. They hunted high and low to find some blessed oil needed to light the flame on its seven-branched golden Menorah (candlestick), but all they could find was a tiny clay pot, which had enough oil for just one day. On the 25th day of the Jewish month of Kislev, which corresponds to sometimes in the month of December, a miracle occurred and the Menorah lit for eight days, giving enough time for fresh oil to be brought up to Jerusalem. The entrance to the Temple area Chanukah lasts for 8 days, signifying this event. Every evening during these days the chanukiyah (the special candlestick used only in Chanukah) is ceremoniously lit with an additional candle for each night. On the last night all eight candles are alight, as well as the service candle used to light the others. However, Chag (feast) HaChanuka celebrates not only the recapturing of the Temple, when Judaism was the only monotheistic religion in a sea of paganism, but also the survival of the Jewish spirit and culture. At the same time it raises awareness to the right of freedom over oppression. Chanukah is a happy celebration, where people sing songs, play games and eat sweet and oily foods to denote the miracle. We have come to evict the darkness, In our hands a fire so bright, Each of us is a small candle Together we are eternal light. Disperse, oh black darkness, Disperse! Here comes the light! Renate http://www.promisedland-renate.com/

Home coming

It all started when I asked my son for my list of ‘Favourites’ ‘I have no keys to enter your home’ he said ‘You have’ I replied. ‘Dad took them and did not return them.’ He wrote. ‘Dad says he returned them’ ‘But I don’t have them’ ‘Gerry, he says he has no keys and I need my list...' Gerry packs a set for him and mails it out express. He gets the keys. ‘The keys don’t fit.’ He says. We are surprised, but what can we do? We send him our second set. He gets into the house and I get my list. The time has come to return home, and we are left with a single key, which may or may not work. It does, and we sigh with relief. We connect the water the electricity, the dishwasher… but the dishwasher is already connected … funny… did we forget to disconnect it? Not likely… and what are those mouldy dishes doing in it? We wonder… We lift the shutters – three are stuck. Gerry sighs; he hates this job; but it is his and he has to do it. We look for keys to unlock the windows that are still locked. Our son and co opened some to air the house. They also dusted and swept floors, AND, you would not believe it, the fridge is full with foods we like, and it is beautifully arranged. We smack our lips and lift the phone to thank our daughter in law, but the phone is dead. It’s not reconnected as yet. We resort to the mobile – the mobile is empty. We recharge and dial the number, ‘You have only $5.90 left, add more money ‘ a voice tells me. ;It’s okay, but give us a break, we just arrived…' We cannot find the keys to the windows. We click the remote to open the car door. The remote decided to quit. We use the key. Gerry reconnects the car’s battery- the battery is empty. We call our on road insurance. They come with new battery; and we buy it. We drive to our son’s place. It’s 2 minutes away from us. They say they don’t have any of our keys, but there is a heap of keys we can look through. We do. We find some, but none for the windows. We used to have a big bunch of them, as well as some spare keys for the car and another remote, but there are none. Gerry buys new locks and replaces every one of them. We get a new remote for the car. It has very high-pitched sounds, and printed instruction too small to read. Some doorknobs decided to fall off continuously. We take the opportunity, and Gerry changes them all with handles. Poor Gerry, he does it all without saying a word, but I know he rather do something else. I put my computer on. A female voice is telling me something repeatedly, but I cannot decipher it. I call Gerry, ‘What is she saying?’ ‘It’s something about the CPU I think.’ O’ yes. The CPU. It decided to quit as well. We need a new computer. But before we look into that, we need to reconnect our phone and the Internet. That should take just a minute or two. Right? Wrong. The phone company signs us on an electronic voice activated contract. We cannot read the fine print on it, but it’s okay; we need the phone and the choice is, in any event, much of a muchness. ‘It’ll take a day to connect’ they say, and we have no problems with that. We ask for Internet connection and sign another electronic voice activated contract. ‘Would you like ‘cable’? A voice asks. ‘It’s more reliable’ Would we like ‘Cable’? We would love cable. We didn’t know we could get it in our area. They must have put it in… ‘It will cost you $60.00 for the technician to come and set it up. You must have a technician. He will come within ten day.' 'Why ten days?' We ask. 'Overseas you get it within a couple of days.' '‘This is not overseas, this is Australia.’ we are told… A couple of days pass and there is no phone. We phone with our mobile, press all the required buttons, and after about tem minutes, we are asked to sign an electronic contact. I object, ‘I did it already.’ I say. ‘O’ you did?’ ‘Yes. I did.’ ‘Okay, All will be fine.’ Another day passes, and it’s not fine.Gerry phones again on the mobile. This time he goes direct to ‘sales’. There is never any problem in getting through to ‘sales’. ‘Sales’ tells him we have been assigned a wrong number; No wonder we can’t use the phone... In the meantime we order a new computer with all the jazz I want, and I ask to have my old hard transferred into it. It will take a week to get it, but never mind. We don’t have a phone or the Internet, so we can wait for this one as well. We get the computer, but there are several things wrong with it, and it goes back and forth and back and forth till it’s right. Ten days are gone and no technician. We phone and press all the required buttons again. The man says, ‘I‘ll book it for you’ ‘Was it not booked before?’ I get no reply... ‘and it will take another two weeks before we get connected.’ I object, but I can do nothing about it. We try to complain, but they have closed ranks. Three weeks pass. The technician phones, ‘I am at 27 O’Conner Street, but you are not there!’ No wonder we are not there. We do not live at that address. We give him the correct address and he says, ‘Phone the company and ask them to make a new order with the correct address and give you the number, so I’ll have it when I arrive.’ ‘Will do’ I say. I phone the company. Press all the buttons as required and explain the problem. ‘The computers are down and we can do nothing for you. We expect them to be down for most of the day.’ The technician arrives. I tell him, ‘their computers are down and they can do nothing about it.' He says, ‘Sorry I can’t do a thing without a new order.You will have to arrange for a new time’ I phone every couple of hours.Press all the buttons.The computers are down.Nothing can be done… It’s 4.30pm the computers are back on line.Someone obliges me and transfers me to ‘activation’. I get the wrong connection. I put the receiver down, redial and press all the required buttons, ‘Can you transfer me to activation please?’ 'Why do you want ‘Activation’?’ ‘I was told to go there’ I hear a chuckle… I get to Activation.The man tells me, ‘I can see you asked for cable’ ‘Yes I did’ ‘There is no cable in your area, that’s why the technician got the wrong address.’ ‘I was offered cable’…. ‘I can arrange ADSL for you.No problems there.’ ‘How long will that take?’ ‘A week to ten days” ‘I can’t wait another week. I have no Internet for three weeks already.’ I say ‘If you go to one of our shops you can arrange everything there and be connected in two to three days.' We get to the shop five minute before it closes.We fill in all the papers and sign at the bottom. ‘How long will it take to get connect?’ 'It will take about a week to ten days…’ I got the computer working okay, but the printer refuses to connect. It’s too old. Never mind. Will need a new one. We get a combination one Gerry fell in love with.It’s a printer/scanner/ phone / fax / answering machine/ you name it…it even makes you breakfast – really? … AND, it comes with a university course attached… Don’t laugh… Now I need to reinstall all my programs and get all my material back into my semi new computer: Docs, photos, paintings and writings etc AND, it’s a good opportunity to get them reorganized. I didn’t organize any for years, and, mind you, I’m still at it… Our telly is snowing badly. We can’t see a thing. Not that there is something to see, but one does like to click the remote. Good finger exercise and very relaxing… We buy a new telly. Delivery in three to four days. We can pick the date. We do. In the meantime, we call the antenna man. He fixes it. The old TV comes to life. Now we have a spare one… Our son says, 'I’ll have this one and give you our old one. It’s smaller and you can find a place for it.' We put his old one in a corner of the dinning room, as we don’t know what to do with it. One telly is more than enough for the two of us. The new one is beautiful. Love the clear larger screen. However, the programs are the same.What a shame…Gerry sits on the coach clicking the remote; I stand there with some snacks, ‘Gerry, Did you spill something? The floor is wet.’ ‘No. Nothing was spilled.’ I shrug my shoulders and sit down. A day passes. Gerry is in the family room and it’s raining indoors. He lift his head – the ceiling is wet and sagging… I meet a neighbour, ‘Welcome home. Did you have good vacation?’ ‘What vacation?Can’t remember any.’ ‘How do you enjoying being back home?’ ' Don’t know; I didn’t have the time to think about it as yet….' The festive season is here and I wish you all the best for the coming twelve months. Enjoy every day of your life, so that you can make up for days like these. Renate Artist, poet and the Author of From the Promised Land to the Lucky Country http://www.promisedland-renate.com