The story of Hanukkah is one of miracles.

There were several miracles.

The most known one being that a small amount of oil, which would have only lasted for one day to keep the sacred light alight.

Ended up lasting for eight days, until the Jewish people were able to produce more oil to keep their sacred light going.

But there are also other miracles, including that a small group of Jews were able to overthrow Hellenism in Israel and take back their temple and their culture.

And also, there are miracles of multiple heroes.

Specifically, in Hanukkah, the hero of the story is Judah Maccabee, who led this group of Jews called the Maccabees.

This first song, “Mi Yimalel” translates to ‘who can retell and is really just talking about the the specific heroism of Judah Maccabee and how grateful we are and how we should remember him for ages to come.

This next song is titled “Sevivon, Sov Sov Sov” Which translates to ‘dreidel, spin, spin, spin.

The dreidel was actually used by Jews when they were hiding their faith from Hellenism.

They would be secretly studying the Bible together in caves.

And then if they said, oh, they're coming, they would quickly put away all their study materials and take out these little tops and spin them to pretend to be gambling.

Since gambling was, very Greek in nature.

And nowadays it's just sort of a fun game that you play during Hanukkah.

So it's a fun song with fun lyrics.

So I decided, why not make it a nice, fun Latin jazz song?

This is “Sevivon Sov Sov Sov”.

This next song is titled “Ner Li”, which translates to either ‘my candle or ‘my little candle This song is mostly about the warmth and joy from lighting candles for Hanukkah.

And when I was arranging this song, I really wanted to try to find the right feeling to to encapsulate that that feeling of warmth and fuzziness.

So I hope you enjoyed this rendition of “Ner Li”.

This next song is titled “Al HaNissim”, which just means ‘for all of the miracles and is a joyous and festive song celebrating all of the miracles of Hanukkah.

This next song is titled, either “Yodim Atem” or “Lichvod Hachanukah” I've kind of seen it both ways.

But “Yodim Atem” means ‘Do you know?

or like ‘Do you know why?

And “Lichvod Hachanukah” means like ‘in honor of Hanukkah.

In this song, has many, many, many verses and in each verse, a child is asking their parent, why do we do this tradition?

Why do we light the candles?

Why do we eat latkes?

Why do we spin the dreidel?

And then the chorus is the parent asking, we do these things in honor of Hanukkah.

This next song is titled “Banu Choshech Legaresh”, which translates to like ‘we wil banish darkness together.

As I mentioned, one of the miracles of Hanukkah is that this very small group of Jewish soldiers, sort of guerrilla warfare, were able to kick the Greeks, by like the hellenists out of their temple, out of their land, and were able to retake their own cultural identity.

And this song talks about how each individual is a small light, but if you band together, you can create a big light and fight darkness as one.

This next song is titled “Maoz Tzur”, which translates to ‘Rock of Ages.

And of all the songs that we're playing, it has perhaps some of the most flowery and old style language.

This song was written in like the 12th century.

The Rock of Ages is in reference to Adonai, or how Jewish people refer to God, and as essentially being grateful and thanking God for being the rock for the Jewish people through all sorts of trials and tribulations over time.

This last song well perform is titled “Yimei HaChanukkah”, but it probably sounds eerily familiar to “Oh, Hanukkah” “Oh, Hanukkah” is one of the only Hanukkah songs that actually has English lyrics but it originally was in Hebrew.

“Yimei HaChanukkah”, which we are about to perform.

“Yimei HaChanukkah” translates to ‘the days of Hanukkah, and while they are not translations of each other, the content is essentially the same.

The songs go over sort of a list of all of the activities that you do on Hanukkah to celebrate the occasion.

But they are not direct translations of each other, probably to maintain things like rhyming and phrases.

But please enjoy our rendition of you “Yimei HaChanukkah”.