(speaking in Hebrew) - Praised art thou, oh, Lord, our God, King of the Universe, who has sanctified us by Thy Commandments and bidden us to kindle the Hanukkah lights.

(reverent organ music) - A family lights the first candle in the menorah, the traditional Jewish lamp, and begins the Hanukkah service, a joyous holiday that has been celebrated by Jews for over 2,000 years.

(reverent organ music) Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights, the festival of the rededication of the Jewish Temple.

Celebrated every year in December, Hanukkah recalls the bravery, tenacity, and historical circumstance, some call it miracle, that permitted the ancient Israelites over 2,000 years ago to preserve their freedom, and with it, the spiritual source from which Judaism draws its meaning.

The fight for freedom that Hanukkah recalls is not unlike that of our own American Revolution.

In both cases, patriots rose up to overcome overwhelming odds in defense of their freedom.

Though celebrated by a tiny minority of the world's population, Hanukkah has universal implications for any people whose love for freedom makes it necessary to turn from the path of least resistance.

(speaking in Hebrew) - [Father] Praised art Thou, oh, Lord, our God, King of the universe, who didst wondrous things for our fathers at this season in those days.

- In every generation the Jewish people have fought to maintain their craggy independence.

This remarkable tenacity has afforded them a unique role in history.

Sometimes the fight has been successful.

More often, the light of freedom has been dimmed and forced to burn in impatient abeyance.

But Hanukkah, the Festival of Rededication, is a joyous holiday, because this time the freedom lost was retaken, due to the audacity of a few hardy Jews clinging to their already-ancient heritage in this crucible of history, Israel.

Israel has been variously designated Palestine, or Judea, but it has always figured in the minds of the makers of history.

Located at the crossroads of three continents, Israel has endured vast armies sweeping back and forth across her, pursuing endless dreams of world dominion.

And it happened after, that Alexander, son of Philip the Macedonian, had smitten Darius, King of the Persians and Medes, that he reigned in his stead, the first over Greece, and made many wars, and won many strongholds, and slew the kings of the Earth, and took spoils of many nations, insomuch that the Earth was quiet before him.

Whereupon he was exalted, and his heart was lifted up, and he gathered a mighty strong host, and ruled over countries and nations and kings who became tributaries unto him.

Few came closer to realizing a world empire than the Macedonian, Alexander the Great.

His realms reached from India to Egypt, absorbing and enriching the greatest civilizations of the Western world.

Alexander was more than a Macedonian mongol, ignorant of the import of his conquests.

He was a student of Aristotle, and saw civilizing his vassal lands as a sacred duty.

But the Jew, though often subjugated politically, has never allowed his mind and his view of the universe to be legislated by imperial decree.

Alexander conquered the world.

When Alexander's heirs attempted to alter the Jews' ancient vision, they struck the nerve center of Judaism.

So Alexander reigned 12 years, and then died.

His servants ruled every one in his place.

After his death they all put crowns upon themselves; so did their sons after them, many years.

Evils were multiplied in the Earth.

There came out of them a wicked root, Antiochus, surnamed Epiphanes, and he reigned in the 130 and seventh year of the kingdom of the Greeks.

Israel was situated midpoint between the two mightiest empires of Alexander's apportioned realm.

Egypt bordered her to the south, and Syria ruled her from the north.

When Antiochus ascended the Syrian throne in 175 BC, he set out to strengthen his hold on strategic Israel.

The first step would be to standardize all culture and religion throughout the empire.

Antiochus outlawed all Jewish customs and traditions.

A statue of Zeus was placed on the temple altar.

Syrian soldiers enforced the edict in village after village.

Those who refused fled to the hills or died.

(dramatic trumpet music) Whereupon the city was made an habitation of strangers, and became strange to those that were born in her, and her own children left her.

The Sanctuary was laid waste like a wilderness.

Her feasts were turned into mourning, her sabbaths into reproach, her honor into contempt.

As had been her glory, so was her dishonor increased, and her high estate was turned into mourning.

Antiochus had assumed that the Jews would abandon their faith, and passed as readily as all other peoples under Syrian sword.

It would be, after all, so simple to succumb.

Melqart, the sacred deity of conquered Tyre on the sea, was now conveniently identified as the Greek god Pericles.

Ancient Ashkelon, now a Syrian province, erased generations of worship to her Astarte, as she became Aphrodite.

It would not be so difficult for these stubborn Jews, with their peculiar idea of one God, to call upon Zeus as their master.

But Antiochus had not reckoned on that strange devotion to truth and freedom that has been the watchword of the Hebrews.

The Jews were never a mighty nation, rich with art and swollen with armies.

As art decayed and legions changed allegiance, truth remained unaltered, as did the Jews' devotion to it.

When Antiochus threatened to destroy their freedom of thought, he aroused the Jews' deepest sense of justice and religious destiny.

This was something the Syrian had not foreseen.

It is one of the quirks of history, call it miracle, that Judaism has survived much stronger death blows than Antiochus could muster.

The Jew has been driven from Asia, to Africa, to Europe, and back again, in the hope that he would intermingle with all the other nations of the Earth, and so disappear.

The Jews survived Diaspora and exile to Babylon.

They survived Dark Ages consigned to inbreed in ghettos.

He emerged, horribly scarred but still alive, from the ovens of the Third Reich.

Jews have never been noted for cathedrals or works of art designed to endure for centuries.

The Jews knew from experience that their temples and homes would be destroyed, and they would be driven from sight of even the rubble.

The Jew has always had to carry his faith in his heart and pass along the ancient wisdom through prayer and prayer books.

Perhaps the Jews continuing exile from continent to continent has bred within them their love knowledge and freedom.

Knowledge can be carried into the farthest exile, and freedom is never taken for granted.

(speaking in Hebrew) - Praised art thou, oh, Lord, our God, King of the universe, who has granted us life, sustained us, and permitted us to celebrate this joyous festival.

- Israel today stands as a symbol of the Jews' miraculous endurance, as a citadel where the wandering Jew can rest a bit before beginning, perhaps, another journey.

The Jews' journey through history has always been one of difficult decision.

In the time of Antiochus, many Jews sought to appease their Syrian overlords.

They adopted the fashionable Greek customs, and prepared to blend comfortably into the Syrian Empire.

With this assimilation come economic advantages, plus an opportunity to abandon the troublesome demands that maintaining a Jewish identity presented.

In those days, went there out of Israel wicked men who persuaded many, saying: "Let us go and make a covenant "with the heathen that are round about us.

"Since we departed from them we have had much sorrow."

Whereupon they forsook the holy covenant, and joined themselves to the heathen, and sold themselves to do mischief.

This was the process through which countless now-nameless nations have dissolved.

More and more Jews adopted the Greek customs and civilization that the Syrians spread by sword.

More and more of the ways of the fathers were forgotten.

Those willing to submit remained in the cities.

The Jewish fugitives began organizing gorilla bands in the hills.

At the nucleus was the family of Mattathias.

Rebels gathered throughout Judea around Mattathias, until the Jews had formed a swift army in the field.

And then came unto him a company of mighty men of Israel, even all such as offered themselves willingly for the law.

Also all they that fled for persecution joined themselves unto them, and were astay unto them.

They joined their forces, and smote sinful men in their anger, and wicked men in their wrath.

Then Mattathias and his friends went round about, and pulled down the altars.

They pursued also after the proud men, and the work prospered in their hand.

They recovered the law out of the hand of kings.

Neither they suffered they the sinner to triumph.

Mattathias had seen that the coin had only two sides: submit or fight.

For him the choice was clear.

He had struck the first blow in a battle that was to become one of the miracles of history.

Now, when the time drew near that Mattathias should die, he said unto his sons.

- [Mattathias] Now hath pride and rebuke gotten strength, and the time of destruction, and the wrath of indignation.

Now, therefore, my sons, be ye zealous for the law, and give your lives for the covenant of your fathers.

Be valiant and show yourselves men in the behalf of the law, for by it shall ye obtain glory.

As for Judah Maccabee, he hath been mighty and strong, even from his youth up.

Let him be your captain, and fight the battle of the people.

- Judah Maccabee, Judah the Hammer, was the greatest military hero the Jews have ever known.

In the year 167 BC he became the general of the Jewish army, and continued the work his father, Mattathias, had begun.

And all his brethren helped him, so did all they that held with his father, and they fought with cheerfulness the battle of Israel.

He got his people great honor, and put on a breastplate as a giant, and girt his warlike harness about him, and he made battles, protecting the host with his sword.

In his acts he was like a lion, and like a lion's whelp roaring for his prey.

But the Syrians, heir to the might of Macedonia, gathered their armies, and marched through the deserts.

The first Syrian force that Judah Maccabee met was led by Apollonius, military governor of the Province of Samaria.

Desert skirmishes and midnight raids were one thing; but was this ragtail army of idealistic Jews equal to a pitched battle?

The armies met.

(suspenseful music) And Judah's band overcame the Syrians.

Judah killed Apollonius, general of the Samarians, and took his sword, and used it thereafter.

After Apollonius came Sera, another general with a larger force.

Judah Maccabee, moving swiftly with his army, surprised him at Bethoron, north of Jerusalem.

The armies met.

(suspenseful music) And Judah's band overcame the Syrians.

Such ready victories by a fledgling army seem unlikely.

But Judah's small band benefited from the dictates of history.

Rome, a growing force in the Mediterranean, was even then seeking world mastery.

There're many indications that Rome found it advantageous to weaken Syria by secretly supplying the Maccabees with arms and military advisors.

When news of these defeats reached Antiochus, he was enraged, and he called up two huge armies, and sent them south to destroy the rebels.

Judah Maccabee knew that his small band would be overwhelmed by a direct confrontation with this huge enemy force.

Swiftly, Judah mobilized his men.

Judah was fighting for the land he had explored as a child.

He knew every twisted path of hilly Judea.

Swiftly and silently, Judah's small mobile force moved toward their approaching enemy along these familiar paths.

Judah Maccabee, ranging ahead, saw from afar the armies of his enemy.

They covered the horizon.

As the Syrian legions, with elephants dragging the war machines of a war-making nation, blinded the desert with clouds of dust, Judah Maccabee turned to the God of his fathers.

- [Judah] Blessed art thou, oh, Savior of Israel, who didst quell the violence of the mighty man by the hand of thy servant David, and gavest the host of strangers into the hands of Jonathan, the son of Saul, and his armorbearer.

Shut up this army in the hand of thy people Israel, and let them be confounded in their power and horsemen.

Make them to be of no courage, and cause the boldness of their strength to fall away, and let them quake at the destruction.

Cast them down with the sword of them that love Thee, and let all those that know Thy name praise Thee with thanksgiving.

- Judah looked up, and suddenly his strategist's mind saw what he had been waiting for: a division in the enemy's forces.

Judah's men swept forward into the breach, and fell upon their enemy.

(dramatic music) They attacked one legion of the divided Syrian hosts.

Cut off from reinforcements, the Syrians crumbled.

And they were put to flight, and the armies of the oppressor were reduced.

And, in turn, Judah attacked the other legion of the divided Syrian host.

Their numbers diminished, their huge elephants useless in close battle, again the Syrians crumbled.

And they were put to flight, and the armies of the oppressor were reduced.

The field was quiet.

Judah Maccabee and his tiny band of stubborn Jews had defeated the legions of an empire.

Judah set out to recapture the holy city, Jerusalem.

If a miracle may be defined as a fortunate coincidence, then, truly, Hanukkah may be said to commemorate a miracle.

Three defeats notwithstanding, the angry Syrian force was so mighty that they surely would've crushed Judah's upstart army in the next encounter.

But, history here seems to have been written for the Jews.

Just as Antiochus was readying a huge army to crush the rebels, he was compelled to divert a huge expedition to Parthia, in an executive attempt to manage his far-flung empire.

- [Judah] Behold, our enemies are discomforted.

Let us go to cleanse and dedicate the Sanctuary.

- Unopposed, Judah Maccabee marched into Jerusalem.

The Jews entered their beloved city, rejoicing and singing in their triumph.

But as they walked through the familiar streets, their songs stilled to sadness.

Three years of civil war had left Jerusalem a ruin.

Judah's friends had long since been exiled or killed by the Syrians.

He looked at their fallen houses that now held only memories.

And when they saw the sanctuary desolate, and the altar profaned, and the gates burned up, and shrubs growing in the courts as in a forest or in one of the mountains, yea, and the priests' chambers pulled down, they rent their clothes and made great lamentation, and cast ashes upon their heads, and fell down flat to the ground upon their faces, and blew an alarm with trumpets, and cried toward Heaven.

Judah's men removed all signs of pagan occupation.

They were particularly infuriated by the stone altars that the Syrians and their Judean converts had used for sacrifices to the alien gods.

The altars were removed.

The statue of Zeus was removed.

The Temple was rebuilt.

A holiday was proclaimed and celebrated on the 25th day of the Jewish month of Kislev, the third anniversary of the destruction of the Temple.

For eight days the Maccabees celebrated Hanukkah, the Festival of Dedication.

"And so they kept the dedication of the altar eight days, "and offered burnt offerings with gladness, "and sacrificed the sacrifice of deliverance and praise.

"Thus was there very great gladness among the people, "for that the reproach of the heathen was put away.

"Moreover, Judah and his brethren, "with the whole congregation of Israel, "ordained that the days of the dedication of the altar "should be kept in their season from year to year "by the space of eight days, "on the five and twentieth day of the month Kislev, "with mirth and gladness."

Today, Hanukkah is celebrated by Jews everywhere as the festival of rededication and light.

It is a joyous time.

The first night, one candle is lit by the shamash, or helper candle.

The second night, two candles are lit.

And so on for eight nights, until all eight candles blaze in commemoration of the Maccabees' first triumphant Hanukkah, when the menorah flame was rekindled and the spirit of Judaism was rededicated.

History seems to have bent over backwards to permit the Jews to survive.

The story of Hanukkah is rich with miracles.

The Talmud, the ancient Jewish book of wisdom, offers an explanation of why the holiday is celebrated for eight nights.

"Commencing with the 25th day of the month Kislev, "there are eight days upon which there shall be "neither mourning nor fasting.

"For albeit the Greeks entered the Temple "and defiled the oil, is when the might of the Jews "overcame and vanquished them, that, upon search, "a single cruse of undefiled oil, "sealed by the high priest, was found.

"In it was oil enough for the needs of a solitary day."

Then it was that a miracle was wrought.

The oil in the cruse burned eight days.

The miracle of the oil is a symbol of the Jews' durability.

The light continued to burn in praise of the God who had granted the Jews life, sustained them, and permitted them to celebrate their joyous festival.

- Praised art thou, oh, Lord, our God, King of the universe, for the inspiring truths of which we are reminded by these Hanukkah lights.

- We kindle them to recall the great and wonderful deeds wrought through the zeal with which God filled the hearts of the heroic Maccabees.

These lights remind us that we should ever look unto God, whence comes our help.

- As their brightness increases from night to night, let us more fervently give praise to God for the ever-present help He has been to our fathers in the gloomy nights of oppression and trouble.

- The sages and heroes of all generations made every sacrifice to keep the light of God's truth burning brightly.

May we and our children be inspired by their example, so that at last, Israel may be a guide to all men on the way of righteousness and peace.

- The Maccabee's first Hanukkah did not mean their troubles were at an end.

Judah and his sons continued to fight the Syrians.

But a nation's freedom to keep its faith had been preserved.

There is no better cause for celebration.

Hanukkah's a happy time when the family gathers together, and every member participates in the service.

Hanukkah celebrates important victories.

But to Jewish children it also means spinning the dreidel, a four-sided top inscribed with four Hebrew letters: nun, gimel, hayah, shin.

Their initials spell: "A great miracle happened there."

And for children, Hanukkah means presents.

Each of the eight nights the children of the family are given a present, so that they may echo that ancient joy of faith vindicated and prayer answered.

"I will lift up mine eyes unto the mountains, "from whence shall my help come.

"My help cometh from the Lord, who made Heaven and Earth.

"He will not suffer thy foot to be moved.

"He that keepeth thee will not slumber.

"Behold, He that keepeth Israel "doth neither slumber nor sleep.

"The Lord is thy keeper.

"The Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand.

"The sun shall not smite thee by day nor the moon by night.

"The Lord shall keep thee from all evil.

"He shall keep thy soul.

"The Lord shall guard thy going out and thy coming in, "from this time forth and forever."

(reverent organ music)