Save the Date Saturday, January 6
Bulletin THE BETH TFILOH
WINTER WONDERFUL SHABBAT Celebrating the Joy of Judaism,
A WARM & DELICIOUS SHABBAT WITH Embracing all Jews. SPECIAL PROGRAMS FOR CHILDREN, KISLEV-TEVET FAMILIES & ADULTS OF ALL AGES!! 5778 DECEMBER 2017
Meet & Greet • Hebew School Family Program • Cookie Minyan • Mini Minion Kid Cong • Parsha Insights for Women Bar/Bat Mitzvah Program • Intriguing Sermons • Special Simcha Kiddush
Chanukah Trivia: Eight Fun Facts for the Festival of Lights By Rabbanit Bracha Jaffe, Beth Tfiloh Community Educator Chanukah is our winter festival filled with light and latkes, gifts and gelt. Here are eight fun facts, one for each night of the Chanukah holiday: 1. We light one candle for the first night, two candles for the second night and so on until the eighth night when we fill the menorah with eight lights. This seems natural and obvious to us. However, this was the source of a dispute between Tana’itic sages. While we follow Beit Hillel’s opinion to add a candle every night, Beit Shammai held the opposite. They thought that we should start with eight candles and decrease the number each night!
2. In Israel the letters on the dreidel are oa vhv kusd xb — a great miracle happened here. Outside of Israel the letters are: vp vhv kusd xb — a great miracle happened there.
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3. A menorah is lit in our synagogues to publicize the miracle of Chanukah. We placed the menorah on the southern wall – just like the menorah in the Temple. 4. Erev Shabbat Chanukah feels like the shortest Friday of the year. Not only does the sun set very early, we need to gather everyone and light Chanukah candles before Shabbat candles! That’s why our sages tell us to save singing Ma’oz Tzur until the Shabbat meal! 5. Purim and Chanukah are our two major rabbinic holidays. Yet there is a profound difference between them. The Purim gragger is spun from the bottom, symbolizing the Jews’ prayers and entreaties to God to save the day. The
High School Open House
Dec. 4, 7 pm
Lower School Tour with Principals
Dec. 6, 8:45 am
What’s Your Child’s Passion? Find it at Beth Tfiloh Dahan Community School Baltimore’s only co-ed college preparatory Jewish day school offering PreSchool through High School
dreidel, on Chanukah, is spun from the top, signifying God’s showering us with miracles even without our prayers! 6. While Purim has a megillah that was canonized in our Bible, Chanukah does not. Yet there is a book called Sefer HaMaccabim – Maccabees I - that was written by an observant Jewish soldier and contains a lot of the stories that we know about Chanukah today. 7. Spinning the dreidel started when students were illegally studying Torah, forbidden by the Greeks. Whenever the Greek soldiers made a surprise visit, the students would quickly whip out their dreidels and pretend to gamble. Perhaps that is why we play dreidel with money today! 8. In Israel there are over 100 children’s songs about Chanukah! jna vfubj – A freilichin Chanukah!
NEXT SPECIAL MEAT
SIMCHA KIDDUSH January 6
Celebrate a birthday, anniversry, birth, graduation, engagement or other special occasion with your BT family and other Simcha celebrants
$300 SPONSORSHIP Contact Eve Kresin Steinberg 410-413-2251, esteinberg@btfiloh.org