Hanukkah’s Eternal Traditions

It may be 1998, but getting unadulterated oil from olives to burn in a menorah is not much easier today than it was when the holiday of Hanukkah was born--nearly two millenniums ago.

In front of hundreds of parents and children attending his latest series of workshops on traditional holiday crafts, Rabbi Yossi Mentz pushes the olives through a press and then whirls the muck in a centrifuge to eke out a tiny bit of oil.

Most of the menorahs made by the children and their parents in the workshops will hold candles, but the point is to describe the custom.

“A lot of people want the tradition,” he said. “Every holiday is booked. I’m making over 1,500 menorahs with almost every temple in the area.”

Mentz realized the yearning among many Jews to learn the traditional ways of preparing for holidays last year, when he held a matzo baking lesson for Passover and a shofar-making workshop for Rosh Hashana.

Making the unleavened Passover bread to commemorate the deliverance of Jews from slavery and the shofar horns to call Jews to the new year was a huge hit.

“Hands-on is so important,” said Mentz, an enthusiastic second-grade teacher at Huntington Beach’s Hebrew Academy. “I deal with a lot of kids, and when children work with their hands, they remember more than when they are just told the story. My goal is that the parents, children, everyone and anyone will know about the holidays, why we are celebrating.”

Hanukkah, which begins at sundown Sunday, celebrates the survival of Judaism. Jews mark the holiday’s eight days by lighting candles--or, for purists, oil--in a menorah. One is lighted the first night, two the second, and so on until all are blazing by the last night.

The menorah has nine holders, one for each night and a ninth for the shammash, the servant candle used to light the others.

The custom is based on the miracle said to have occurred at the Temple of Jerusalem in 165 B.C., when the high priest went to kindle the Eternal Light but had enough oil for only one night. The marauding Greeks had destroyed the supply, and it took eight days to make more. That little bit of oil lasted all eight days, long enough for more to be consecrated.

Families participating in Mentz’s workshops first go through a holiday boutique displaying menorahs made from nature’s most beautiful materials--silver, gold and wood.

The children are given nine dreidels--four-sided, top-shaped Hanukkah toys. Symbolically, Hebrew letters on each side spell the saying “A great miracle happened there.”

The children, with a little help, glue the dreidels to a long wooden block and top them with brass-colored candle holders to form the family menorah. They then go to the candle-dipping table and add color to standard Hanukkah candles.

In one workshop Friday, held at Fullerton’s Temple Beth Tikvah, parents and children were delighted with the results, which looked surprisingly professional given the age of the makers.

“I think it helps children understand it better,” said Leanne Emas, a La Habra mother who attended the workshop. “It makes it more interesting for them when they light the menorah at night.”

Lynette Northcutt, director of the temple’s Early Childhood Center, said the hands-on project helped give children a feeling for their own holiday while being bombarded with Christmas hoopla all around them.

“Parents come to me and say, ‘How do we deal with this?’ ” she said. “I tell them to go into the classrooms and educate them about the miracle. It makes Jewish children feel good about themselves and their faith.”