Chanukah

The other day in my office some people decided it was too quiet, and we needed some holiday music to liven things up a bit. And by "holiday music," they meant Christmas songs. A few songs into the playlist, the designated DJ for the day turned around and called out to me: "don't worry, Lecia. I've got Adam Sandler's Hanukkah Song coming up next for you!"

I was excited, but that's where Chanukah songs begin and end. Sort of.

For some reason, in a religion and culture where music pervades everything, we are seriously lacking in the "holiday" music department.

Now, to be fair, Chanukah is not the Jewish equivalent of Christmas, in fact, it's one of our more minor holidays. But because it lands around Christmas time, the two are always compared, and "when you feel like the only kid in town without a Christmas tree," well, too bad; here are the songs we're stuck with:

You can go with the classic songs we all learned in Hebrew school: "Chanukah oh Chanukah" or "I Have a Little Dreidel." But let's face it, dancing the Hora isn't quite the same as rocking around the Christmas tree. And who ever made a dreidel out of clay? Seriously.

Then there are always the traditional songs in Hebrew, for the preservation of our heritage: "Ma Otzur" and "Sivivon Sov sov sov." Be honest, though, you learned the words at one point, but have forgotten most of them since, and now sort of just mumble through half the songs because it sounds the same anyway.

Aside from the Adam Sandler Hanukkah Songs 1, 2 and 3, there have not been many songs written about Chanukah that don't sound like they came from the shtetl. The one other one, that's actually very catchy once you get into it, was written a couple of years ago by a college a capella group, cleverly named the Maccabeats. "Candlelight" is about as cool as us Jews get this time of year.

Ok, ok, I know I'm ragging on my holiday a bit, but putting the lack of competitive holiday music aside, the story behind Chanukah is pretty amazing. It is about a miracle after all. Nes gadol haya sham: a great miracle happened there. We're reminded of it blatantly when we spin the dreidle (that we may or may not have made out of clay) adorned with nun, gimmel, hay and shin, the Hebrew letters that begin each word in the phrase.

We're reminded of it subconsciously when we stuff our faces with latkes and suf ganiyot (also known as jelly doughnuts), both made in oil, the oil that lasted 8 days when it should have only lasted a short while.

And we're reminded of it as we light the menorah for eight days, each night reliving another part of the miracle.

So maybe our songs aren't that great, but our story and traditions sure are. With that, I leave you with a song from one of the greatest musicals, Fiddler on the Roof: "Tradition." While Tevye learns to relinquish some of his traditions to fit in with the world, we can take a step away from the world for these 8 days and relish in the music of our history.

Happy Chanukah!!