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Essential Conferences for Summer, 2007 Articles: -Handwork and Intellectual Development -----ADHD: A Challenge of Our Time -The Cry for Myth -Freedom of Choice or Freedom From Choice? -Computers in Education -Helping Your Child's Teacher Communicate
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The Tale of Rabbi Shammai an excerpt from the Hanukah story by Eugene Schwartz
There are those who gain eternity in a lifetime; others who gain it in one brief hour. -The Talmud Almost two thousand years ago, when the Land of Israel was a Roman province and Jesus of Nazareth still walked the earth, the Festival of Chanukah was not yet celebrated in a prescribed way. Though, even then, it began as it does today, on the twenty-fifth of Kislev, the marking of Chanukah had no special form. Using a seven-branched menorah, some families lit only one of the oil cups, while others lit all seven; some lit their menorah for several nights, while for others, one night's remembrance of the rededication of the Temple was sufficient. The many learned rabbis, whose task it was to draw together all of the wisdom of the Hebrew people into the books that came to be known as the Talmud, wished to bring order into the Chanukah Festival. After some time it was determined that there should be a special, eight-branched Chanukah menorah whose lights would mark the eight days of light given by the Temple oil in the days of the Maccabees (the nine-branched menorah, with its shammesh, came about still later, when candles were invented). It was further decreed that the menorah's oil cups should be lit from right to left, in the same way that God's words were written and read in the Torah. Among the many questions that still remained concerning the Chanukah celebration, the most important was, ``Should the eight lights on the menorah all be lit on the first night of Chanukah, followed by seven on the next night, six on the third night and so forth, until there was only flame remaining? Or should we begin with one flame on the first night, and conclude with a resplendent display of eight lights?'' The task of resolving this crucial matter was given to the two most prominent teachers in the Holy Land, Rabbi Hillel and Rabbi Shammai. Rabbi Hillel was widely known, even among the Romans and other Gentiles, for his ability to condense centuries of the accumulated wisdom of the Jews into luminous aphorisms which shed light on many of life's uncertainties. The eminence of Rabbi Shammai had been gained through his great store of learning, and the careful scholarship he brought to every point of the Law upon which he spoke. Rabbi Hillel contended that the Festival should begin with one light, and conclude with eight. Rabbi Shammai argued the opposite. |