DogDaz Zoo

Sofie & her faux family

We live in a multi-religious household, so we get to celebrate festivals all season long (goody!).  Today is the start of the Festival of Lights, called Hanukkah (you may see it spelled many different ways because it is not English).  The word Hanukkah means ‘dedication.’ The name reminds us that this holiday commemorates the re-dedication of the holy Temple in Jerusalem after the Jewish victory over the Syrian-Greeks in 165 B.C.E.  The temple was defiled and the sacred fire, that was supposed to burn all the time, was out.  There was only one day of sacred oil left and people were really upset because it would take 8 days to sanctify new oil.  Miraculously, the one day oil supply lasted a full 8 days until the temple was able to be properly rededicated.  Cool huh!  (Note that the holiday commemorates the miracle of the oil, not the military victory: the Jewish people do not glorify war.) And that is why the celebration of Hanukkah is for 8 days and people eat fried things.

There are 4 special things we do here at the zoo for this celebration:  we light candles for 8 nights (away from all the kitties because we really worry about fire and tails), we play a really fun game called Dreidel (it’s a top with Hebrew letters on it and Mommy gives us doggie and kitty treats she calls,  ‘Gelt’ when we win), we eat fried stuff (especially potato pancakes called, ‘Latke,’ which we wait all year for because she only makes them once), and ‘Hanny,’  the Hanukkah Fairy, brings special little gifts for us every night (we think this is because a lot of other animals we know get Xmas presents later this month and she does not want us to feel left out).

“Nes Gadol Haya Sham: A Great Miracle Happened There” is what we say.  And that is true in our house.  Every day we find miracles in our life.  We hope you do too.

Interested in more Hanukkah stories – check out the Hanukkah Blog Crawl.

Just another DogDaz morning at the zoo ❤