Hanukkah Unbound: 8th Night

 
 

Happy 8th night of Hanukkah! Below you will find a variety of ways to enhance this evening's holiday experience. 

Eight Ways to Light Your Menorah on Night Eight:

Learn more about each of these outside-the-box ways of lighting your Menorah on the 8th night of Hanukkah by clicking the images below!

Image 1: Cocktail Menorah, Image 2: Chemistry Menorah, Image 3: Nail Decal Menorah Image 4: Outdoor Glowstick Menorah Image 5: Indoor Glowstick Menorah Image 6: Tatoo Menorah Image 7: Shammai Menorah Image 8: "Classic" Menorah

Welcome Guests (Ushpizin):

There is a tradition each night of the holiday of Sukkot to welcome in a "guest" from the Torah or Prophets (traditionally called Ushpizin). We like this tradition so much that we'd like to bring it into the Hanukkah experience as well! So on our Hanukkah Unbound: Welcome page, we've put together eight different kinds of guests that you can invite to your candle-lighting, including "classic" figures in the Bible (both male and female), mystical Jewish creatures, social justice activists, and athletes! For the eighth night of Hanukkah, after highlighting all of our Ushpizin tracks the first seven nights, we invite you to invite the guest of your choice to your candle-lighting. If you could invite anyone from the past or present, fictional or real, to join you for Hanukkah, who would it be? 

To explore all of Judaism Unbound's Ushpizin "tracks," just click the image below!

Cocktail of the Night:

Looking to accentuate your holiday with something tasty and alcoholic? Drink your way through the holiday with this "Cocktail Menorah," courtesy of The Kiddush Club! Each drink is themed around an important early founder of Rabbinic Judaism.

8th Night: Hil-Lillet The Younger

"We always planned on Tequila the Elder and Tequila the Younger," observed a Distinguished Member, "but maybe Hil-Lillet the Younger would be a better joke." We all liked that. The same Tipple...er, we mean Torah...but seen through two very different lenses. "Hillel the Younger is in Pirkei Avot, right?" he continued, and we found that even more fitting. On the eighth night, lift a fresh, youthful Hil-Lillet the Younger to the wisdom of all who have gone before us, and all who are just getting started, and all those yet to come. 

Recipe: 1 part Lillet, 2 parts tonic, cucumber, 1 part strawberry puree. Garnish with strawberry and mint.

As a companion to our eight different ways to light the menorah, we've put together a playlist of songs that feature numbers prominently. Think of it as a cross between lighting the menorah, the "Who Knows One" song from the Passover seder, and Apple Music/Spotify fun. Each "night" features a "shamash" (helper candle) and a countdown of songs starting with that night's number. (There are 44 songs in all, just like the number of candles in a box of Hanukkah candles.)

  1. Shamash/Helper Candle: Light a Candle (Neil Young)

  2. 8 Mile (Eminem)

  3. Seven Days (Bob Dylan)

  4. (This Song's Just) Six Words Long (Weird Al Yankovic)

  5. I Would Walk 500 Miles (Kenny and the Scots)

  6. 4 Seasons (Violent Femmes)

  7. Three Little Birds (Bob Marley and the Wailers)

  8. 2 Become 1 (Spice Girls)

  9. One More Night (Phil Collins)

Hanukkah Unbound Track of the Night: Rededicate Against Hate

Each night we highlight one of our Hanukkah Unbound "tracks" that you can enjoy! Tonight we highlight our "Rededicate Against Hate" track, brought to you in partnership with the New York chapter of Bend the Arc. 

For each night of Hanukkah, you will find a description of a hate crime that has occurred since the election on November 8th, as documented in the New York Times column “This Week in Hate.” There is also, along with that description, a discussion question to spark conversation about how to grapple with and respond to this moment in America.

For all eight nights of the Rededicate Against Hate track, click the image below. The 8th night reading and discussion question can be found beneath the image.

8th Night:

“At a Smith’s supermarket in Albuquerque, N.M., on Nov. 23, a woman began shouting Islamophobic abuse at a shopper wearing a hijab.  Employees removed the shouting woman from the store, but  she waited in the parking lot for the woman in the hijab  to emerge. Eventually, employees escorted the woman in the hijab  to her car.”

Discussion Question: What’s one thing you’ll actively  do to make a difference and practice Tikkun Olam (repairing the world)  in 2017?