This Ritual Life Archive

Welcome to This Ritual Life.

Here you will find out about ways to enhance your holiday experience, to celebrate or mark a meaningful life cycle event, and to deepen your experience of the everyday.

To access the This Ritual Life Archive, click here.

Rededicating your Home on Chanukah…

Twenty-two hundred years ago, after the Maccabees drove Antiochus’ army out of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, the Jews performed a ceremony to restore holiness to their sacred space. The ceremony was called Chanukat Habayit—literally, "rededicating the house." Our ancestors lit a menorah and in its glow, they reclaimed their home. In our own time, at Chanukah, we think about our own homes as places where we encounter the sacred, and we deepen the way we experience home as a holy place.

Meditation:

My home is the place where I mark the seasons, celebrate life, welcome guests, light candles, remember the past, dream about the future and open our hearts to the present. At Chanukah, may I rededicate my home to the values and relationships I hold sacred.

Ritual:

On night one of Chanukah, rededicate the rooms of your home so they can better accomplish their sacred tasks—the dining room for seating guests, the kitchen for sustaining life, the living room for family interaction, the bedroom for rest and intimacy.

On night two, invite guests, cook a special meal, plan a family event or make time for those you love, creating and expanding shalom bayit, relationships of peace.

On night three, rededicate your home to being a place where learning, talmud Torah, leads to change. Create a study area where you have access to traditional Jewish sources of wisdom

On night four, commit yourself to reading a Jewish book from a challenging perspective.

On night five, locate a place in your home where you can devote yourself to contemplation and prayer. Make a mizrach—a marker pointing eastward—and put it up on your own eastern wall to focus your prayers toward Jerusalem.

On night six, stand facing your mizrach, and experiment with different ways to direct your heart in t’fillah, meditation.

On night seven, as the Chanukah lights burn, gather coats and blankets in your home to deliver to a local shelter, or collect canned food from your kitchen and deliver it to food drive.

On night eight, place boxes for tzedaka in each room of your home, so they will always be available, year-round for collecting loose change.

(As your prepare to perform each night’s deed of rededication)

As this menorah fills with light, may our home be rededicated to the Source of Blessing that connects us all.

Teaching:

And on the twenty-fifth day of Kislev…the sanctuary of God was dedicated anew with song and music. Then Judah and his brothers with all the people of Israel ordained that the days of the Dedication of the Altar should be celebrated from year to year for eight days in gladness and thanksgiving. (Book of Maccabees)

There are seven dedications which have been achieved by light: "The Creation of the world by moonlight, the Tabernacle and two Temples by the seven-branched menorah, the festival of the Maccabees by the eight-branched menorah, the walls of Jerusalem by torches and the millennium by the seven-fold light of the sun. (Pesikta Rabbati,2)

(CLAL Faculty)

CLAL's National Jewish Resource Center develops and publishes rituals that help to bridge the gap between our contemporary lives and the ancient wisdom of the Jewish tradition. We invite you to become a partner with us in thinking about the place of ritual in our lives and in developing new ritual resources for our time. If you are interested in being part of this exciting endeavor, visit with us in the Ritual Resource Area of the CLAL website by clicking here.

To access the This Ritual Life Archive, click here.

To receive This Ritual Life column by email on a regular basis, complete the box below:

Receive Ritual Life!