Recently I learned of Beit Shamai Hanukkah tradition of starting with all eight candles on the first night and going down to one candle on the eighth. The more common Hanukkah tradition follows Beit Hillel – on the first night you light one candle and add another each day so by the eighth day you have all the candles burning in your Hanukkiah (Hanukkah’s special candle holder).
Once I understood the reason for this minhag (custom), it seemed to me the appropriate way for us Chaos Jewitches to celebrate Hanukkah
To remind you, Hanukkah or the festival of lights is a holiday that is celebrated for eight days, in memory of the victory of the Hasmoneans in the rebellion against the Greeks, the rededication of the Temple, and the miracle of the oil jug. The holiday is marked by the saying of praise as well as the lighting of Hanukkah candles, on the eight days from the 24th Kislev to the 2nd of Tevet.
The Miracle of Hanukkah is an Aggadah (story) depicted in the Babylonian Talmud as one of the reasons for Hanukkah. In the story, the miracle occurred after the liberation of the Temple in Jerusalem during the Maccabean Revolt, and it describes the finding of a jug of pure oil that was just enough to light the lamp for one day, but that then lasted for eight days.
There are two ways to understand the miracle:
- You can focus on how the miracle power grew day by day, and by night it came to its full potential.
- Or, you can argue the opposite: that the magic was at its peak on the first day and by the eighth day its potential was already established in the hearts of all, but no longer visible.
Beit Hillel follows the first argument above, and as far as I know, it is the more common and popular tradition followed by most Jews around the world, celebrating the miracle getting bigger and stronger each day.
Beit Shamai focuses on the potential of the divine miracle and how the magic was much greater on the first day than on the last day. If we replace the word miracle with the word magic, suddenly it seems obvious why Beit Shammai chose to focus on the potential of the power of magic on its first day
This phenomenon, according to Chaos Magic, is described in one word — Gnosis, which is one of a kind and an extremely powerful experience. But as most of us know, the feeling and the memory of it, fade in the days that follow. Beit Shammai’s Hanukkah tradition also focuses on the gnosis’s full potential or the miracle of the light that shone bright and strong on the first night.
I assume that most of you if you have read this far, do not follow Beit Hillel or Beit Shamai, but rather swim in the fertile waters of Chaos Magic or Chaos Craft Consciousness, and miracles, wonders, magic and sorcery are part of your path. Therefore, this Hanukkah, we would be celebrating by focusing on the divine magical potential for the entire eight days of the holiday. That means, eight candles every day for eight days!
When we focus on the divine potential of magic and its possible power, we are connecting and resonating with energy and information vibrating throughout the cosmological grid of the torus doughnut.
