Tonight we light the 8th candle of Hanukkah

Here’s something interesting I learned this week: In Catholic tradition, the eight days from Christmas to New Year’s Day are known as the octave of Christmas. Bernard Strasser, a German Benedictine monk, wrote the following to explain:

“Octave” means an eight-day celebration, that is, the prolongation of a feast to the eighth day (dies octava) inclusive. The feast itself is considered the first day, and it is followed by six days called “days within the octave”. The eighth or octave day is kept with greater solemnity than the “days within the octave”.

This should feel familiar, as we come to the end of our own Octave tonight. This final night of Hanukkah is sometimes called Zot Hannukah—referring to the first line of the Torah reading for today. From the Book of Numbers, it reads: Zot hanukkah hamizbeach—this was the dedication of the altar.

The Hassidic masters offer a fascinating idea for this Zot Hanukkah. Using a collection of verses using the word “zot” (this), they suggest that it is not until the final night of Hanukkah that God closes the gates opened on Rosh HaShanah. The Talmud teaches that the wholly righteous and the wholly wicked have their fates decided on Rosh Hashanah—but the rest of us get until the end of Yom Kippur. The mystics, centuries later, come to offer a grace period; in their understanding, the deadline extends until Hoshana Rabbah—the end of Sukkot. And then, again centuries later, the Hassidic masters imagine that God’s mercy extends even further—carrying until the very end of Hanukkah.

Rabbi Brian Strauss writes:

Some of us went through Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, a fall of daily life, and even the first seven days of Hanukkah hoping that something would change within us without us having to do much about it. But now it’s the last day of Hanukkah, and what has changed? This last day of Hanukkah is a chance to return again to God but this time out of pure love…This time turning to that place we have always known existed but never really wanted or needed to believe in. That place is the inner “light” that we can use to get through the darkest part of the year.

This year, Zot Hanukkah coincides with this first day of the secular New Year. We come to the end of an octave. Change beckons, a new page appears—to what do you want to return? What do you want to write anew? And what light can you kindle to illuminate the year ahead?

Happy 2025!

–Rabbi Sari Laufer

(If you missed last night’s candle-lighting with Rabbi Sari, click here to watch!)