It's the first night of Chanukah!

In honor of which, I bring you two--yes, two!--Chanukah songs.

The first is "Candlelight," sung by the Maccabeats (in their first viral video):

Video by Uri Westrich
The melody is by Taio Cruz (although he thought it was for a song titled "Dynamite"), and he is not, to the best of my knowledge, Jewish. The parody lyrics, however, are by two members of the Maccabeats (an a cappella group formed of current and past Yeshiva University students), David Block and Immanuel Shalev, and if they (and the singers) are not all Jewish, someone made a serious mistake in their university application.



And in case you were wondering about the lines in "Candlelight" that runs:

We say "Ma'oz Tzur"
Oh, yeah, for all eight nights,

that is my second song, a very traditional Chanukah song--"Ma'oz Tzur," sung here by students of Israel's Technion*:

Video by Technion
This traditional melody for "Ma'oz Tzur" has been identified as mostly likely having been adapted from an old German folk song, possibly sometime in the 15th century.

(Okay, yes, there's a lot of "maybe" and "perhaps" about that. But hey, there isn't going to be a whole lot of certainty about 15th century folk song melodies, seeing as the song predates the invention of recording equipment by teensy bit. And while there was a sort of musical notation in Europe back then, that was for Church music; there weren't a whole lot of folk songs being notated. If any.)

The lyrics go back even farther--they are thought to have been written in the 13th century and we even know the poet's first name, as he wrote it into the hymn as an acrostic: The first letters of the first five stanzas spell out מרדכי (Mordechai) in Hebrew. The first stanza expresses a hope that the Temple will once more be restored, and the sixth and last stanza (which opens with another acrostic: חזק (chazak, which is Hebrew for "be strong") again returns to the hope for salvation and return. Each of the four stanzas in between refers to a time when Jews have been saved in the past: From slavery in Egypt; from captivity in Babylonia; from slaughter in the Purim story; and from the Hellenized Syrians in the Chanukah story.

The song is generally sung right after lighting the menorah--or, more exactly, the chanukiah, which has eight branches plus an extra, rather than the seven branches of the great menorah in the Temple. Part of the mitzvah of lighting the menorah is to enjoy the light of the menorah, and standing around it while singing makes sure we don't run off and ignore it.

Now go have some latkes or sufganiyot! Chag sameach (happy holiday)!



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* In case you are unfamiliar with the institution, Technion can be described as the MIT of Israel. These students certainly sing Ma'oz Tzur way, WAY better than I can, and they are appropriately ingenious with their instruments. And just look at how they light their Chanukah menorah!:


By the way (I say carelessly), one of my nieces is a student at Technion now. Chanukah Sameach, Rivka... :)