Christine van Reeuwyk deserves thanks and a compliment for her excellent piece on Hanukkah in the Dec. 17 Oak Bay News. An important detail, however, is misleading.
The comment that “The seven-candled menorah is used all year for Jewish worship and ceremony” is out of date by some two millennia. The Roman army destroyed the Second Temple in the year 70. Since then no Jewish worship service or ritual includes the use of a seven-branched menorah (the original menorahs burned oil).
In fact, the Talmud, the authoritative collection of Jewish jurisprudence, prohibits even the creation of such a menorah because of its association with the destroyed temple (although one can still buy them at some Judaica stores).
Karl Preuss
Oak Bay
