by Rabbi Katy Z. Allen
Why don’t we light eight candles on the first night of Hanukkah, and work our way down to one? Why do we start with one candle and work our way up to eight? So familiar are we with our traditional way of lighting the candles and increasing the light, that imagining doing it the opposite way is almost impossible. Reduce the amount of light each night? No way!
Yet, in ancient times this custom seems to have been practiced. In the Talmud, the School of Shammai said, “On the first day eight lights are lit and thereafter they are gradually ...
