For the third year since US Ambassador to Belgium Howard Gutman took office a Hanukkah Menorah has its place in the lobby of the US Embassy in Brussels.
Hanukkah - the eight-day festival of light that began on Tuesday night - celebrates the triumph of light over darkness, of purity over adulteration, of spirituality over materiality.
More than twenty-one centuries ago, the Holy Land was ruled by the Seleucids (Syrian-Greeks), who sought to forcefully Hellenize the people of Israel. Against all odds, a small band of faithful Jews defeated one of the mightiest armies on earth, drove the Greeks from the land, reclaimed the Holy Temple in Jerusalem and rededicated it to the service of G-d.
When they sought to light the Temple's menorah, they found only a single cruse of olive oil that had escaped contamination by the Greeks. But miraculously, the one-day supply burned for eight days, until new oil could be prepared under conditions of ritual purity.
To commemorate and publicize these miracles, the sages instituted the festival of Hanukkah. At the heart of the festival is the nightly menorah lighting: a single flame on the first night, two on the second evening, and so on till the eighth night of Hanukkah, when all eight lights are kindled.
The festival customs include eating foods fried in oil -- latkes (potato pancakes) and sufganiot (doughnuts), playing with the dreidel, a spinning top on which are inscribed the Hebrew letters nun, gimmel, hei and shin, an acronym for "Nes Gadol Hayah Sham" or "a great miracle happened there" and the giving of Hanukkah "gelt," gifts of money, to children.