The ‘Menorah’ Candelabrum – 7 or 9 branches ?

People who visit Israel for the first time, usually notice the abundance of candelabras in the gift shops. Not all of them notice, at a first glance, that there are two kinds. One with 7 branches and one with 9. As the holiday of Chanukah is around the corner, I thought I might clarify the difference.

While wandering in the wilderness for 40 years, The God of Israel ordered Moses to make the 7 branch ‘Menorah’ to be carried as part of the portable sanctuary called the Tabernacle, which was carried to the Promised Land. The word ‘Menorah’ comes from the Hebrew word ‘illumination’ and the 7 branches were to symbolize the 7 days of creation. The number seven is one of the numbers which appear a lot in the Bible, the same as 12 and 40. These are called 'Typological numbers' meaning holiness.

“Make a lampstand of pure gold. Hammer out its base and shaft, and make its flowerlike cups, buds and blossoms of one piece with them. Six branches are to extend from the sides of the lampstand—three on one side and three on the other. Three cups shaped like almond flowers with buds and blossoms are to be on one branch, three on the next branch, and the same for all six branches extending from the lampstand….”

(Exodus 25:31–40)

When King Solomon built the first Temple on Mt. Moriah in Jerusalem, the ‘Menorah’ was put in the Holy of Holies and lit every day with pure olive oil.

In the year 586 B.C., the Temple was destroyed by the Babylonians and the Israelites were exiled to Babylon where they sat on the rivers and wept to come back to Zion. This happened in the year 515 B.C. when a good king Cyrus allowed the Jewish people to return to Jerusalem. Led by the prophets Ezra and Nehemiah they returned to Judea and built the second Temple at the same location of the first Temple on Mt. Moriah.

It was around the year 200 B.C. when the Greeks who ruled the entire region, looted the treasures of the Temple and stopped the services there. Judaism was outlawed. In 167 B.C. Antiochus ordered an altar to Zeus erected in the Temple. He banned circumcision and ordered pigs to be sacrificed at the altar of the temple.

Antiochus's actions provoked a large-scale revolt. Mattathias (Mattityahu), a Jewish priest, and his five sons Jochanan, Simeon, Eleazar, Jonathan, and Judah led a rebellion against Antiochus. Judah became known as Yehuda HaMakabi ("Judah the Hammer") and led the fighting’s against the Greeks. By 165 B.C., the fighting’s ended with a great victory of the ‘Maccabee’s’. The Temple was liberated cleaned and rededicated. Rededication in Hebrew is “Chanukah” and thus, the name of the festival instituted to celebrate this event.

According to the Talmud, unadulterated and undefiled pure olive oil with the seal of the High Priest was needed for the menorah in the Temple, which was required to burn throughout the night every night. The story goes that one flask was found with only enough oil to burn for one day, yet it burned for eight days, the time needed to prepare a fresh supply of kosher oil for the menorah. To commemorate this miracle, the Jewish people light a candelabra of 8 branches for the eight days of Chanukah. They use a 9th candle which is called the servant or ‘Shamas’, and light an additional candle every day, until there are a full 9 lit candles in the candelabra on the 8th night. This ‘Menorah’ is also called ‘Chanukiah’, from the word “Chanukah”.

The daily ceremony of lighting the candles is accompanied with blessings and songs which all the children in Israel learn from a very young age. This is maybe the place to mention the fact that ‘Chanukah’ is not a Jewish religious festival per-say, because it is not part of the Old Testament. In Israel, being a Jewish state, all the holidays connected to Jewish history are celebrated and school breaks correspond. Additional traditions to this holiday are the famous doughnuts fried in deep oil and filled with red jelly called ‘Sufganiyot’ and potato pancakes called ‘Latkes’. You can’t find those special doughnuts any other time of the year except around the time of the holiday, but they seem to appear in the coffee-shops earlier every year.… They also become more and more sophisticated with all kinds of toppings, but many people prefer the good old simple ones.

After lighting the candles, it is customary to play (or spin) the dreidel. The dreidel, or ‘Sevivon’ in Hebrew, is a four-sided spinning top that children play with during Hanukkah. Each side is imprinted with a Hebrew letter which is an abbreviation for the Hebrew words "A great miracle happened there", referring to the miracle of the oil that took place in the Temple. It is also customary to give the children some pocket-money for the holiday. The small children will receive chocolate coins…

Back to the seven branches ‘Menorah’. The menorah from the Second Temple was carried to Rome after the Roman conquest of Jerusalem in 70 AD during the First Jewish–Roman War. The fate of the menorah used in the Second Temple is recorded by Josephus, who states that it was brought to Rome and carried along during the triumph of Vespasian and Titus.

The bas relief on the Arch of Titus in Rome depicts a scene of Roman soldiers carrying away the spoils of the Second Temple, in particular, the seven-branched menorah, or candelabrum. For centuries, the Menorah was displayed as a war trophy at the Temple of Peace in Rome, a Roman temple paid for with spoils taken from the conquered city of Jerusalem. It was still there when the city was sacked by vandals in 455 AD. Since then, its fate is unknown and a source to many fantasies and legends.

Since the ‘menorah’ has been a symbol of Judaism since ancient times, it was decided in 1948, when Israel declared its independence, to be an emblem on the coat of arms of the modern state of Israel. On the two sides of the ‘menorah’ there are 2 olive tree branches, symbolizing peace and the future.