It’s #MinecraftMonday and the last day of Hannukah. Honestly I couldn’t find mods or hacks for this one so the lesson will be short.

Hanukkah is observed for eight nights and days, starting on the 25th day of Kislev according to the Hebrew calendar, which may occur at any time from late November to late December in the Gregorian calendar. The festival is observed by lighting the candles of a candelabrum with nine branches, commonly called a menorah or hanukkiah. One branch is typically placed above or below the others and its candle is used to light the other eight candles. This unique candle is called the shammash. Each night, one additional candle is lit by the shammash until all eight candles are lit together on the final night of the festival. Other Hanukkah festivities include singing Hanukkah songs, playing the game of dreidel and eating oil-based foods, such as latkes and sufganiyot, and dairy foods. Since the 1970s, the worldwide Chabad Hasidic movement has initiated public menorah lightings in open public places in many countries.

I challenge you to build your own Menorah.

Then you can act out the story of Hannukah, which is below:

A long, long time ago (in 168 BCE, to be exact), King Antiochus IV ruled over ancient Israel. Not being a fan of variety, he demanded that if you didn’t pray to the Greek gods and share in his same culture, you would be in trouble.

This was a problem for the Jews, who still wanted to partake in Jewish traditions like studying Torah and celebrating Shabbat. This made some of the Jewish people so angry that they decided to disobey the king. Preist Mattathias and his sons were joined by other Jews to fight back against King Antiochus IV.

One son, Judah, a.k.a. Judah the Maccabee, stepped into the spotlight, leading all of his fellow fighters, the Maccabees, in an attempt to save their Jewish heritage. Even as the king’s soldiers rode in on elephants to attack, the Maccabees stayed strong and drove them right out of Jerusalem.

Upon their victory, the Maccabees cleaned up the Temple and decided to light a menorah, an oil-burning lamp. As the story goes, they only had enough oil to burn for one day, but miraculously, the oil lasted for eight days and eight nights. That is why we celebrate Hanukkah for eight days, lighting another candle in the menorah each night to remember this miracle and the triumph of the Jews.