	Answers for the People of Chelm and Any Other Curious Souls Below are the answers from the year 2022. Click here to return to the People of Chelm page December 2022 The best answer as to why Hanukkah is not a major holiday is that it is not mentioned in the Torah. Only the holidays mentioned in the Torah - like Pesach and Shabbat – are generally deemed major holidays and may require cessation from ordinary activities. The Books of the Maccabees are not part of the Hebrew Bible although these books are included in the Catholic Bible. The Books of the Maccabees describe the retaking of the Temple in a revolt against Greek rule by led by Judah Maccabee in 165 BCE, more than 300 years after the last of the Davidic line was king in Jerusalem. Judah Maccabee and his family were not descendants of King David or of David’s tribe of Judah, but the Hasmonean dynasty that the Maccabees founded ruled in Jerusalem for over a hundred years. After the Romans under Pompey conquered Jerusalem in 63 BCE, they installed client rulers who came to be called the Herodians, a line of kingship that included Herod the Great. Though the Hebrew Bible (or Tanakh) is silent on Hanukkah, the first Book of Maccabees describes the eight-day rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem but nothing about the miracle of the oil. Only the Talmud, written centuries after the event, contains the story of the one-day supply of oil miraculously lasting eight days.
	November 2022 You should be congratulated for getting any of these. Here are the Laureates, the Nobel Prize category of their award, and the year it was awarded. One tricky angle, there was no Chemistry winner, but there were two Physics awardees in the list. Henry Kissinger – Peace 1973 – worked as US Secretary of State to bring about a cease-fire in the Vietnam War. No less than three 3 Israeli heads of state have been given the Peace Prize – Menachem Begin (1978), Shimon Peres (1994), and Yitzak Rabin (1994). Andrea Ghez – Physics 2020 - became the fourth woman to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for collaborating on the discovery of a supermassive compact object (i.e., a black hole) in the Milky Way's galactic center. She is a 1987 MIT graduate and her role model was her high school chemistry teacher. Robert Horvitz – Physiology or Medicine 2002 – is a 1968 MIT grad and current MIT professor who received the award for “discoveries concerning genetic regulation of organ development and programmed cell death”. His primary research subjects were not zombies but nematode worms! Arthur Ashkin – Physics 2018 – is the oldest person – at 96 years of age - to receive a Nobel Prize in 2018 for his invention of "optical tweets’, which have revolutionized eye surgery. The Nobel committee does not award posthumous prizes. Bob Dylan - Literature 2016 – the famous, iconoclastic American singer-songwriter was awarded his prize "for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition". Ben Bernanke – Economics 2022 – was awarded for “research on banks and financial crises"^. Ben was chair of the U.S. Federal Reserve during the economic and financial-sector crisis of 2008-2009, an economic collapse that could have been much worse. Ben received his PhD in Economics at MIT in 1979.
	October 2022 The Jewish tradition is to pray three times every day, not just on Yom Kippur or other Holy Days. So there is a service for each period of the day when prayer should be recited. These services are Shacharit, or morning service; Mincha, the afternoon service; and Ma’ariv, the evening service. Yizkor is a memorial service that is included on Yom Kippur and other important days. The name appropriately derives comes from the Hebrew stem “Zakhor”, meaning “to remember”. Kol Nidre is the opening prayer of the first service on Yom Kippur. Kol Nidre means “all vows” because at this time we declare that all personal vows made to God in the preceding year are annulled, so we can start over again. Yom Kippur closes with the Ne’ilah service. This name comes from the Hebrew word “to lock,” referring to the symbolic closing of heaven’s gates and the “book of life”.
	September 2022 “Jewish Wisdom”, another of Rabbi Joseph Telushkin’s wonderful works on Judaism, opens with an explanation of the four probing questions from the Talmud’s tractate Shabbat. These are the four that are to be asked each of us when we go before the heavenly court for judgment. They are also questions we can reflect on at times like the upcoming High Holidays or when creating New Year’s resolutions. The first and most important question is “Did you conduct your affairs honestly?”. The Talmud clearly asserts the primacy of ethics and fairness in life. In another passage, it is written “If one is honest in business dealings and people esteem him, it is accounted to him as though he had fulfilled the whole Torah”. The next question should be no surprise - “Did you set aside regular time for Torah study?”. In other words, did you study and continually seek to expand your knowledge. Next is “Did you work at having children?”. In today’s world, this may also mean did you help in raising children as a relative, teacher, or simply as a caring friend. And finally, “Did you look forward to the world’s redemption?”. The wording may seem strange; it might translate today as “did you do your part in repairing the world
	July 2022 The beloved Rabbi Hillel almost always seemed to carry the day in his debates with the austere Shammai. There is a legend that, when asked if it were possible to state the essence of Judaic Law while standing on one foot, Hillel lifted up one foot and responded with the Golden Rule, saying "What is hateful to you, do not to your fellows; that is the whole Law; the rest is mere commentary. Now go learn!" This learned and saintly man was born in Babylon, and later moved to Jerusalem where his period of leadership extended from about 30 B.C.E. to his death in 10 C. E. Hillel is widely credited with laying the foundation for modern rabbinic Judaism.