Hanuka isn’t going to be celebrated for a couple weeks. It begins on the evening of December 2nd, this year. However, tomorrow is the day Hanuka would fall on if instead of the Hebrew calendar, we used the Gregorian calendar. The 25th day of the Hebrew month of Kislev in 164 BCE fell on November 21.
Of course, Pope Gregory hadn’t been born yet in 164 BCE. Jesus hadn’t been born yet. Not only was there no such thing as the Gregorian calendar, Julius Caesar hadn’t been born, so there was no Julian Calendar.
Moreover, the Hebrew calendar wasn’t standardized yet. Each Hebrew month began after two people declared they saw the crescent moon. So two different communities could be slightly off from one another, but each month there was a reboot.
So November 21 is an estimate.
The 25th of Kislev is an estimate too.
Happy Hanuka!
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