Northend Hanukkah Cache Mystery Cache

Northend Hanukkah Cache

The neighborhood where this cache is found is one of two in Seattle with concentrations of Jewish residents. These two neighborhoods are referred by some within the Seattle Jewish community as the Northend (Wedgwood/View Ridge) and the Southend (Seward Park). In the Northend community, there are a Jewish Community Center, a Jewish day school, and four synagogues within a mile or so of this cache: Reform, Conservative, Modern Orthodox, and Orthodox-Lubavitch.

The theme of this cache revolves around the major and/or well-known Jewish holidays, and the initial contents of this cache reflect this theme. The cache will initially reflect the relatively minor (but very well-known) holiday of Hanukkah, and the theme will change sometime in the future.

The current Jewish year is 5767. The Jewish holidays follow a yearly cycle based on a lunar calendar, and as such, a “day” starts at sundown and lasts until the following sundown. Therefore, if a holiday falls on December 16th on a calendar, the holiday actually starts the night before, on December 15th.

HANUKKAH 5766
Dec 15, 2006 PM - Dec 23, 2006 PM

The traditional story of Hanukkah is rooted in the year 165 BCE liberation of the Land of Israel from the occupying forces of the Syrian Greeks, by a small band of Jewish fighters called the Maccabees. According to Jewish religious tradition, during the years of Hellenistic rule by the Syrian Greeks, Jews were oppressed by restrictions on the practice of their religion, and the Temple was defiled by an alter to Zeus and other acts by the Syrian Greeks. The Maccabees, led by the five sons of the priest Mattathias, liberated the Temple and the land after a three-year campaign. After the liberation of the Temple, Judah Maccabee (Judah the Hammer) ordered the Temple cleansed and rededicated. One story holds that in preparation for the eight-day festival to follow, the Maccabees were dismayed to find only one jar (one day’s worth) of sanctified oil for the new Temple alter. Miraculously, that one jar lasted for eight days. Hanukkah (“Dedication”) celebrates the liberation of the Land of Israel and the rededication of the Temple.

Hanukkah is an eight-day winter holiday, also known as the Festival of Lights, and it is traditional for Jews to light a menorah (candelabra) with one extra candle for each successive night (i.e. one candle the first night and two candles the second night, etc.), and to place the menorah in a window for all to see. It is also traditional to eat foods that are cooked using oil, such as latkes (potato pancakes fried in oil) and sufganiyot (jelly-filled donuts deep-fried in oil).

Another tradition is to play with a dreidel (in Hebrew, “sevivon”), a top with four sides. Each side has a Hebrew letter standing for a word in the phrase “A great miracle happened there.” The dreidel is a gambling game, usually played with chocolate coins (Hanukkah gelt). To play, the players each deposit an agreed amount of chocolate in the middle to create the pot (“kupah”). Each player then takes turns spinning the dreidel. After each round, the players make another deposit into the pot. A player’s stash of chocolate gelt will increase or decrease depending on the results of the spin:

Shin: lose (what you deposited) Hei: take half of the pot Gimel: take all of the pot Nun: no win/no lose

As Hanukkah is known as the "Festival of Lights", much of the initial swag in the cache is related to light. There are also plenty of dreidels in this cache, so feel free to take one without trading swag and play at home if you want.

Good luck and happy caching!