Explore the History of Hanukkah with the Maccabeats' Candlelight

Late last year, I started seeing a video by the name of Candlelight popping up around Facebook. After it turned up on several friends’ pages, I decided I had to check it out for myself. This upbeat song, just over three minutes in length, is a reworking of Mike Tompkins’ a cappella cover of Taio Cruz’s Dynamite, a dance party hit I’d never heard of at the time. The video, created by Uri Westrich, and the lyrics, written by Emmanuel Shalev and David Block, commemorate Hanukkah, telling the ancient story of the Maccabees and their defeat of a mighty Greek army and of the light that continued burning despite insufficient oil. The verses recount the tale, while the chorus focuses on contemporary celebrations of this event and the bridge incorporates Hebrew that fits seamlessly with the melody.

Having written hundreds of filksongs myself, I find it fascinating when a song using new lyrics to an established tune makes a big splash. When I finally got around to listening to Dynamite, it was fun to see where Shalev and Block made great departures and where they scarcely changed anything at all. Instead of “I throw my hands up in the air sometimes,” we get “I flip my latkes in the air sometimes;” instead of “Just wanna celebrate and live my life,” it’s “Just wanna celebrate for all eight nights.” Of course, the verses are very different, but they still work extremely well in the preset format.

The video adds to the charm of the song with the Brady Bunch-style head boxes, each containing a young man in a pristine white shirt and black tie or, inexplicably, one guy in an orange astronaut suit, interspersed with such sights as the cheesy re-enactments of epic battles and the gorgeous shot of dozens of colorful dreidels spinning merrily. The song is funnier when you watch it because of all the goofy little visual cues, but the song on its own is great as well. Sung by the Maccabeats, a Jewish a cappella group from Yeshiva University, Candlelight is vivacious, harmonious and educational.

I’m not aware of too many Hanukkah songs. The two that always spring to mind first for me are Adam Sandler’s ditty, which is really just a list of famous Jews, and Peter Yarrow’s Light One Candle, which merely uses Hanukkah as a jumping-off point for a broader message about social justice. Candlelight’s lyrics never lose their specific focus on Hanukkah, making it a wonderful cursory introduction to the holiday. The inclusion of Hebrew phrases like “maoz tzur” and “nes gadol hayah sham” prompts further study to learn the significance of those words, while the exuberant tone makes the whole thing irresistibly festive.

As a Christian, I have always felt a sense of kinship with the Jewish people and have tried to familiarize myself with their holidays and traditions. This song didn’t really tell me anything I didn’t already know, then, but I think it would be very handy for anyone who doesn’t have any idea what Hanukkah is all about. It’s a great overview, and it’s just plain fun, not to mention harmonious, a trait that makes a cappella music so inherently powerful. It’s about people coming together to create something above and beyond what any of them could do alone. It’s about community, which makes it such an ideal vehicle for this song about a plucky band of brothers with unshakable faith and the modern people bound together by their commitment to remembrance.