(On an editorial side note, I’m running with the spelling “Hanukkah” because it’s what’s used in the article… but I’ve always been more partial to “Chanukah”.)

You can read Jeffrey Goldberg’s entire account of how Orrin Hatch came to write a Hanukkah song at Tablet Magazine. Here’s a little snipit:

“It’s a delightful thing to have Orrin Hatch write a song for Hanukkah. Of course I appreciate the absurdist quality to this project, but I also deeply appreciate Hatch’s earnestness. His lyrics are not postmodern or cynical, which is a blessing, because I for one have tired of the Adam Sandlerization of Judaism in America. Yes, we are, as a people, funny (at least when compared to other people, such as Croatians) but our neuroses, well-earned though they may be, have caused us to lacerate our own traditions, which are in fact (to borrow from Barack Obama) awesome. The story of Hanukkah is a good case in point—maybe the perfect one.”

Happy Hannukkah/Chanukah, everyone!

‘Eight Days of Hanukkah,’ by Sen. Orrin Hatch and Madeline Stone

Eight Days of Hanukkah from Tablet Magazine on Vimeo.