Hanukkah begins on Tuesday evening, December 4th. Scroll down this page for some of the procedures that it is useful to know about lighting Hanukkah candles:

Click here to hear Rabbi Tucker chant the blessings for the Hanukkah candles.

• Right click here and select "save link as" or "save target as"  to download the blessings to your computer.

And click here for a whole page of  Hanukkah songs recorded by Cantor Mendelson.  

Hanukkah Traditions:


The Hanukkiah should be placed so that, ideally, it can be seen from outside the house.  

This fulfills the desired effect of publicizing the miracle of the holiday.  Near a window that faces a public domain is best.  If that is impossible, then it is also fine to place it near the door to one’s house or apartment, on the left as one enters.  It should be lit after dark, i.e. no earlier than a half hour after sunset (but see the important exception for Shabbat below).

Each night, there is an additional candle, called the “Shamash”, which is lit and kept separate from the other candles (virtually every Hanukkiah has a place for a Shamash that clearly separates it in this way). 

The Shamash both serves to light the other candles, and to provide light that doesn’t come from the actual Hanukkah candles.  In that way, even if some light from the Hanukkiah is inadvertently used for a non-Hanukkah purpose (e.g. for reading a label on a Hanukkah gift!), one can assume that it was just the Shamash’s light that was being used.

On the first night, one candle is placed on the extreme right of the Hanukkiah.  Three blessings are recited (page 192 in Weekday Sim Shalom), and then the Shamash is used to light the candle. 

On each subsequent night, one new candle is added to the left of where the previous night’s candles were, and after reciting two blessings (the third is only recited on the first night), the candles are lit, beginning with the newest one (i.e. the lighting goes from left to right).
On Friday evening  the Hanukkah candles must be lit before the Shabbat candles are lit (because once the Shabbat candles are lit, it is Shabbat, and lighting is forbidden).  That means that on December 7th the Hanukkah lighting must be completed by 4:07 P.M.   Ideally, longer burning candles should be used on Friday night (capable of burning for about 80 minutes), so that Hanukkah lights are visible for a minimal period after it is actually dark.  On Saturday night, the Hanukkah candles should be lit after Havdalah is said, and Shabbat is over.
 
After lighting each night, it is customary to recite the paragraph “Ha-Nerot Halalu” (“These candles”) – page 193 in Weekday Sim Shalom  – and to sing “Maoz Tzur”.