Eight Days of Hanukkah from Tablet Magazine on Vimeo.

Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) has this soft side that Ted Kennedy often connected with -- and it's on display in this video (hat tip to Adele Stan and Mike Rogers).

Apparently, the Atlantic Monthly's Jeffrey Goldberg egged Hatch into doing this -- and the song is sort of fun. I've listened to it a few times -- and it's growing on me.

Of the lyrics, Goldberg writes:

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.

This would have even been more cool if Goldberg and the Senator had gotten Barack Obama into the act.

Happy Hannukah!

-- Steve Clemons