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Spirit and Story Archive
Welcome to Spirit and Story, where you can find the latest thoughts and
reflections by CLAL faculty and associates on the contours of our contemporary spiritual
journeys.
To access the CLAL Spirit and Story Archive, click here.
Hanukah: Celebrating the Many Stories of One People
By Brad Hirschfield
The oldest tradition of Hanukah is that it celebrates
many stories: the one of freedom from religious oppression, the one of Jews
fighting back against their oppressors, and the one of communal struggle
about what it means to be a Jew and how best to live that out. It is the
story of unexpected fuel found in unexpected places, providing light to an
entire nation, and it is the story of miracles and redemption in moments of
darkness and despair.
These stories have been told in many languages: Hebrew, Greek, Aramaic,
Latin, Yiddish and English. They’ve been told by every kind of Jew, and even
by non-Jews, from almost every nation on the face of the earth. They are
tales of a people on a journey looking for ways to confront the challenges
that lay before them, and celebrating the victories that they experience
along the way.
However, in American Jewish life, Hanukah is often described as the story of
the Jewish fight against assimilation. Judah Maccabee and his forces arose
to defeat their Hellenistic persecutors. The underlying premise of this
telling is the presumption of a pure Judaism struggling against external
influences that would pollute it. Like most stories of the fight against
assimilation, there is a false dichotomy between Judaism and the larger
world in which the Jewish people live. The complexity and nuance that have
always defined Jewish life in every age are removed from the story.
Ironically, Hanukah, with its many tellings, preserves those nuances better
than almost any other holiday in Jewish tradition. It celebrates a variety
of ways to be Jewish – ways which have changed through the generations, the
challenges, and the times. Whether in more recent history, when Jews felt
distant from their homeland and early Zionists told the story in ways that
emboldened them to return to the land, or in ancient times after the
destruction of the Temple, when God felt very far away and the Rabbis told
the story to help bring God back, our tellings of the Hanukah story have
invited new interpretations, questions, and meanings, each helping a
generation of Jews rise to the challenge of its moment in history. In fact,
the richness of Jewish tradition is its remarkable capacity to embody many
forms of Jewish expression. Failing to recognize this on Hanukah would be
truly absurd.
On a holiday that reminds us, among many things, of the danger of idolatry,
we dare not turn Jewish identity into an idol. Anything can be an idol,
including one’s definition of what it means to be Jewish. Idolatry is what
happens whenever we falsely absolutize what is by definition infinite. In
telling of the fight against idolatry, we must be careful not to turn our
own tradition into an idol -- presuming a static definition of what it means
to be Jewish and how to contribute to the future of the Jewish people.
While no one can say what Jewish life will look like in the future, we need
to continue the oldest tradition of Hanukah by inviting people to enter the
process of creating that future. After 2,000 years of playing dreidel, a
game of chance epitomizing the precariousness of Jewish life, we now have an
unprecedented opportunity to play a new kind of game -- one that reflects
the blessings, challenges, and possibilities of this moment in American
Jewish life.
Contrary to much in Jewish life, this is a game that everyone can play and
everyone can win. Here is how it works:
Answer these questions by telling your own story, based on your own
experience. For each question, try to find an answer that describes
something you think of as typically Jewish, and a second that describes
something you don’t think of as typically Jewish. There are no wrong or
right answers.
• Which foods or meals evoke Jewish associations for you?
• In what places have you been where you felt particularly Jewish?
• On what occasions did you feel very Jewish?
• Who is a “real Jewish hero” for you? (That person doesn’t have to be a
Jew.)
• What makes your relationships Jewish?
Bonus question: Is there something important in your life that you really
wish was a part of what you usually think of as being Jewish?
To score, give yourself one point for each question for which you can give
at least one answer. Since each question can be answered for both expected
and unexpected circumstances, the maximum score for the five questions is
10. Adding the bonus question for three points, the maximum score is 13.
Actually, forget the points. What counts is not numbers, but being in the
game. If you play, you win. The only way to lose this game is not to play at
all.
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