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For those outside the Jewish faith, Hanukkah— which began Thursday evening — is about light and a miracle of endless oil to create it, maybe a dreidel, or memories of some childhood friend who got gifts eight days in a row instead of just the one (Christmas). If you are of a certain age, you may half-smile upon recalling a few words from Adam Sandler’s Hanukkah (or Chanukah) Song first performed on Saturday Night Live in 1994.
“Put on your yarmulke, Here comes Chanukah. So much funukkah, To celebrate Chanukah.”
Actually, one suspects the song was popular at least as much for the novelty as for the lyrics.
What rarely comes to mind for outsiders, we suspect, is the backstory that led to Hanukkah: the forceful rebellion of a group of Maccabees against Syrian Greek oppression. When the fighting ended, the Jews cleansed and rededicated the temple that had been defiled by the Greeks, and to their surprise the scant oil available lasted for eight days. The Festival of Lights rose from war, a fact that is hard to ignore as the fight between Israel and Hamas in Gaza rages on.
This year’s Hanukkah commemoration also, sadly, comes at a time when anti-semitism surges across the country and around the world — and lest we forget, it had been increasing for years before the brutal, hate-filled terrorist attack by Hamas that started the current fighting. Indeed, if you read last Sunday’s story about displaying a menorah in home windows, you read of cowardly acts of anti-semitism in Billings, Mont., three decades ago.
A boy displayed a menorah in his bedroom window in 1993, and someone hurled a rock through the glass. Other residents responded not by pulling their curtains closed, but by putting menorahs, or pictures of them, in more windows. To quote from our article:
“The message to haters was, if you want to smash the windows displaying menorahs, here’s 50,000 of them,” a recent editorial in the Billings Gazette reminisced as it looked back at the “Not In Our Town” movement that began there 30 years ago.
We can have differences of opinions, on the Gaza fighting or any other topic. What we cannot have, if we want to retain both community and democracy, is violent responses to those differences. Nothing justifies the hate crimes being reported nationally and globally, nothing ever should. And Hanukkah should not become a bone of contention, a reason to argue. It should be a recognition of the need for resilience, and the hope that the lights symbolize.
We would wax eloquent about ways to make this a time of shared peace despite the war and heated debates, of the need to embrace what is best in the lighting of the menorah and in ourselves, regardless of faith or politics. But frankly, we think the editorial writers at triblive.com captured the sentiment with this suggestion.
Perhaps this year, each candle lit can be a prayer for a new miracle. One could be for healing, one for strength to endure. There could be lights for hope, diplomacy, tolerance, the ability to bend without breaking. The first could be for consolation in the face of grief. The last could be that gift we have all needed forever — peace.
And in the middle of the hanukkiah, higher than its brothers, stands the shamash candle that lights the others. It could stand for the commitment to find all of these other blessings.
– Times Leader