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December 2019 Page 1 The Scroll December, 2019 December, 2019 Temple Sha’arey Shalom Volume 39, No. 4 Celebrating Over 60 Years of Reform Jewish Commitment Worship/Special Events From the Rabbi... The roots of holidays of lights during the Friday, December 6 darkest days of December, date back to 7th Grade Family Dinner 6:00 pm ancient Israel and the Zoroastrians. Family Shabbat 7:30 pm Zoroastrians celebrated light over the 7th Grade Family Shabbat darkness; good over evil. If we think of many themes involved in literature, plays and films, Birthday Blessings those that wear lighter clothing win. Christmas lights and the Chanukiah with 9 Sunday, December 8 candles in the window are all associated with Rabbi’s Circle Chanukah Brunch 10:00 am dispelling the darkness. We all love celebrating Chanukah; but, there are many Friday, December 13 myths associated with the holiday - here are Erev Shabbat 8:00 pm five. 1. Chanukah is an important Jewish holiday. Thursday, December 19 It’s easy to get the impression that Chanukah is a marquee event of the Jewish year, falling Springfield Community Chanukah Party 6:00 pm as it coincidentally does right around the time at Temple Beth Ahm Yisrael of that other blockbuster December occasion and likewise seeming to revolve around Friday, December 20 presents, parties and recollections of a Erev Shabbat 8:00 pm miracle long ago. The sense of Chanukah’s importance is further stoked by lively decorations, beautiful menorahs, Sunday, December 22 delectable feasts and even, nowadays, kitschy Brotherhood Chanukah Brunch 10:30 am sweaters and tongue-in-cheek competitions. But as any rabbi would be quick to explain, Friday, December 27 Chanukah is one of the least important Chanukah Light In - College Shabbat 7:30 pm occasions on the Hebrew calendar. Unlike Bring your own Chanukiah major holidays such as Passover, Sukkot and Shabbat Study Minyan Weekly - 9:15 am the weekly Sabbath — all of which include continued on page 2 BROTHERHOOD CHANUKAH CHANUKAH LIGHT-IN 7TH GRADE SHABBAT DINNER BRUNCH Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 2 The Scroll December, 2019 From the Rabbi... extensive ritual requirements as well as 3. The Jews’ victory in the Chanukah story halted assimilation. prohibitions against work — Chanukah is Today, the Maccabees are extolled for having put a hard stop, categorized as a minor festival whose only real after their recapture of Jerusalem in 164 B.C., to Hellenism’s decree is to light candles for eight nights. threat to swallow traditional Judaism. “Chanukah celebrates Everything else is custom or adaptation. the rescue of Judaism itself from the clutches of cultural That’s not to say, however, that all the chaos assimilation,” Ron Wolfson, an education professor at the around Chanukah is accidental. Its elevation to its current status American Jewish University in Los Angeles, writes in the United States goes back to the 19th Century, when rabbis in “Chanukah: The Family Guide to Spiritual concerned about Jewish children feeling envious of their Celebration,” nodding to why this story speaks so deeply to Christian neighbors realized that Chanukah could let kids indulge modern diaspora Jews. “In our own day,” he writes, “living in in a joyous occasion around the same time of year. As Jewish a completely open society, we too must battle the forces of historian Dianne Ashton recounts in her book “Chanukah in cultural assimilation to retain our Jewish identities.” America,” the holiday’s “timing in the midst of the Christmas But as rulers who subsequently established the Hasmonean season offered a way [for people] to perform their Jewish dynasty, these rebels quickly realized that their survival commitment through the holiday’s rite and, for a moment, to involved playing the game of regional politics — and the way resolve the ambiguity of being an American Jew.” to do that was by none other than adopting Hellenism. “It was 2. Chanukah celebrates a fight for religious freedom. a kind of necessity,” Baumgarten says. “The Seleucid dynasty The story of Chanukah commemorates events in the 2nd Century to which Antiochus and his successors belonged was split B.C., when the Syrian king Antiochus, whose Greek-influenced between two rival families that were fighting each other over Seleucid empire ruled over ancient Judea, issued decrees generations, and the Maccabees had to play one branch off outlawing traditional Jewish practices, which provoked the each other. If you backed the wrong horse in this ongoing civil uprising of a family of country priests called the Maccabees. They war, you could end up losing your status and your head. So ultimately triumphed, regained control of the Jewish Temple in although the Maccabees started as opponents of Hellenism, Jerusalem and rededicated it according to their beliefs. they soon become among its most enthusiastic admirers and adopters.” ADVERTISING But the idea that theirs was a fight for religious freedom is a This meant, for instance, aping Greek models of government myth, as is the notion that their revolt was exclusively against and negotiation, and establishing an assembly to vote a ruler their non-Jewish oppressors. At the time, many Jews readily into power — a practice with no precedent in Jewish tradition. welcomed aspects of the dominant Greek culture, with its Their realpolitik also helped them learn to “negotiate the emphasis on reason, wisdom and art. These Hellenistic Jews different tensions between being part of the Jewish world and advocated for the reformation of their own primitive belief the larger world,” Baumgarten says, which was critical to system according to Greek values — the modernization of a faith Jewish survival. founded in the Bronze Age. The Maccabees opposed their 4. The oil burned for eight days and eight nights. Hellenized counterparts, and according to some scholars, their revolt really began as a bitter internal fight between religious The ritual lighting of Chanukah candles is traced to what’s fundamentalists and reformers. known as the miracle of the oil: After the Maccabees reclaimed the Temple, the story goes, they found a small “The Maccabees were fighting for the ability to observe their amount of oil permissible for lighting the sacred sanctuary own laws and the ability to coerce other Jews to observe their lamp — enough for just one day. Miraculously, it lasted eight. laws,” says Albert Baumgarten, an emeritus professor of Jewish Jews thus light candles on eight successive nights to recall this history at Bar-Ilan University in Israel. “It meant a very strong great miracle. fight against the Hellenistic Jews and the establishment of what we would today call a theocratic state.” Some contemporary Yet whether the miracle really happened is questionable, and commentators have even deigned to call the not just because of the empirically proven limits of Maccabees fanatics and zealots. combustible liquid. As scholars have long noted, there’s no continued on page.3 December, 2019 The Scroll Page 3 From the Rabbi... reference to the miracle in early sources based on firsthand meanwhile, nibble on frittelle di Chanukah, yeast fritters accounts, including the first book of Maccabees, an insider flavored with anise. history written to glorify the new dynasty and its achievements, So now that you know that Chanukah is a Hallmark holiday nor the second book of Maccabees, also a historical account based on a myth marking religious freedom that the Jews did written close to the time of the revolt, although from the not want, go big this year. Light the lights. Decorate your diaspora. homes. Go to Target and get that silly Chanukah sweater. The miraculous-oil story seems to be a rabbinic invention While you are doing that think of creative ways that your transmitted hundreds of years after it allegedly occurred. After Chanukah can save the world. Rather than giving gifts to our the Romans destroyed Jerusalem in 70 A.D., the Jews were children, they research different charities that we donate to expelled, and religious authority was transferred from Temple give someone else light. They each also take from their own priests to diaspora rabbis, who came to codify the Babylonian money and choose their own charities. It is the time of year Talmud as a central text of Jewish law, ethics and customs. In the that they work in soup kitchens and sing in nursing homes, middle of the Talmudic tractate discussing the proper way to realizing that their internal light can change the lives of those light candles on the Sabbath, as a footnote that seems almost an around them. Teach your children and grandchildren and afterthought, the rabbis included a discussion of Chanukah those around you that Chanukah, rededication, has the candle-lighting along with a telling of the miracle of the oil. It’s potential to make a difference in this world- it’s not only this written account that made the story last. about receiving. It is about giving. 5. Latkes are the traditional Chanukah food. Latkes, or potato pancakes, are the much-salivated-over Rabbi Renee Edelman centerpiece of most Chanukah celebrations in America. Consisting of grated potatoes mixed with matzo meal and eggs, and fried in oil to a golden crisp, they are the holiday’s iconic food, fueling vociferous debates about which topping is superior — sour cream or applesauce — and enabling the endless creativity of modern cooks, who include ingredients their ancestors probably never heard of, from Swiss chard to zucchini, from chipotle to feta cheese and artichokes. But latkes originated in Eastern Europe, not ancient Israel. And they were first made with curd cheese rather than potatoes, Gil Marks writes in the “Encyclopedia of Jewish Food.” Although they are certainly a traditional holiday food, they are by no means the traditional holiday food.
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