Rabbi Neal's Weekly Commentary

Dear Friends:

It is a very rare occasion when I get so many inquiries about something in the popular press that I use my weekly Torah study to offer reaction, but this week I’m going to make a rare exception, for two reasons:

1) It’s about Hanukkah, and it’s still Hanukkah.

2) Hanukkah rarely has two Shabbatot, but this year it does, which means there is a special haftarah read for the occasion, which won’t be read again for many years (till 2026, if hebcal.com is to be believed.)

With that, let’s first start with the inquiries I’ve been getting, which can be largely paraphrased as “What the heck did you think of what David Brooks wrote about Hanukkah in the New York Times?”

Well, in brief, I thought it was great, but I’d better explain why. Brooks retells the story of Hanukkah by casting it as a paradigmatic tale of the ironies of history, in which we (American Jews) celebrate “good guys” (the Maccabees) who were really fanatics fighting a civil war against their assimilated, Westernized brethren. The Maccabees, seen this way, look an awful lot like the “bad guys” (i.e., religious fanatics) in the Middle East today, whom we wish would just assimilate some Western values and not be so fanatical, as it were.

So if Brooks makes a none-too-subtle comparison between the Maccabees and contemporary religious extremists, why would I think his column is great, and even more importantly, why celebrate Hanukkah at all?

I liked his column because, to me, a fundamental Jewish value is smashing idols, which are not so much hunks of wood and stone but rather dead and immobile and unreflective ways of thinking. I appreciate the efforts of an iconoclast because a bit of idol-smashing keeps us honest, and in truth, the notion that Jews are always on the side of right and good versus the evil oppressors who want to kill us is our own idol of victim status and moral self-satisfaction.

Please note: the Hanukkah story, like any other important story, can be told at different levels of complexity depending on the audience. I have no desire to ruin Hanukkah for young children, who deserve their Hasmonean heroes, but neither do I wish to tell children’s stories to grownups, who can, in fact, handle the truth, and probably prefer it.

Not only that, but understanding the history of Hanukkah actually helps me appreciate the transcendent element even more, and this brings us to the once-a-decade (or so) haftarah for the second Shabbat of Hanukkah, from the book of 1 Kings. It’s the story of how King Shlomo [Solomon] commissioned the first Temple, and hired a guy named Hiram to oversee the work and make the stone and metal vessels and structures. In fact, this haftarah isn’t much more than the report of a successful building project, with the mention of the gold lampstands being the obvious connection to Hanukkah.

What this haftarah does, however, is complete the implicit narrative of Hanukkah that the ancient rabbis tell with the Torah and haftarah readings, which details the dedication of the Mishkan [portable Sanctuary] under Moshe, the building of the First Temple by Shlomo, and the building of the Second Temple by the generation of Zechariah (as we discussed last week.) The Maccabees rededicated the Second Temple, which was destroyed a few generations later by the Romans, which started the next major era of Jewish history.

By linking the Mishkan, the First Temple, and two phases of Second Temple history, the rabbis tell a larger story of Hanukkah, the story of how in every generation Jews found a way to dedicate themselves to religious ideals in the face of difficult historical challenges. That story doesn’t end with the Romans destroying Second Temple; rather, it continues in the observance of Hanukkah itself, which is in its very practice a continuation of the story of Jewish dedication. To me, that larger story- of Jews in every generation somehow finding a way to make the light shine- is only deepened by knowing the complexities and ironies and problems of Jewish history. Somehow, despite our flawed heroes, in every generation we’ve built something holy. Somehow, with our faults and divisions and conflicts, we’ve lived as a unique people despite all odds. Somehow, in the face of tremendous social and political barriers, with no lack of miscalculation on the part of our leaders, we’ve managed to find enough spiritual fuel to keep going past all logical limits, far outliving the empires that once oppressed our ancestors.

That’s also the real story of Hanukkah, and it’s more than enough for me.

Hag Urim Sameach,

RNJL

Good morning!

Tonight is the first night of Hanukkah, the festival of lights, so let’s take a detour from our Torah readings for a Hanukkah thought or two.

Since we’re looking at the liturgical tradition this year, let’s see what the prayerbook has to say about Hanukkah. In the prayer which begins al ha’nissim, or “for the miracles,” which is a lengthy addition to the Amidah [standing prayer], we review the Hanukkah story, but with a decidedly theological perspective:

“. . . You gave the mighty into the hands of the weak, and the many into the hands of the few, and the defiled into the hands of the pure, and the wicked into the hands of the righteous, and the malicious into the hands of those who engage in Your Torah. And You made a great and holy name for Yourself in Your universe; and to Your nation, Israel, did You grant a great salvation and liberation . . . . ”  [translation taken from ou.org and full version here]

This version of the Hanukkah story has no little jar of oil, not much praise for the Maccabees, and pretty much says that the entire victory was a miracle from the Holy One. In this version of the story, Hanukkah is a remembrance of miracles that God did for us, and our response is thanks and praise.

That’s one perspective on the religious meaning of Hanukkah. Another perspective comes from the Torah portions we read every day of the holiday, taken from Bamidbar/ Numbers, chapter 7. This is the story of the dedication of the Mishkan, or portable Sanctuary, in the days of Moshe, and what makes this story unusual is its repetition of the accounting of each gift that each prince brought on behalf of each tribe of Israel. The gifts were all equal, and the Torah goes out of its way to list each one separately, even though we can see that each prince brought the same set of dedication presents on behalf of his tribe.

To me, there’s an interesting tension between al ha’nissim and the Torah readings: the text from the siddur is all about what God did for us, and the text from the Torah is all about what we bring to God. I see the meaning of Hanukkah as the creative space between two basic religious orientations: the first being awareness and gratitude for wondrous things in our world, and the second being our response to that wonder, which is a bringing of the self into constantly increasing mindfulness of our obligations towards others and the world. To put it another way, if Hanukkah was only about remembering the military victory of our ancestors, it might be important, but it wouldn’t be a sacred practice; if it were only about gratitude for miracles, it would teach a spiritual and moral passivity that is the very opposite of the qualities we admire in the Maccabees.

Hence, the symbol of light, which is something we create, and yet reflects back to us the possibility of a transcendent experience. We bring the Hanukkah lights, and yet, like the gifts for the Mishkan, they point us to something beyond mundane concerns, an aspect of the Sacred which we can draw upon as we rededicate not a place, but ourselves.

Shabbat Shalom and happy Hanukkah,

RNJL