Jewish Musings Tuesday 12/20

[hollygail]

What’s on your mind — how to make kugel? This week’s Torah reading? Life goals? Prayer? We are all engaged in weight loss/weight maintenance journeys and we are all Jewish or at least interested in Judaism. We like to eat, we like to discuss. It is our goal here to provide each other support on our journeys, to share experiences, to call on our rich cultural heritage and texts, and to help each other grow spiritually.

Some of us take weekly turns starting the thread:

Angelika 

Holly 

Lee 

Louise 

Lynne 

Peachy

[hollygail]

[aside to Louise: My Cuisinart is older… but thanks for the info! I hadn’t heard]

Yesterday, I quoted an article by Rabbi Irving Greenburg. Today I’m quoting something from Rabbi Arthur Waskow’s book, Seasons of our Joy. (I’m a fan of his.)

- - -

www.myjewishlearning.com/article/defining-hanukkah-spiritual-vs-political/#

Defining Hanukkah: Spiritual vs Political

Hanukkah asks us to reconcile the worldview of the Rabbis with that of the Maccabees.

By Rabbi Arthur O. Waskow

from Seasons of Our Joy (Beacon Press)

The Rabbinic tradition was hostile to the Maccabees; and modern Zionism, identifying with the Maccabees, was often hostile to the Rabbis. Thus Hanukkah has been a kind of battlefield between “the Rabbi” and “the Maccabee” as models of Jewish life. Is there any way to integrate these conflicting orientations to Hanukkah?

From the standpoint of the Rabbi, Hanukkah celebrated God’s saving Spirit: “not by might and not by power…” [this comes from the haftarah for the Shabbat of Chanukah] To the Rabbi, this spiritual enlightenment required a kind of inwardness and contemplation that was contradictory to insurgent politics.

From the standpoint of the Maccabee, Hanukkah celebrated human courage and doggedness, the human ability to make history bend and change: The need to organize, to act, to fight, to build might and use power, seemed in the aspect of the Maccabee to contradict study, prayer, and contemplation.

Can a new generation of Jews help to resolve this contradiction? If our forebears repressed and ignored the sense of Hanukkah as a festival of the darkened moon and darkened sun, what could we contribute by opening up to that aspect of the festival? What could we add by seeing Hanukkah as part of the nature cycles of the year and month?

Seen this way, Hanukkah is the moment when light is born from darkness, hope from despair. Both the Maccabeean and Rabbinic models fall into place. The Maccabean revolt came at the darkest moment of Jewish history — when not only was a foreign king imposing idolatry, but large members of Jews were choosing to obey.

The miracle at the Temple came at a moment of spiritual darkness — when even military victory had proven useless because the Temple could not be rededicated in the absence of the sacred oil. At the moment of utter darkness in Modin, Mattathias struck the spark of rebellion — and fanned it into flame. At the moment of utter darkness at the Temple when it would have been rational to wait for more oil to be pressed and consecrated, the Jews ignored all reasonable reasons, and lit the little oil they had.

The real conflict is not between the Rabbi and the Maccabee, between spiritual and political, but between apathy and hope, between a blind surrendering to darkness and an acting to light up new pathways. Sometimes the arena will be in outward action, sometimes in inward meditation. But always the question is whether to recognize the darkness — and transcend it. [emphasis mine]

The necessity of recognizing the moment of darkness is what we learn from seeing Hanukkah in its context of the sun and moon. There is no use pretending that the sun is always bright; there is no use pretending that the moon is always full. It is only by recognizing the season of darkness that we know it is time to light the candles, to sow a seed of light that can sprout and spring forth later in the year.

Seen this way, Hanukkah can become a time for accepting both the Maccabee and the Rabbi within us, seeing them as different expressions of the need to experience despair and turn toward hope. Seen this way, Hanukkah can become a resource to help us experience our moments of darkness whenever they occur throughout the year — and strike new sparks.

Rabbi Arthur Ocean Waskow directs the Shalom Center and is the author of numerous books, including Godwrestling, Godwrestling—Round 2, Seasons of Our Joy, The Bush is Burning, and These Holy Sparks.

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Rather a different perspective from yesterday’s, eh?

I emphasized one paragraph because (to me) that's the point of the entire article.

What do you think of this article and what it says?

[peachymom1]

I want to stand up and cheer. Bravo!

[peachymom1]

I will probably have more to say tomorrow, but right now I have to practice the four aliyot I'm reading this Shabbat. Night-night, see you tomorrow!

[happysavta]

I don't know why we need to add so many layers of interpretation into the military victory of the Maccabees. I don't think that forcing these deeper meanings onto simple history adds anything. The Maccabees fought and they won. That's enough for me to celebrate. The miracle of the oil - it makes a good story, but you can doubt the veracity of it or not. Miracles are not a staple of Jewish belief.

[lee058]

Good morning everybody. Hope you are all well today. I like today's reading, and the idea of reconciliation between different aspects of thoughts and feelings is very important. I've battled with depression at various times of my life, and sometimes it felt like there wasn't any spark of hope --- but I was able to keep going, somehow, and hope returned as did joy in life. I know a lot of people who have had difficult things to deal with, too. I don't know why bad things happen to good people; I don't understand why there are terrible things in this world. All I do know is that somehow things can get better, and I am grateful for this.

I'll try and write more later. I have a lot to do today, and I also want to think about this. Have a peaceful day, Lee

[louise]

I need to come back later on the topic but I thought you might enjoy this article about Natalie Portman wanting a Christmas tree. It fits right into this week's discussions. www.aish.com/h/c/t/dt/Natalie-Portmans-Christmas-Tree.html?s=mm

[savtele]

Boker Tov All! We live in interesting times. I love the "Ancestry.com" ads that always show a person, dressed in some sort of ethnic garb, proclaiming: I'm German/Italian/whatever....only to find out after doing a DNA test, they are something completely different & the Italian ancestor was actually Eastern European or Scottish. In one sense we are fortunate that our identity is ethnic AND spiritual - it adds a layer of insulation that makes it more difficult to lose our identity to total assimilation. We live in a nation of immigrants, where new arrivals have always rubbed elbows with the last boat-load that came over, children always came home from school having learned "new" words from their neighbors of different origin, and the pressure to become "American" was always high. Never more so than during the winter holiday cycle - heightened this year by the fact that Christmas & the 1st night of Hanukkah coincide. I remember growing up, being just a little bit embarrassed by the fact that we didn't have a tree. (It was helpful that our living room window faced the back yard - at least everyone driving by couldn't see that we didn't have one!) And while I understand NP's desire to have a tree this year, for me it was always more difficult when Hanukkah came a few days after Thanksgiving - while everyone else was cranking up to the BIG celebration, we were all done, the menorahs put away till next year.

The military victory was certainly important - and the spiritual victory could not have happened without it! But to me, the spiritual victory goes to identity in ways that the military victory does not. Stories are embellished. Heroes are always braver in the sagas than they were in real life - the stories of their insecurities are usually not passed down. So - whether there was only 1 keg of oil, or perhaps a box-full that nobody bothered to mention, whether the light burned miraculously for 8 days, or only for 24 or 25 or 36 hours - the fact that the lights were on & somebody was home is for me the point of the story. I do not have to finish the task of perfecting the world, but I must, at any rate, begin. Once my little lights are lit, miracles can happen!

Mom needs to go shopping - I dread going out this close to Christmas! The fact that half the city was snowed in will no doubt be a factor - people have to stock up again.

Have a good day ladies!

[gazelle18]

I think the article is beautiful and I agree with the rabbi's sentiment.

I have always been more of an act-or, as opposed to a deeply spiritual thinker. I recognize the beauty and the need for both.

I am about to read the Natalie Portman piece right now and will try to get back to comment

[gazelle18]

I just read about Natalie Portman. I secretly wanted a Christmas tree when I was a child; I have long since outgrown the desire for a tree, although I think trees in other people's houses are lovely. Portman must have married a non-Jew, which I am sure brings with it a whole host of issues with which I have not had to deal.

It's funny. If I go to a gentile's house at Christmas, I automatically think the tree is lovely. I have been in the homes of Jews where there is a tree and I feel inwardly uncomfortable. It's just who I am.

[louise]

Sorry for being so literal but can someone help me out here (shed some light, ha ha): "If our forebears repressed and ignored the sense of Hanukkah as a festival of the darkened moon and darkened sun". Say what?

[louise]

Literalness aside, I do see that the martial victory and the spiritual victory go hand in hand, one allowing the space for the other. The Shabbat Hanukkah haftarah from Zechariah is chosen because of the image of a menorah, but also, in my opinion, for the reminder that "not by might and not by power, but by MY spirit…” - a military victory is not the whole answer.

[happysavta]

There is always a Christmas tree in the home of my Catholic DiL, and it bothers me a lot that my son makes no meaningful effort to have a Jewish heritage or a Jewish education or a Jewish identity for his children. Wrapping presents in Chanukah paper doesn't cut it.

After reading the article about Natalie Portman, I've lost respect for her. I thought she was smarter.

[happysavta]

Sad news in Berlin. Another truck deliberately plowing into holiday shoppers, killing and maiming innocent people. So evil.