Rabbi Charles P. Sherman
December 12, 2003
A Model for Jewish Survival
I am grateful for much of this message to Rabbi Michael Feshbach, who writes that in 1979 he was a sophomore at Haverford College. "My ‘home’ that year was a cramped room in an old gothic dorm at Bryn Mawr College, where I was living as part of the dorm exchange with Haverford. The hall was mostly Bryn Mawr freshmen women. Three of them were Jewish and away from home for the first time during Chanukah. It was finals week and we were all pretty tense.
I really appreciated my home congregation. (Just as we do here at Temple Israel), they had taken it upon themselves to send chanukiot to all of the college students from the congregation. I sure hadn’t thought ahead to bring one of my own, and neither had anyone else.
I took down my new chanukiah and invited everyone who wanted to come into my room, and we lit the candles and said the blessings and sang and stood looking at the candles in the window – the burning flames against the dark rainy night. Quietly we took each other’s hands, few and lonely, feeling that we were standing there against something, but also affirming something larger than ourselves in ways we didn’t know how to express." Let’s keep that scene in mind for a little while, friends.
Chanukah 2003 is coming to a home and temple near you. Next Friday evening, marks the beginning of Chanukah. For eight nights there will be candles to light, and Jews around the world will say a blessing meant to prod our memory, to recall the triumph and glory of an age gone by. "Blessed are You Adonai, our God – sheh asa nissim lavotanu ba-yamim ha’haym bazman hazeh – who performed nissim, miracles, for our ancestors at this season, in their days."
One more time the story will be told of how brave Judah and his brothers beat the nasty Syrians, burst into the Temple, dumped the statue of Zeus that evil Antiochus had made them put there, cleaned out the remnants of the pigs which had been sacrificed just to make Jews mad: and then they began the chanukah – the rededication of the Temple. The Hebrew word Chanukah means "rededication."
The Temple menorah, or perhaps the ner tamid –it is not exactly clear – had gone out. So the Maccabees looked for pure, extra-virgin oil to light it again, and they found only a single, sealed container – enough for one day’s light. They used it anyway and a miracle – it lasted for eight days, until a new supply of oil could be made. It is a wonderful story; children love it. There is only one problem. It probably did not happen that way at all.
The first time that the legend of the single cruse of oil – the one day supply, lasting for eight days – appears in the Talmud is almost 500 years after the events themselves took place. But there are sources from the period of the Maccabean revolt, they are called the First and Second Books of Maccabees. They appear in the Apocrypha, not in our Bible. These sources mention only the political intrigue, the stories of guerilla warfare and military prowess. They describe the Temple being cleaned and rededicated, but nothing about this oil miracle.
And yet every Chanukah we thank God for the miracle of the season. So I want to ask tonight: what was the miracle that took place in their days so long ago? It was not the miracle of a little cruse of oil lasting for eight days; I think that is pretty clear. I want to suggest this evening that the miracle was that they survived – survived for us to be able to call them "our ancestors."
Some of you are thinking – this is a miracle? Now the parting of the Red Sea, that was a miracle. The sun standing still in the sky; that is the stuff that miracles are made of. But survival? That is the most basic human instinct. Granted Jews have survived for a long time; it is a great accomplishment. But we have had many trying times in our history – why single this one out and call it a miracle?
It is not just that we survived a crisis back in 168 B.C.E., friends. That could have been by chance. But it was much more than that. If you think about it, of all the ancient peoples which confronted Greek civilization, we alone have lived to tell the tale. Yes, we are the only ones. The Edomites? Gone. The Phoenicians? History. The ancient Egyptians? A pale memory in the sand dunes of a new nation. In that far distant time, not just a chance survival took place. At this season so long ago, our Jewish ancestors developed a strategy for survival that worked and has continued to work throughout our history. And I want to suggest this evening that that strategy remains relevant – maybe even urgent – today.
Once upon a time, Greek culture was the rule and the rage of the entire known world. It was sophisticated, it was attractive, it had the best in the arts, excelling in theater and music. It had an absolute monopoly on professional sports; they were called the Olympics. There were travel and trade opportunities; big business flourished. There was even an air of cosmopolitan tolerance to an extent. To go anywhere that was "in", or to be considered "in", what was required was a simple ticket – the Greek language – and enough drachmas to afford it all.
And in a world which was actually willing to accept them, many Jews started saying to themselves – you know, we are not really all that different. Yes, it is true we circumcise our baby boys, so the Greeks think we look funny when we play nude in their athletic games. But we don’t really need that ceremony do we? Besides, we have heard that there are doctors down in Jaffa who can undo or reverse circumcisions. We are not quite sure how it is done, but it might be worth it if it makes us fit in better.
O yeah, there is another thing. We believe in one God and those Syrian Greeks believe in many. But they have a chief god, don’t they? He’s called Zeus. Well we could sort of like pray to one god at a time, couldn’t we? Anyway, we want seats to their games – and good seats. Since they pray in their way before the game starts, we will just have to join in. We would not want to be rude, would we?
At the beginning, this pro-Greek sentiment among our ancestors was overwhelming, particularly among the more secular, urban Jewish aristocracy. You see, and this is the part of the Chanukah story we do not usually tell, they were teaching their children Greek earlier than Hebrew. And they built a gymnasium in Jerusalem, a place of sport and study and service, that was much less innocuous than a YMCA, for in Greek culture the gymnasium really did have religious overtones, it really was the GCC.
These Jews’ zeal for Greek culture continued until they met protests from more traditionally-minded religious Jews. So the assimilationists turned to Damascus, to the governors nominally ruling Judea at that time, and they invited the Syrians into Jerusalem to help them put down the protests of their fellow Jews. Do you hear what I am saying? This was a civil war among Jews. Assimilationists on the one hand, and zealots – those determined not to give in one iota to Greek culture – on the other. But when they called in outside forces to help, the Syrians under King Antiochus, went even further than the pro-Greek Jews wanted them to go. Antiochus officially outlawed Judaism, put up statues to both Zeus and himself in the Temple, prohibited observance of the Sabbath, circumcision of children and observance of dietary laws – kashrut.
Well, with the Temple defiled, loyal Jews would not go there even had they been allowed to do so. With actual idols staring them in the face, the Temple was effectively closed down, profaned, defiled. Holiday after holiday went unobserved, and especially painful to miss for the farmers in the countryside was Sukkot. If you were an ancient Israelite farmer, Sukkot was THE festival – heh chag, the major festival of the holiday calendar – an eight-day celebration of the harvest. Not only in private huts, sukkot, but also at the Temple. It was at that time that sacrifices and prayers of thanksgiving were offered to God for last year’s harvest. Those sacrifices were thought to be the only thing which would guarantee God’s good graces for a bountiful harvest the following year. To miss Sukkot was both an affront to God and an economic gamble.
So the revolt against Antiochus’ severe decrees began not in the city, but in the countryside, in the small village of Modin. That is where the story of the Maccabees began, of Matathius who in anger slays a Jew he sees bowing down to an idol, of his sons, led by Judah, who organized the people into an army and led them to recapture the Temple. Yes, three years of courageous guerilla warfare is described in the Books of Maccabees, how a very few managed to drive out an overwhelmingly superior Syrian army. But I am not a militarist, so that is not the part of the story I want to fixate on.
What did these farmer-soldiers from Modin and other little villages do when they recaptured the Temple? The first thing they wanted to do was to celebrate Sukkot, even though they were a few months late. It was the Hebrew month of Kislev, not Tishri; it was December, not October. But there they were, in the Temple, and they were farmers, so they celebrated Sukkot, and Sukkot is an eight-day long holiday according to the Bible. You add in Shmini Atzeret at the conclusion.
For many of us that is the end of our study of Jewish history for a while. We kind of take a jump from 165 B.C. E., the rededication of the Temple, until 70 C.E., and the destruction of the Temple by the Romans. I would like to take a quick glimpse at those 200+ years. You know that after Judah died his brothers one-by-one led and ruled in his place. Known as the Hasmoneans, they eventually secured a measure of independence for Judea, a moment of peace. They made themselves into kings; they had overcome the tyranny of Syrian rule.
But the story goes on and the next step is as an important a part in the survival of Judaism as was the military victory. During this period, secure now in their independence, Jews began imitating the Greeks again. And this time imitation did not threaten but rather insured our survival. The Maccabees themselves took on Greek-style names. In the years following the victory, when they were able to celebrate Sukkot on the right date, they still maintained another eight-day holiday in Kislev – in December – to celebrate the anniversary of their victory. Now the very notion of celebrating a military victory as a religious holiday was a Greek idea. What Jew had ever heard of having a holiday which was not commanded in the Torah? And at a deeper level, ideas of Greek origin crept into Jewish thinking – ideas like life after death, and the notion of a soul. These ideas later became central to our tradition, but they came to us from Greek influence.
So if the Maccabees themselves – the leaders in the war against oppression, stalwarts in the fight for Judaism – if they themselves so soon succumbed to Greek styles and influence, how were they different from the assimilationists who had come before them?
The difference was this. The Maccabees, although eventually open to the world around them, were Jews first. By being Jews first, they were selective in their openness. Their choices guaranteed rather then threatened Jewish survival. Their predecessors had been willing to accept anything – they would have substituted Zeus for God; trophies for circumcision, the ancient mark of the covenant of our people. In the end, they would have been as the Amorites and the Edomites, as every other ancient people who, in swallowing Greek culture whole, wound up digesting themselves. With total assimilation, we Jews would have vanished as a separate people.
But, friends, we could equally well have become a mere footnote in history had our answer to the ancient Greeks been one of total isolation. Greek culture had appeal, and that appeal had to be addressed if Judaism was to remain vibrant and relevant. The Egyptian culture cut itself off from Greek thought, remained totally purist and perished when all of its young people flocked to mystery cults and eventually abandoned the teachings of their ancestors all at once.
Twin perils loomed, friends – assimilation on the one hand, the pursuit of every fleeting fad and fashion until any rooted sense of who you were was gone; and, on the other hand, isolation, a rigidity and resistance to change which cannot be maintained indefinitely. The Maccabees hewed a narrow path of survival with oblivion being the abyss which lay on either side.
I suggest that that narrow path has become an important Jewish model for survival – maintaining our identity but not closing ourselves off from the outside world. Just as the Maccabees did not worship Greek gods yet were open to Greek culture, so this balance has been the secret of our survival in all the different places we have lived. Chanukah is a holiday about Jewish survival and about the miracle which that survival truly represents. It is a holiday whose very message cries out that it is OK to be different and to be proud of being different even as we admire and learn from our neighbors.
The choice regularly confronts us which confronted the Maccabees. Radical assimilationist Jews willing to go along with anything in order to get along and fierce anti-assimilationists – zealots unwilling to give an inch, frozen in the Judaism of antiquity, or at least their understanding of it. The model of the Maccabees was to embrace Greek culture to a significant degree, but to fight fiercely against the extreme position of doing away with dietary laws, Shabbat observance and circumcision – the core principles and practices which defined Jews as Jews.
I believe that our own celebration of survival and distinction is threatened with mixture and dilution as once again we see and feel the powerful pull of an attractive majority culture. I am saying the battle ain’t over, friends, and probably never will be for a minority group. The best example of a stirring together of different symbols until each and every one of them is emptied of its context and its content came one year in a gift catalog. The ad said "To welcome both holidays, what could be more perfect – musical Santa plays Hava Negila" – yuck! Is nothing sacred? Christmas trees themselves are beautiful; I sometimes go out of my way to admire them, when they are on the private property of my Christian neighbors. We do borrow from the world around us. Chanukah itself has become a gift-giving holiday only under the influence of Christmas. I remind you – Purim was the original Jewish time of gift-giving.
We borrow but we cannot completely blend. The question could be put this way – how much assimilation is acceptable? We know that we do not want to abdicate our Jewish uniqueness, at least most of us. But how far are we willing to go to preserve it? Do we avoid attending or sending our children to Christmas parties? Do we turn our eyes away from Christmas displays? Do we change the station when a Christmas song comes on the radio or one of these saccharine Christmas specials appears on our television screen? What about those households who have one or more Christian members? How can Christmas be celebrated by some and not by others living in the same house?
I submit that the answer is by maintaining thoughtful, well-considered but firm, boundaries. There is a difference between singing "We Wish You A Merry Christmas" and "Silent Night". There is difference between giving a child, especially one visiting Christian extended family on Christmas Day, a gift wrapped in Chanukah paper or even plain paper and one wrapped in Christmas paper. There is a difference in sharing the holidays of our friends, extended family and even our own spouses and celebrating the holidays as our own. We can borrow, but we cannot completely blend. We can most effectively celebrate Chanukah by continuing to be different, by observing our own distinct customs. By being an articulate, comfortable, confident, knowledgeable minority, we testify to the true message of our holiday of this season, the message of religious freedom.
Chanukah is the story of how Jews stayed Jewish. We live it anew whenever we celebrate the holiday as Jews. Picture Feshbach’s dormitory room of two-and-a-half decades ago. It is a symbol of us – still. We stand facing the flames which, across the centuries, have not gone out. From dorm rooms to family living rooms to the sanctuaries of our synagogues, wherever the chanukiah glows, the light of Jewish life shines. More than any presents given and received, this celebration is a gift. A gift which both tells us about and allows us to express the story of our survival.
And, my dear friends, it is an ongoing miracle, a story with no end, as we remain living and growing and, after all of these centuries, still Jewish. Still Jewish – proudly Jewish, knowledgeably Jewish, committedly Jewish. Kayn y’hi ratzon, may this be God’s will and ours. Amen
