Shabbat Shalom and Happy Hanukkah!
We've been very busy here already this Hanukkah, and
the best is yet to come: Friday night's dinner and service. Hundreds of
people are expected. You won't want to miss this Hanukkah Happening for
all ages. If you are coming just for the service, a reminder that we now
begin Friday night services at 7:00 PM. And on Shabbat morning, we'll be
naming Abigail Sophia Klein, daughter of new TBE members Robert and Emily
Klein. Born on Yom Kippur, named during Hanukkah. Join us as we
welcome Abigail and wish mazal tov to her family.
This afternoon we lit the candles downtown at the
Government Center with Mayor Martin (see photo above). Also, our Hebrew
School 7th graders
have been busy preparing Hanukkah treats to bring to the Jewish Home in
Fairfield, and last Sunday our K.1. and 2 students made latkes. Lots more will
be happening this Sunday morning. You can check out the photos in our online Hanukkah album.
We will also be very busy helping our neighbors to
celebrate Christmas, next Wed. night at Pacific House and, for the first time,
also at Inspirica's facilities on Franklin St. Once again, so many of our
congregants have volunteered to help bring holiday cheer those most in need of
it. BTW, a reminder that morning minyan will be at the special 9 AM
federal holiday start time next Thursday (when I have yahrzeit for my father)
and again the flowing week on New Year's Day.
Happy Birthday, Alberto!
This week our staff celebrated a special birthday for
Alberto Eyzaguirre, who has served this congregation for more years than
anyone...ever. Alberto showed me this photo of our staff, taken at one of
his birthday celebrations here in the late 1980s, and this photo of him holding
my Ethan a couple of years later. Happy Birthday, Alberto! And
thank you!
A Jew at Home
I get lots of questions around Hanukkah time.
Last week at services, someone asked whether, when we put the Hanukkah menorah
in the window, the positioning of the candles be determined by how they appear
from outside or inside the house. It's a good
question.
Over the centuries there have been rabbinic debates as
to whether the hanukkiah should be lit inside the house at all, or should it
stay outside all the time. The consensus is that for security purposes as
well as the winter weather, which can be nasty even in Israel at this time,
it's best to keep it inside. But I think it should be, regardless.
We place the candles in from right to left and light
them from left to right. Once those candles are lit, what's important is
what they look like from the perspective of those who are sure to be looking at them - and that
means us. If others are looking at them too, on the other side of the window,
wonderful. But before publicizing the miracle to the world, let's make
sure we've publicized it to ourselves. If others see it, so be it.
From my house, if someone sees my candles from the outside, they've either got
telescopic vision or antlers. Or they are at the cemetery - and as the
Psalm says, "The dead do not praise You." Let's take care of
business inside our homes first. Judaism should be first and foremost a
private affair.
We spend too much time wondering about what others
think of us. We worry too much about our public image, wearing our
religion on our sleeves and rarely letting it penetrate the heart.
Back at the beginning of the Enlightenment, the talk
was that newly emancipated Jews should be "Jews at home
and human beings on the street." The idea was to hide one's
Jewishness, reserving it for the private realm, and to appear just like
everyone else in public. But now the situation has been reversed.
For so many, our Jewish identities revolve around our organizational affiliations,
our meetings and lunches, our postings and proclamations, rather than our inner
lives. So while it is good to proclaim the miracle for the world and to
show pride in who we are, the flames of the Hanukkah candles mean nothing if
they don't ignite a spark in each of our souls.
Hanukkah Exotica
Hanukkah is complicated. Nothing is as it seems. For
one thing, it is the festival the ancient rabbis wanted to get rid of. They
hated the Maccabees (primarily because their descendants, the Hasmoneans,
became corrupt rulers) and devoted very little space in the Talmud to
discussions of this holiday. Purim gets an entire tractate, Hanukkah barely a
page. But it was too popular to get rid of. So the rabbis tried to
gerrymander it to fit their visions.
I was asked how we could say, in the blessing, that we
are commanded to light the Hanukkah candles, when Hanukkah is not even in the
Torah. The rabbis got around that one by invoking a verse from Deuteronomy ascribing special authority
to sages living during the second temple period. Once again, it's
complicated, but the idea is that the verse gave these sages authority to give
a non Torah activity "mitzvah" status, to be included among the 613
commandments. So a new commandment was shoehorned into the Torah for a
holiday that's post biblical.
Even the simple dreidel game, one of Hanukkah's best
known customs, is complicated. It's in fact derived from an English and Irish
medieval Christmas custom. Sorry, Virginia, it's one of those freaky
ironies of Jewish history that in order to celebrate a holiday that marks our
victory over cultural assimilation, we play a game that resulted from cultural
assimilation. You can read more about the origins of the dreidel
and more Hanukkah exotica, here.
Also, see these Hanukkah goodies from the Rabbinical
Assembly:
All Miracles, Great and Small
Last Tuesday, our Learning and Latte monthly
interfaith conversation reconvened at the Parkway Diner (We thank them for
their hospitality, but with no latte on the menu, we might want to rename it
"Learning and Lasagna"). It was a really special evening.
Along with about a dozen Jews, mostly from TBE, there were three Muslims, three
Christians and assorted agnostics and spiritualists; this on a day when Taliban
terrorists killed 140 Muslims, almost all of them children at a Pakistani
school. Rather than dwell on this horror, we paused for a moment to
reflect, and then declared that we need to be the solution. So we engaged
in some meaningful, constructive dialogue, discovering how each of our faiths
focuses on blessing and life, and how our faith traditions teach us to
appreciate the small miracles that come into our lives.
It was really a fantastic hour. Our next L and L
will take place on Thursday, January 15, the topic will be racism, and Mayor
Martin will attend. The location and exact time TBD.
This week, a cell of Jewish racists was arrested in
Israel for vandalizing Jerusalem's Arab-Jewish "Hand in Hand"
school. Two young students from that school, an Israeli Arab and an
Israeli Jew, created a menorah following that event - and that menorah was lit at the White House last night. Once again,
the response to darkness and hatred was to spread the light.
Let's look for the good in one another and find
miracles in the simple act of standing together "hand in hand."
Or hand in paw.
The New York Times recently reported that Pope Francis
indicated that there is a place in heaven for dogs. The report proved
erroneous, although something similar was said by another pope, but the point
is moot. I know that for my dogs, at least, whenever one of their humans
comes through the door, especially a human who has been away for a long time
(say, in college), they are in heaven. Maybe the point isn't that we
should hope to see Fido at the Pearly Gates. What we should try harder to
do is see the world through Fido's eyes, and understand that any time we truly
connect with another living being, that is heaven, right here and right now.
This week is a time for people of all faiths to stand
together - dogs too.
Wishing everyone a joyous season of lights and the
sensation of heaven right here, right now.
Shabbat Shalom and
Happy Hanukkah!
Rabbi Joshua Hammerman
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