Rabbi Yair Robinson

Chanukah 2024

Recently I got to see “Leopoldstat” in Washington DC, for which my sister served as the associate director and a cast member. The show opens with an intermarried and assimilated Jewish family in Vienna working on trimming a Christmas tree, much to the consternation of the matriarch of the family. It’s a scene reminiscent of “Last Night at Ballyhoo”, though that takes place in pre-war Atlanta. One of the children climbs a ladder to place a Jewish star at the top of the tree, much to the consternation of some and chortling of others, and the confusion of the child who doesn’t understand why he can’t blend the various family traditions together, a bit of foreshadowing for those of us who know how the story must inexorably end.

While that issue still gets some play today, most people have grown at least somewhat comfortable with the Christmasification of Chanukah, what with decorations and ugly sweaters and inflatable llamas or dinosaurs or unicorns holding dreidels and menorahs.  And that shouldn’t surprise us. Chanukah has always been a holiday that reflects back the community celebrating it. Even from its very beginning, the holiday was subject to debate. First Maccabees makes it clear that the eight-day festival is a second Sukkot that the Hasmoneans weren’t able to celebrate because they were at war, and choose to celebrate in the Temple they liberated from Syrian-Greek rule, while second Maccabees is less sure that the victory was the work of Mattathias and his sons, and more sure that the victory lies in God’s hands. Some voices, like the pseudepigraphic book of Judith, celebrate Chanukah as a great military victory over those who would oppress the Jewish people, and the later early Zionists are delighted to pick up that thread to justify their idea of the ‘new Jew’, tan and strong and militarily capable. The rabbis of the Talmud, working in the aftermath of the two catastrophes of the Zealot revolt and then the Bar Kochba revolt against Roman Rule, are less certain that celebrating armed conflict will lead to anything other than more dead, so for them, the miracle of 8 nights of oil to re-light the Menorah, symbol of the Priesthood and God’s holiness, brings more meaning. Perhaps they understood that there would be more dark times than successful rebellions and that we needed other ways of preserving our identity and defending our identity.

Which is why our Haftarah so powerfully helps us make sense of this winter festival. That’s right, haftarah. That is, the book of Zachariah, chapters 2-4, roughly. At first glance, it feels like an odd choice for the Shabbat of Chanukah, and doesn’t seem to have much to do with the story of the Maccabees. Its prophecies relate to the time after Persian conquest and the beginning of the return of exiles. God promises to reestablish Judah and Jerusalem, and chides various members of the leadership of the Jewish community. But then Zachariah has a vision, one familiar to us even if we don’t know where it comes from. Zachariah has a vision of the golden menorah, its seven branches intact, flanked on either side by two olive branches, symbols of prosperity and also peace. If that sounds familiar, it would be the inspiration for the emblem for the State of Israel thousands of years later. Zachariah professes that he doesn’t understand the significance of this vision at all, and God replies,

לֹ֤א בְחַ֙יִל֙ וְלֹ֣א בְכֹ֔חַ כִּ֣י אִם־בְּרוּחִ֔י אָמַ֖ר יְהֹוָ֥ה צְבָאֽוֹת׃

not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, says the Eternal God of Hosts

(God bless Debbie Freidman but she left out that important word in her song).

Which is to say: the Chanukah story at the end of the day is about Jewish victory, but not a victory of arms or of population, but one based on the rightness of our actions. If our choices lack tzedek, justice, if we try to strong-arm our way to victory, forcing ourselves to success, if we move forward without God’s ruach informing our choices, then we will fail. We must act with strength of conviction, guided by the light of the mitzvot, by God’s light. That is why those words appear above our ark: beit ya’akov, lechu v’nelcha b’or Adonai, House of Jacob, let us walk by God’s Light.

So, we light our lights this season, and remind ourselves of the miracles done bayamim hahem bazman hazeh, in those days long ago at this season, reminded that the victory we lift up through our lights is one of justice and right, not strength and power. May our lights be beacons, then, for all to be reminded of what the correct actions and choices ought to be before us, and a reminder for all to live our lives by God’s ruach, as we say, amen.