"A Ritual Memory"

Each time I prepare for a Hanukkah service here,

        I have to question whether we can rightfully celebrate it

                in a Unitarian Universalist context.

The central story of Hanukkah,

        about the fervent Maccabees

                and their resistance to Hellenistic culture,

                        teaches Jews to resist assimilation

                                and to defend their tradition from

                                    outside influences.

The Hanukkah tradition reinforces Jewish identity

        and roots it in Jewish history.

 

We Unitarian Universalists have chosen

        to move beyond religious identity

                to create an intentionally pluralistic environment

                        in which people of all religious backgrounds may 

                              participate.

We study Judaism and other religions

        so that we can appreciate

                and understand their history and message.

For those of us who practice Jewish customs,

        this approach helps keep alive the aspects of tradition

                that we cherish and find meaningful.

The Jewish heritage is not compromised,

        but it does take its place alongside

                the many other traditions

                        that have informed and inspired us,

                                and taught us who we are as one humanity.

And Hanukkah has more to teach us

        about who we are as one humanity

                than might initially appear on the surface.

The story tells how the Maccabees fought to keep their traditions

        and won their survival,

                celebrating with the rededication of the Holy Temple of 

                      Jerusalem.

But the story of the Maccabees' triumph

        did not survive in Jewish scripture.

You cannot find it in the Hebrew Bible.

 

The story survived in Greek,

        in the writings of the Hellenized Jews,

                assimilated Jews with worldly, secular ways.

The history of Hanukkah was preserved in writings

        the early Church fathers gathered from the Greeks

                and called "the Apocrypha."

If early Christians had not valued and saved these texts,

        the Hanukkah story would have been lost forever.

 

Ironically, a holiday that teaches a message opposed to assimilation

        would never have survived if the assimilated Jews

                had not recorded it in Greek!

It was not until the end of the nineteenth century,

        when barriers between Christian and Jewish biblical scholarship

            broke down,

                that Jews discovered the Christian apocryphal literature

                        and in it,

                                the original story of Hanukkah.

Hanukkah's proud message of Jewish identity

        offered a winter festival

                to counter the encroachment of Christmas.

Jewish scholar Arthur Waskow notes,

       "Hanukkah was reborn with much more emphasis on the Maccabees,

                on resistance to assimilation

                        and the defense of religious and ethnic pluralism,

                                on the giving of gifts,

                                        and on the pleasure of children.

"The ancient ironies of assimilation and pluralism," Waskow adds,

        "that had characterized Hanukkah from the beginning

                acted themselves out again,

                        as, in an attempt to differentiate themselves

                                from the people around them,

                                        the Jews made Hanukkah more like

                                             the holidays

                                                of those very peoples."

 

No religious tradition ever survives in its original state.

These winter holidays, including Hanukkah,

        are a layering of cultures and customs

                and a merging of themes from every influence available.

Everything is being assimilated all the time,

        for that is how humans gather stories,

                using every bit of folk lore and glitter they can find,

                        to make the telling more vivid and alive.

And that is how their message grows universal.

 

Even Hanukkah, which has a particular point of view,

        has accumulated influences

                and broadened its associations.

Arthur Waskow notes that Hanukkah may also have pagan references.

In recapturing the Temple from the Syrian Greeks,

        the Maccabeans performed their rededication ceremony

                during the solstice,

                        perhaps to rebut the pagan message.

Yet what may have started in opposition

        has retained the one element

                that everyone associates with the solstice:

                        the lighting of candles in the dark.

 

Despite its interfaith history and Christian and pagan influences,

        Hanukkah still teaches Jews important lessons

                about who they are.

It teaches them that they belong to a culture

        that has had to struggle to survive.

It teaches them that even when they were an oppressed minority,

        a small courageous band secured their freedom.

And it teaches them that Jews are like all people

        in that their customs

                and the deeper messages they contain

                        are yet another imaginative spiritual narrative

                                about what it means to be human.

 

The rituals we practice, such as lighting the menorah,

        connect us to specific meanings.

But they also give us a touchstone for memory,

        a way to associate, over time,

                with unconscious meanings

                        and their universal power.

The story I read the children

        offers an example of how that happens.

 

Rachel is a young Jewish girl

        who has gone to spend Hanukkah with her Grandma.

Grandma is recently widowed,

        and she and Rachel are still grieving their loss.

When it comes time to light the menorah,

        Rachel asks her Grandma why she uses such a funny, ugly one.

And Grandma tells the story of the menorah,

        how Grandpa made it for her

                when they were too poor to buy a fancy silver one.

Over time they cherished the hand-made menorah so much

        they kept the custom of using it every year.

 

In this story, Rachel learns that ritual objects,

        such as the menorah,

                contain important associations

                        and carry forward memories

                                that remind us of who we are.

The menorah is not simply an ugly, makeshift object.

It is the repository of something very sacred

        to Grandma and to Rachel:

                the love they feel for one who has gone.

 

So the menorah is not ugly after all.

It is beautiful,

        because it represents love,

                and family history,

                        and continuity that is achieved

                                only by returning to the same practice

                                        year after year.

When Rachel understands the meaning of the menorah,

        she is able to sense her GrandpaÕs presence once again.

Rachel learns about who she is,

        not only as someone with a specific religious history,

                but as a human being whose rituals

                        connect her to the strongest emotions and values

                              in her life.

That is a universal meaning,

        emerging from a particular point of view

                and arriving at a place

                        where all people can agree:

                                our rituals make us human.

 

The other rituals associated with Hanukkah

        convey varied themes.

The game of spinning the dreidl

        is frivolous and childlike.

The giving of Hanukkah gelt is intended to reward

        serious study of the Torah.

 

Food is another ritual

        thought to transmit memory.

According to Arthur Waskow,

        some of the Hanukkah customs

                "became a channel for the very Jewish approach

                        of taking an idea and giving it physical reality

                                in the form of food --

                                        so that eating the food

                                                would then recall the idea."

The eating of ritual food transfers the memory

        of who the Jewish people are

                from one generation to the next.

There is another universal human practice.

Can any holiday be truly

        what we need it to be without the foods that belong to it?

Recipes are ways of remembering

        the people who gave them to us,

                long after they are gone.

Our associations with rituals tell us who we are.

They give us specific, cultural or religious meanings

        that form our identity in one way,

                and they give us universal, human activities

                        that connect us to all people in another.

 

Perhaps the oldest, most universal theme

        in Hanukkah is the one the Maccabees tried hardest to resist:

                the assimilation of pagan practices

                        into religious life.

Whether the lighting of the candles in the Temple

        was the intentional appropriation of a pagan custom

                or a practice that was already part of Jewish culture --

                        and probably it was some of each --

                                we cannot escape the fact

                                        that here is yet another winter 

                                             festival

                                                in which humans are

                                                   lighting candles

                                                        in the dark.

When days grow short

        and people need the uplift of celebration and tradition,

                we turn to practices that are as old as fire

                        and as deeply embedded in our souls

                                as any memory can be.

We remember that in dark times 

        whether they are dark times for the soul

                or dark times for the Jewish people 

                        we can rise up and be fully ourselves.

What better way to commemorate that truth

        and carry it forward from one year to the next,

                than by lighting a candle as the sun goes down,

                        and telling the story of how it was done.

Each of the many stories of people standing up for themselves,

        of struggling to hold on to the traditions and meanings

                that make them who they are --

                        each of these stories deserves to be remembered,

                                and told,

                                        and treasured as evidence

                                                that without freedom,

                                                        people cannot be

                                                             truly human.

The stories also tell us

        that there is no end to the ways

                in which we see light in the darkness,

                        whether it is the turning of the earth

                                back towards the sun,

                                        or the courage of a people

                                                in the midst of oppression.

The themes may meet and merge,

        but that only adds to the depth of the meanings

                they hold for us.

They grow more universal with each passing year,

        and that is something we have every reason to celebrate.

The more complex and colorful the ritual life of humankind,

        the more connected we may all be

                to the experiences that we hold in common.

And in that connection,

        to universal meanings

                and common understandings,

                        however different our traditions may be,

                                we may find peace.