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Shabbat Chanuka: The Kavannah of Giving

Like most rabbis, I dislike the way so much of the focus of Chanuka shifts from the nerot, the lights, to the presents kids receive.

But I also know that giving, at any time, is a profound Jewish act.  Last week during Shabbat evening services, we davvened in our small chapel.  Usually one of the members passes around the wine and grape juice when it's time to sing the Kiddush.  Sometimes when we're in the chapel, the tray is nearest to me and I carryng it around.  Last Shabbat I felt a tremendous kavvanah, a spiritual focus, as I brought the tray around, stopped by each person or two, and extended the tray to them to take a small cup.  In those couple of minutes, I felt that I was being given a great privilege.  That I was fortunate to be the one that night to give a cup of something so sweet -- to have just a small moment of giving -- to each and every person in the room.

There is at least a small connection between Chanuka and giving.  During Shabbat Chanuka, we always read from the story of Yosef.  This week in Parashat Miketz, Yosef is elevated to the position of Pharaoh's vizier, his chief of staff, second in power only to Pharaoh.  When famine strikes in Canaan, his brothers come down to Egypt for food.  To procure food to bring home, they end up having to appear before Yosef, whom they don't recognize in his Egyptian clothing.

The twisting road of reconciliation between Yosef and his brothers is told, this week and next, through a series of acts of giving.  The food that Yosef sends them home with, the coins that he hides in their bags.

The word in Hebrew for the food-provisions that the brothers seek is shever.  The same word means "broken."  How interesting!  The brothers come to seek shever/provisions, and they land in front of the person they have the most shever/broken relationship with.  In order for Yosef to find a way to forgive, and to bring the family back together, he has to transform the brokenness into giving.  Initially, he uses giving as another power with which to manipulate his brothers.  Eventually, Yosef's love for them and for his father will overcomes all the history, and he wants nothing more than to be together and to feed his family.

Giving is not instantly or automatically redemptive or healing.  But on Chanuka, I just notice that giving is a part of Yosef's process of healing.  It's a modality he has to use, and to learn how to use.

So too, gifts on Chanuka can be gratuitous, wasteful, spoiling, and over the top.  Or, in the right proportion and with the right kavvanah or focus, the giving of gifts can be filled with love.  For the giver, even more than the receiver, the act of giving a present is a moment to savor.  With gratitude for being able to give something that sweetens the candlelighting even more.  Giving gifts is not what Chanuka is about.  But it too can be a moment of light.

Some Sukkot Thoughts

Last night at our shul's Ritual Committee meeting, Larry Rubin read from a terrific Dvar Torah he found by Rabbi Oren Hayon from Dallas.  Here's the link to the whole thing.  Here is the beginning just below.  My own page on Sukkot is here.  Chag Sameach!

D'var Torah: Making Homelessness Our Home
September 28, 2009
by Oren J. Hayon

(Originally published in Ten Minutes of Torah and Reform Voices of Torah)

Like a giant tent spread atop three tall pillars that support it and give it shape, the Jewish year is held up by the Shalosh R'galim, the "three pilgrimage festivals." Pesach commemorates the joy of liberation and freedom, Shavuot acknowledges the power of God's word revealed in Torah, and Sukkot reminds Israel of nights spent in fragile huts during its wilderness sojourn. 

Pesach and Shavuot celebrate spiritual fulfillment, times when God anticipated Israel's needs and acted bountifully and graciously to fulfill them. We were granted political and national fulfillment on Pesach, when we were led out of the painful grip of slavery. Atop Sinai, we were given the wisdom of Torah, and we celebrate its spiritual and intellectual fulfillment on Shavuot. But Sukkot, in contrast, does not celebrate substantive fulfillment at all. Instead, it acknowledges the insecurity and uncertainty of desert nights spent in frail temporary shelters.

Stranger still is this fact: each of the pilgrimage festivals has an alternate name which alludes to its purpose and religious symbolism. Pesach is called Z'man Cheiruteinu, "the Time of Our Freedom." Shavuot is called Z'man Matan Torateinu, "the Time of our Receiving Torah." And the name that tradition ascribes to Sukkot is Z'man Simchateinu, "the Time of Our Joy."

Might not this be a better title for some other holiday? What, after all, is so joyous about the memories of being homeless and directionless in the desert? Read more...

 

More Purim: "Esther Among the Muggles"

Another interesting article, from Professor Carol Ingall, professor of Jewish education at the Jewish Theological Seminary, comparing Esther and Harry Potter!

Both the Kadosh Barukh Hu and J. K. Rowling know what makes for a gripping story: take an orphan, afflict him or her with tsuris, and watch the true mettle of the hero emerge. The eternally enchanting Book of Esther and books of the Harry Potter saga depend on similar elements to cast their magic spell: questions of parentage, identity, abandonment, separation, initiation, the presence of a mentor / nurturer, and a reconnection to one's people.

Read the whole piece here

Terrific Purim Article

Dr. Michal Govrin is a writer and director, and lectures at the Schechter Institute, the Conservative movement's academic center in Jerusalem.  She has a fascinating article called "Seriously Laughing to Death:  Couples' Games and Masks in the Book of Esther" online at the Institute's website.  It's kind of long, but worth it.  Here's a taste:

Against the male threat on the woman and Jew-as-woman, the Megilla presents a woman with exclusive power to cope. Mordechai, in his different-ness, provokes Haman's hatred, and is left helpless against its catastrophic consequences. True to the archetypal Diaspora Jew, dependent on the kindness of others, he can only grieve:

"Mordechai tore his clothes and put on sackcloth and ashes. He went through the city, crying out loudly and bitterly.." (4:1).

But his prayer, unlike the prayer of Hannah, Moses or Elijah, does not manage to pierce through the Hiding of the Face and alter the decree. He and his prayer are left outside "the King's gate" (4:2).

Esther, however, as her name implies, remains hidden. Even when Mordechai addresses her, she dares not act. Mordechai urges her, by tearing away her defensive royal mask: "Do not imagine that you of all the Jews will escape with your life by being in the king's palace" (4:13). He then boosts her courage with a prophetic vision:

"If you keep silent in this time, relief and deliverance will come to the Jews from elsewhere, while you and your father's house will perish...And who knows, perhaps you have gained royal position just for this time" (4:14).

Here the Megilla reveals a profound mutuality between two complementary forces. Mordechai cannot on his own deal with the king's anger, but the man is the one who stirs the woman's latency, making her aware of her own strength and enabling her to make the transition from concealment to revelation. Esther indeed undergoes a transformation as she confronts Mordechai. She dares to take responsibility for her otherness as a Jewess and a woman. She is aware of the double threat against her: as Queen, having replaced another whose deviation brought about her death; as a Jew, whose people by their different-ness brought upon them a decree of annihilation. Esther's strength and sense of responsibility to her uniqueness offers a model for redemption. She grapples with the mask as seen by others, which is racist and stereotyped. She strives to remove the threat of otherness, to present a human face and allow Ahasuerus to accept the other - the woman and the Jew - without fear.

Yet, Esther also knows that her femininity and her Jewishness are her only weapons.  Thus she first emerges from a latent state to declare her bond to her people and her God:

"And Esther sent back a reply to Mordechai: Go and assemble all the Jews who live in Shushan and fast on my behalf; do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my maidens will observe the same fast" (4:15).

And then, relying on her feminine power, trusting in fate and risking death, she will "go to the King, though it be contrary to the law; and if I am to perish, I shall perish" (4:16).

After three days of fasting and prayer (reminiscent of the three days preparing at Sinai to receive the Torah), "Esther donned royal apparel and stood in the King's inner courtyard..." (5:1). Esther stands face to face with the King "sitting on his throne....facing the entrance of the palace." (Here, too, are parallels with the entrance to the Mishkan, the Tabernacle, lending an air of a direct meeting with holiness).

It all hangs on the split second glimpse of the woman standing in the doorway at her own peril. At that instant, her fate is sealed. As Ruth determined events by walking, Esther does so by standing. She is in royal attire, interpreted by Rashi as being draped in Divine inspiration, and this instant of a woman standing is described in the Talmud (Tractate Megilla 14b) as a moment of prophecy.

Yet how does she transform the revealed female body from an object of desire to a human visage?...  (read the entire article)

Thinking Ahead to Pesach

It's still not quite Purim, but today I am working on my bulletin article about Pesach.  Rather than entirely repeat what I've written in the past, here are my two previous years' columns about Pesach.  Also, go to my Pesach page or browse through the whole site here for teachings, printables, kashrut guie, and melodies! 

5770/2010 -- Making a Great Seder

The essence of every Seder is telling the story of Yetziat Mitzrayim, the going-out from Egypt, in a way that is meaningful to as many participants as possible.  Though the story is historical, it is not merely history.  As the Haggadah says, quoting the Mishnah:  In every generation, a person is obligated to view oneself as having personally experienced the Exodus from Egypt.

One way to add to the Seder is to get yourself one new Haggadah this year.  You don't need to buy a set!  Whether you're leading or not, you'll get a new angle.  Two of the best recent Haggadot are A Different Night and A Night to Remember.  Both have interesting quotes and contemporary art relating to passages in the traditional Seder.

The Haggadah we use is called On Wings of Freedom -- less art but great discussion material.  Another wonderful book of ideas is David Arnow's Creating Lively Passover Seders.

A Seder is almost always a diverse gathering.  Different ages, different perspectives.  Here is one idea for making the telling of the story engaging for everyone.

Before the Seder, clip or print out pictures that represent different moments in the story.  Decide where to begin -- with ancestors, like Avraham and Sarah?  With the beginning of slavery?  Choose an ending point -- is it the crossing of the Sea of Reeds?  Getting the Torah?  Reaching the promised land?  You decide.

Number the pictures, and give them out to participants of all ages before the Seder.  It even works if you give them out at the beginning.  The instruction is:  Present your picture.  Say anything you want about what it means.

When you get to Maggid, the part of the Seder where the story is told, put aside the text of the Haggadah and let the participants tell the story in order of their pictures.  What will emerge is a tapestry -- some matter of fact reports, some creative imagination, some interpretation.  Let people ask each other questions, for more information or explanations.

Everyone will ask or answer at her or his level.  What's guaranteed is that you'll all hear the story fresh, in a way you've never heard it before.

Whatever you do, make sure before or during Pesach to make the story an experience of today.  Think about liberation in our world, or your life.  For Jews, for others, for the world.  From slavery or more subtle oppressions.  From Pharaohs on a large scale, or the symbolic Pharaohs that enslave or trap us in our individual lives.

And may we all see ourselves in a journey of freedom toward Torah, growth, and lands of promise.

Chag kasher v'sameach,

Rabbi Jon

2009 -- The Never-Ending Story

Four questions, four cups, four children.  Tradition links the fours of the Seder with the "four languages of redemption" in Exodus 6:6-7:  I will take you out...I will rescue you...I will redeem you...I will take you.

Rabbi Yehudah Leib of Ger, the Sfat Emet, asks:  Why four words to describe one thing, the Exodus from Egypt?  Because, he explains, the experience of the Exodus was so rich that its meaning could never be contained in one interpretation.  Even in their own lifetime, the Israelites themselves could not finish unpacking it.  It takes all the generations talking and adding to even approach a complete understanding of the Exodus.

That's why the Haggada says early on:  Everyone who adds on to the telling of Yetziat Mitzrayim, the going-out from Egypt, deserves praise.

We build our tellings off the many tellings that have come to us.  Here are just four -- but our responsibility is to take one or more and deepen them, apply them in our own time and lives.

The first Exodus.  Our people and our faith were born more than three thousand years ago, as we prepared to cross the Sea of Reeds.  Even now, the memory of the narrow escape from Pharaoh's chasing army is dramatic, a reminder that our existence as Jews can never be taken for granted.

Exodus repeated.  Esther and Mordechai in Persia.  Mattathias and Judah Maccabee against the Seleucids.  In our own day, the establishment of the State of Israel and the rescue of Jews from the Soviet Union, Ethiopia, and other lands.  At times of danger, Jews have always believed that Exodus could happen again.

A spiritual Exodus.  The Sfat Emet teaches that each of us has a "Pharaoh" force that tries to trap us in place.  Each of us needs to find a "Moshe" or a "Miryam" voice inside to help us cross the sea, toward a promised land of healing, inner strength, and reconciliation.

Exodus as modern liberation.  The biblical story has inspired people throughout the Western world.  The American founders against the British; abolitionism and the civil rights movement after them.  In Central America, Catholic liberation theologians and progressive leaders have been inspired by the text in their struggles against dictators and poverty.

We never stop needing to talk about the Exodus.  Our identity as Jews, as individuals, as world citizens is bound up with the themes, the characters, and the journey from Egypt toward the promised land.  In the bustle of Pesach shopping, cleaning, and travel, find some time to think about the Exodus.  Does one of these "languages of redemption" have a special meaning for you?  What questions and insights can each of us add to enrich the telling?

Chag Sameach,

Rabbi Jon

 

Guess My Purim Costume

Mishenichnas Adar, marbim b'simcha -- when the month of Adar begins we go out of our way to be joyful!  Purim is fast approaching.  Can you guess who I will be dressed like this year?  Send in your vote, and each week I'll post the tally (yes, I have already decided).  Whoever guesses right, something special awaits on the day of Purim.

Update on the voting, as of Thursday 3/17/2011:
Lady Gaga leads with 3 votes
Harry Potter has 2 votes
1 vote each for:  Annoying Orange, Statue of Liberty, Woody, Buzz Lightyear, a surfer dude, Charlie Sheen, Mahmoud Ahmedinjad, Katie Perry, Darth Vader

Here is me the last couple of years, though I don't think it will give you any clues...

Dreidl: Since You Asked...

I was asked over the weekend what the "real" origin of the dreidl or sevivon is.  Courtesy of my teacher Rabbi David Golinkin:  Dreidl is a Jewish/Hebrew adaptation of a medieval European game.  Read his full story here at myjewishlearning.com.  To me, it's a small example of one of the themes of Chanuka since the Greeks: how Jews have responded to the wider culture around us.  It's not only what has affected or shaped us from the outside, like celebrating around the winter solstice or spinning tops.  It's also how Jews have layered our own unique legacy over what has come in -- like running the techniques of Greek philosophy through the Torah and creating Talmud and midrash!  When it come to Chanuka, the medium (the story, the rituals) really is the message.

Light Is In the Air

I love this song and video of Bible Raps, Matt and Ori.  I love it because they know that sometimes fire is even bigger than candles.  The fire of Torah, of hope, of Judaism, of our souls -- a vivid fire in this video.

(For some reason my site cuts off the right side of the video screen -- you can also go directly to the YouTube page.)

Another Twist on Chanuka

 If you want to read something completely different about how Chanuka became a holiday in Talmudic times, here's a fascinating article by my teacher Dr. Moshe Benovitz, from the Schechter Institute in Israel, which is the sister of the Jewish Theological Seminary.

 

The Ascription of New Meaning to Hanukkah
after the Destruction of the Temple

Prof. Moshe Benovitz 

 

Volume 9, Issue No. 4

December 2010  

 

The regulations for lighting the Hanukkah lamp are found in neither the Mishnah nor the Tosefta, the corpora reflecting halakhic practice in the land of Israel in the years immediately following the destruction of the Second Temple. The main source for the rabbinic laws of Hanukkah is a series of passages in the Talmud Bavli, Shabbat 21a-24b. These passages contain much material attributed to sages from the land of Israel, but the fact that there is no comprehensive discussion of the laws of Hanukkah in tannaitic or amoraic literature from the land of Israel itself led Louis Ginzberg to doubt the attribution of some of the material in the Babylonian corpus. He suggested that Hanukkah was observed primarily in Babylonia, and not in Eretz Israel, following the destruction of the Temple.[i] Gedaliah Alon associated this suggestion of Ginzberg's with a view commonly held among historians, according to which the Pharisees, and later the Rabbis, opposed the Hasmonean dynasty and tended to play down its importance in Jewish history. Alon rejected both the contention that Hanukkah was not widely observed in Palestine and the notion of rabbinic opposition to the Hasmoneans.[ii]

 

A thorough survey of the evidence[iii] suggests that despite the origin of the festival in Eretz Israel during Second Temple times, Ginzberg was correct. Hanukkah was not widely observed in rabbinic circles in the land of its origin from the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE until the third century. However, this had nothing to do with rabbinic attitudes towards the Hasmoneans. The festival fell into desuetude in the years following the destruction of the Temple because of the destruction itself, which quite naturally cast a shadow on a holiday celebrating the purification and dedication of the Temple years earlier. Megillat Ta`anit, a list of festivals including Hanukkah that commemorated victories and other joyous events of Temple times, was considered by many rabbis to have become obsolete with the destruction of the Temple (Yerushalmi Ta`anit 2:13, 66a; Bavli Rosh Hashanah 18b), because those triumphs proved short-lived and no longer had significance for the Jewish community in the land of Israel after 70. Hanukkah was originally treated just like the other festivals of Megillat Ta`anit, and the lighting of Hanukkah candles was not considered obligatory in Eretz Israel during the tannaitic period( rabbinic sages from 70-210 C.E) (Tosefta Bava Qama 6:28). This is to be expected: Is it conceivable that a mere few months after the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE Jews gathered to celebrate the purification and rededication of that same Temple 234 years earlier? Is it conceivable that in the shadow of the destruction Jews would continue to joyously mark a period of independence that ended 107 yeas earlier, when all hope for its renewal has been shattered?

 

In Babylonia, however, where the effect of the destruction of the Temple on religious and political life was minimal, Hanukkah was thought of as a historical celebration, akin to Purim. For the Babylonians, both rabbinic festivals celebrated past victories which had little impact on the present. Just as the Jews in Babylonia celebrated Purim throughout the years, whether or not contemporary circumstances made merry-making appropriate, so they celebrated Hanukkah continuously with candle-lighting. The sense of irony which would have accompanied such celebration after the destruction of the Temple in Eretz Israel was naturally less vivid in the diaspora.

 

This dichotomy between Eretz Israel and Babylonia continued until the days of the third-century sage from the land of Israel, Rabbi Yohanan. Rabbi Yohanan revived the festival in Eretz Israel: he himself ruled that the festivals in Megillat Ta`anit were still in effect, and among his pupils, even those who felt that Megillat Ta`anit was no longer legally binding made an exception for Hanukkah (Yerushalmi Ta`anit 2:13, 66a). Rabbi Yohanan reconstructed first-century Palestinian traditions regarding the Hanukkah lights with the help of sages from Sidon, outside Eretz Israel, where Hanukkah was observed continuously (Bavli Shabbat 21b).

 

The circumstances which led to the renewed celebration of Hanukkah in Eretz Israel during the third century are alluded to in a statement by Rabbi Yohanan preserved in BT Shabbat 21b, according to which the Hanukkah lights should be kindled "until the feet of the Tarmoda'i are gone" from the marketplace. The Geonim defined tarmoda'i as paupers who gather firewood called tarmada at the end of the day, and variations on this definition have become standard. However, this explanation is problematic in context, and the use of the word tarmoda'i in this sense is not otherwise attested. Elsewhere in the Talmud the word Tarmoda'a (plural: Tarmoda'i) is a corruption of Tadmora'a, "Palmyrene". Tadmor, or Palmyra, is a city in Syria It would thus make most sense if Rabbi Yohanan were referring to actual Palmyrenes: Hanukkah lights must be kindled until the last of the Palmyrenes has left the marketplace. And indeed, there were Palmyrenes in the marketplaces of Eretz Israel in Rabbi Yohanan's day, specifically Palmyrene soldiers, embarked upon the conquest of Roman Palestine

 

Palmyra became the capital of an empire in 270 CE, when its queen, Zenobia, rebelled against Rome and conquered large parts of the eastern Roman empire, including Palestine, Arabia, and Egypt. This situation lasted until 272, when Zenobia was captured by the Romans. In 273, after another attempted rebellion against Rome, Palmyra was destroyed.

 

Rabbinic opposition to Palmyrene rule in Palestine is well-attested, and Rabbi Yohanan is particularly vocal in this context: In Yerushalmi Taanit 4:8 (69b) he is reported to have said: "Happy is he who witnesses the fall of Palmyra", and Yerushalmi Terumot 8:10 (46b) describes at length the participation of Rabbi Yohanan's pupils in a conspiracy against the Palmyrenes, their arrest, a curse that Rabbi Yohanan subsequently inflicted upon the Palmyrenes, and Zenobia's blasphemy against the God of Israel. BT Yevamot 17a asserts that the Jews are destined to celebrate the fall of Palmyra with a festival.

 

There are a number of parallels between the Palmyrene Syrian occupation of Roman Palestine and the historical events that lie behind the Hanukkah story. In both cases, Jews and Romans shared a common interest in battling Syrian forces occupying the land of Israel. The Romans supported the Jews in their struggle against the Seleucids (I Maccabees, 8), while the Jews supported the Romans in their effort to the wrest back control of Palestine from the Palmyrenes. In both cases, the Jewish religious leadership of Eretz Israel inspired the people in their struggle against the Syrians.

 

It would seem that during the Palmyrene Syrian occupation Rabbi Yohanan revived the celebration of Hanukkah in Palestine, and specifically the ritual of kindling the Hanukkah lights, as a sign of identification with the political and military struggle against the new Syrian occupying power, whose queen mocked the God Israel. This struggle reminded him of the Hasmonean rebellion against Syrian rule in Palestine hundreds of years earlier. He insisted that the Hanukkah lights be kindled until the Palmyrene troops leave the marketplace, in order to make the Palmyrenes aware of the miraculous victory of the forefathers in their earlier struggle against Syrian rule.[iv] One might even argue that the requirement to keep the candles lit "until the feet of the Palmyrenes are gone from the marketplace" has a double entendre: we will keep the candles lit each night of Hanukkah until the Palmyrenes leave the market, in order to publicize the miracle of Hanukkah before them, and we will continue to do so until they are banished entirely from the marketplaces of the land of Israel. Following the Roman repulsion of the Palmyrene occupation, and the fall of Palmyra in 273, the Jews of Palestine continued to celebrate Hanukkah as the festival of both victories over the Syrians, "in those days and at the present time", in the words of the traditional Hanukkah blessing.

 

[i] L. Ginzberg, Ginze Schechter [Hebrew], vol. 1, New York 1928, p. 476; Perushim veHiddushim biYrushalmi [Hebrew], vol. 1, New York 1941, p. 279, n. 33.

[ii]G. Alon, Jews, Judaism and the Classical World, Jerusalem 1977, pp. 1-17.

[iii]See M. Benovitz, "'Until the Feet of the Tarmoda'i are Gone': The Hanukkah Light in Palestine during the Tannaitic and Amoraic Periods" [Hebrew], in: Torah Lishma: Essays in Jewish Studies in Honor of Professor Shamma Friedman, edited by David Golinkin and others, Jerusalem 2007, pp. 39-78, the article upon which this essay is based.

 

[iv]Later halakhic sources determined that the requirement is to publicize the miracle through the candle lighting before one's fellow Jews only; thus a Jews who dwells among non-Jews is not required to light the candles, and if he does so, it is so that he himself may look at them (Shulhan Arukh Orah Hayyim 677:3). It would seem however that the concept of publicizing the miracle originally referred to teaching non-Jews, who are not familiar with the Hanukkah story at all, about the festival.

 

Prof. Moshe Benovitz is a lecturer of Talmud and Jewish Law at the Schechter Institute

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Sukkot 5771

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