For all the complaining people do every year about holiday displays appearing in stores while it’s still warm outside, the season’s festivities often seem to sneak up on us.
One minute it’s Labor Day, and before you know it Thanksgiving is upon us, with the end-of-year holidays right on its heels.
That’s especially true this year, as the Jewish festival of Hanukkah has arrived before we’ve even turned the calendar to December. The eight-day festival began Sunday night and continues through Monday.
Jewish holidays move around on our solar calendar because the year in the lunar Hebrew calendar falls short of 365 days. Periodically there are leap years that add a month to the calendar to ensure it stays in line with the seasons.
This is an occasion to rejoice and reflect.
A year ago Hanukkah celebrations, like everything else in the 2020 holiday season, were muted and low-key. On one hand the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic wasn’t quite as severe as it was on Christmas and New Year’s. Hanukkah does not require a major synagogue worship service. For the most part the festival involves small, family celebrations that take place in people’s homes.
Jews light candles on each night of the holiday. There are festive foods and games for the occasion, and exchanging gifts is common. Large crowds are not the norm most of the time.
But in many communities there are some large, public events to mark Hanukkah, and we missed them last year. These include public menorah lighting ceremonies involving Jews and non-Jews alike.
To the extent that there were public activities a year ago, people stayed in their cars or otherwise kept a distance from one another.
That was a terrible shame. Hanukkah, a minor holiday in religious terms, has become perhaps the most familiar Jewish festival to non-Jews due to its proximity to Christmas on the calendar. Public Hanukkah celebrations are an opportunity to bring Jewish communities together and to boost interfaith understanding.
As befits our tentative reemergence from a pandemic that refuses to go away, this still won’t be quite a normal Hanukkah. Communities are scheduling events again, but many of them will be held outdoors in the interest of public health. It’s a good compromise, and it fulfills one of the most important traditions of Hanukkah. Jews are instructed to place their lit menorahs in a place that’s visible to the public. It’s an expression of pride in one’s faith and defiance of bigotry. And it symbolizes the desire to bring light into the world.
While things are better in many respects than they were at this time in 2020, there’s still all too much darkness in our world, and a tremendous need for more light.
We are trying to emerge from a tough battle, much as the people who inspired this festival did many centuries ago. The eight-day Hanukkah celebration commemorates a successful three-year rebellion by ancient Jews against Syrian persecutors. It celebrates the rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem by the victorious Maccabees in 170 B.C Jews rebelled because they had been prohibited from practicing their religion and were being forced to worship Greek gods. The Syrians defiled the sacred Temple, calling for an altar to Zeus to be constructed there and for pigs to be slaughtered on the site, in violation of Jewish law.
The holiday has gained extra resonance in recent years amid a resurgence of anti-Semitism in America and around the world. Our area is not immune. Just this weekend vandals struck a new menorah placed in downtown Lancaster. Such cruelty makes clear that this commemoration of ancient Jews’ struggles against persecution is all too relevant today.
It reminds all of us to continue being vigilant today. It means engaging in acts of friendship and refusing to tolerate hateful acts or commentary on the part of others. Let this occasion serve as a reminder to people of all faiths of the need to bring light into the world all year long.
We wish our Jewish readers a joyous Hanukkah.
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November 29, 2021 at 05:00PM
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Editorial: Let’s all bring light the world at Hanukkah - Reading Eagle
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