What I Love About Chanukah, by Fr. Tom Hartman
I love the message of Chanukah, that miracles are always possible. The oil lasting for eight days that should only have lasted for one is only a symbol for me of the deeper miracle, that God always gives us more than we think we have. We have more courage than we think we have, we have more blessings than we think we have.
The Maccabees showed immense courage in resisting the popular Greek culture of the time that had seduced so many Jewish people away from the practice of their faith. On Chanukah, I think of how the Jewish people have shown the courage of the Maccabees in every generation, surviving oppression and exile and still keeping their faith and their families alive and well and pointed toward God.
I’m especially mindful of the Holocaust and how it scarred the Jewish people so deeply that it could only have been the power of faith and community and God’s help that enabled them to survive and go forward.
On Chanukah, I’m reminded that Jews have always paid a heavy price for their faith, and I pray that the freedoms of America do not impede the survival of the Jewish people more than the prejudices of Europe. My hope is strong for the future of the Jewish people.
Today I see families who have learned the deepest lesson of Chanukah by choosing to limit the amount of television and computer time for their children and by encouraging family members to take time to read and talk to each other; by taking their children to soup kitchens to serve the needy, and by beginning every Friday night meal with candles, challah wine and blessings.
These lessons can’t be bought or wrapped up in fancy paper. They can only be taught, and Chanukah is a time of teaching. I see Jewish families passing on their faith to their children when they choose to attend Shabbat services weekly and choose to make the sacrifice of eating kosher food for the sake of their faith. I see Jewish philanthropy where children are taught from their youngest years that we live on not in our possessions but in the good we do.
These miraculous and courageous deeds preserve Judaism and preserve our world. I believe that if it were not for the Maccabees, Judaism might have disappeared. They stood up for God in a world that was secular and self centered. Their then inspires me now.
Happy Chanukah!
What I Love About Christmas, by Rabbi Marc Gellman
I admit to being attracted to the glitz and glitter of Christmas. I love the carols and the trees and the music and I don’t even mind that one of our guys (Irving Berlin) wrote “White Christmas.” But most of all, I love the message of Christmas.
The birth of a Messiah who is sent to save the world from evil and return us to the saving words of God is a hope I share in my soul, too. The fact that I do not share the belief that the baby Jesus was the promised one does not dim my ardor for the day when the Messiah I will recognize will be born and announced to the world.
Perhaps, as my tradition teaches, the announcement of the Messiah will be made by Elijah the prophet riding on a white donkey coming over the hills near Safed in Israel, or perhaps Tommy and his faith are correct in their belief that it will indeed be Jesus returning to finish his Messianic work on that great day.
Either way, I take from Christmas every year new hope in our common belief that some day, somehow, God will help us set things right in this broken world, and that some day, somehow, evil will be banished and hope will be triumphant.
I suppose it will matter on that wondrous day if the Messiah’s name is Ben David or Jesus of Nazareth, but I can’t help feeling in my soul in these glowing days that our common joy at receiving God’s appointed Messenger of Peace will be such an enfolding and encompassing joy that it won’t really matter quite so much what his name is.
For on that day, God will be one and His name will be one. It is that embodied hope that God will not abandon us to death and evil and suffering and pain and loss but will raise us all up to a new day of hope and love and freedom and life everlasting that puts a smile on my face at the sound of every carol and every bell.
Merry Christmas!
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