“Chanukah is fundamentally an ambiguous holiday.”
— Rabbi Yossi Sapirman
When we think about the Festival of Lights, the word “controversy” generally isn’t the first thing to come to mind.
Yet the history of this holiday period does raise a few questions...
Two well-known stories help to shape our understanding and celebration of Chanukah.
The first story is the miracle of the oil that kept the lights burning in the temple for eight days, despite only being enough for one. The second is the Jewish military victory over the Greeks.
While the oil story is a celebration of light, gratitude, and peace, the military victory is a celebration of triumph through force. It’s been suggested that the story of the miraculous oil was created in order to demilitarize the celebration of Chanukah.
With two such disparate and almost contradictory themes, how do we recognize, acknowledge, and honour both faces of Chanukah?
In this episode of Living Jewishly, Dr. Elliot Malamet, Rabbi Yossi Sapirman, and Rabbi Bluth shed light on the multitude of themes that make Chanukah such a rich, beautiful period of celebration and thanksgiving.
Listen to this episode, and then visit livingjewishly.org/channukah to download the Living Jewishly Chanukah Guide.
“We do look toward history and draw it into our lives today… in some ways, having a wide spread of lessons and themes doesn’t bother me too much. The question for me is: how are we applying it?”
— Bluth
This episode discusses:
Highlights:
00:51 Intro
01:42 Multiple narratives & the sages
04:28 Curation of holiday experiences
06:16 The Maccabees & Jewish sovereignty
08:30 Challenges of diaspora & assimilation
11:30 Ambiguity of Chanukah
14:07 Dichotomy, schism & anxiety
15:28 The “gift bribe”
17:50 Pluralism & assimilation
21:07 Creating identity through practice
25:38 The home
29:10 Diwali
30:20 Chanukah teachings
33:53 Poetry & final messages
Links:
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Shalom!
