The Chanukah story
Dec. 14th, 2005 06:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bnewmanI may be getting over my profound ambivalence about Chanukah.
The problem with identifying the darkness of winter with Hellenic civilization is that Hellenic civilization is pretty neat. The problem with identifying the darkness of winter with the tyranny of Antiochus "Epiphanes" is that winter is part of a natural cycle which is necessary for many living things, while the tyranny of religious oppression rooted in hubris is wholly evil and should indeed be banished from the world forever, if it's ever convenient to do so.
Worse, the conflict we commemorate on Chanukah wasn't primarily between my ancestors and their external oppressors — it was between Jews who wanted a culture free of outside influences and Jews who wanted to be part of a larger world culture. The Maccabees may, at that moment in history, have been right about what they had to do to preserve the Jewish people, but that doesn't make them any less like the Taliban. Moral of the story: Fundamentalist Jews should tell wishy-washy cosmopolitan pagan Jews to get back in line.
Needless to say, I cannot really integrate this story into my own. So, here's a less historically charged story:
Once upon a time, it was dark, which is bad. Then, with divine help, it got brighter, which is better. Moral of the story: When it gets dark, have faith that it will get brighter again.
That's a perfectly good story, but it's exactly the same as everyone else's, so if that's the best we can do, I'll just be pagan at this time of year, if it's all the same.
What we need is a version of the Chanukah story which abstracts over just some of the details, not all of them. Like this:
There's a light in each of us. Sometimes, people will ask us to hide our light. They may threaten us with exclusion if we let our light shine, or with violence. And we may sometimes give in, and hide our light, and it may even seem to go out entirely. At times like this, we may look within, and take stock of the inner resources that we have for the rekindling of our light, and they may seem inadequate. But, if we dedicate ourselves to letting our light shine, in order to increase the light in the world, then whatever we need to rekindle our light will be given to us, in the form of the very resources we already had, but thought were inadequate.
That's much better, isn't it? Moral of the story: Let your light shine. If anyone tries to tell you not to, kick their ass. I'll help.
I especially like how this new version encourages me to integrate my Judaism with a wishy-washy, cosmoplitan paganism — hey, that's my light, I'm gonna let it shine. At least it's not a state-sponsored, monomaniac-pandering cosmopolitan paganism. That would be wholly evil.
The problem with identifying the darkness of winter with Hellenic civilization is that Hellenic civilization is pretty neat. The problem with identifying the darkness of winter with the tyranny of Antiochus "Epiphanes" is that winter is part of a natural cycle which is necessary for many living things, while the tyranny of religious oppression rooted in hubris is wholly evil and should indeed be banished from the world forever, if it's ever convenient to do so.
Worse, the conflict we commemorate on Chanukah wasn't primarily between my ancestors and their external oppressors — it was between Jews who wanted a culture free of outside influences and Jews who wanted to be part of a larger world culture. The Maccabees may, at that moment in history, have been right about what they had to do to preserve the Jewish people, but that doesn't make them any less like the Taliban. Moral of the story: Fundamentalist Jews should tell wishy-washy cosmopolitan pagan Jews to get back in line.
Needless to say, I cannot really integrate this story into my own. So, here's a less historically charged story:
Once upon a time, it was dark, which is bad. Then, with divine help, it got brighter, which is better. Moral of the story: When it gets dark, have faith that it will get brighter again.
That's a perfectly good story, but it's exactly the same as everyone else's, so if that's the best we can do, I'll just be pagan at this time of year, if it's all the same.
What we need is a version of the Chanukah story which abstracts over just some of the details, not all of them. Like this:
There's a light in each of us. Sometimes, people will ask us to hide our light. They may threaten us with exclusion if we let our light shine, or with violence. And we may sometimes give in, and hide our light, and it may even seem to go out entirely. At times like this, we may look within, and take stock of the inner resources that we have for the rekindling of our light, and they may seem inadequate. But, if we dedicate ourselves to letting our light shine, in order to increase the light in the world, then whatever we need to rekindle our light will be given to us, in the form of the very resources we already had, but thought were inadequate.
That's much better, isn't it? Moral of the story: Let your light shine. If anyone tries to tell you not to, kick their ass. I'll help.
I especially like how this new version encourages me to integrate my Judaism with a wishy-washy, cosmoplitan paganism — hey, that's my light, I'm gonna let it shine. At least it's not a state-sponsored, monomaniac-pandering cosmopolitan paganism. That would be wholly evil.
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(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-15 02:30 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-15 08:02 pm (UTC)*googles "Festivus"* Wow, that's bizarre.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-15 08:18 pm (UTC)It's amazing how mass-media and pop-culture can create holidays out of whole-cloth. Fifty or 100 years from now, will Festivus and Kwanzaa seem as normal as Mother's Day and Valentine's Day do now? Kwanzaa is already thirty-nine years old, and it still seems very contrived and unnatural to me. While Mother's Day (proclaimed by Woodrow Wilson in 1914 after a half-century of growing popularity started by the suffrage movement) and Valentine's Day (first mass-produced sweetheart cards produced in 1847) feel pretty much normal, and Thanksgiving (1863) completely so even though everyone knows it was made up.
Wow, I knew Father's Day came about later than Mother's Day, but did not know it wasn't official until 1972! (But first celebrated in 1910.)
I'm guessing that since only 1.6% of consumers say they celebrate Kwanzaa, that it's not just because I'm white that I don't feel like it's a natural holiday, but maybe it biases me. Chanukah, Ramadan, Chinese New Year, etc, totally natural, though.