Each year as we approach the winter holiday season, Unitarian Universalists have their own ritual, which is asking ourselves “What do we celebrate and why do we celebrate it?” How do we authentically live out our common UU tradition, and our diversity of heritage and belief? Over many years of this annual reflection, we in the Athens congregation came to the conclusion that we wanted to find a way to honor Hanukkah for a few reasons.
First, because members of our congregation are Jewish, and asked us to. The simple act of lighting a menorah and telling a story in our shared worship has served as a reminder that who we are in this congregation and who we are as UUs includes those of us who are Jewish.
One year as we discussed this question, Marcia asked us specifically to honor Hanukkah in our morning worship, despite the fact that usually the Hanukkah candles are only lit at night, because one of her own neighbors had said he didn’t think anyone Jewish lived in the valley, where the Athens congregation is located. So we honor Hanukkah to proudly embody our religious diversity here in our congregations and in our larger communities.
We remember Hanukkah to remind ourselves of the relationship of UU and Judaism. In 1980 a group called Unitarian Universalists for Jewish Awareness (UUJA) was founded, committed to supporting Unitarian Universalist Jewish multi-religiosity. They offer resources to: “those who have come to Unitarian Universalism from Judaism” UUs like Rev. Joanna Lubkin who offered our Hanukkah blessing this morning, and Rev. Lynn Ungar whose beautiful poetry inspired us today and on many other occasions, who are living out what it means to be both UU and Jewish.[i] Our UU community is committed to supporting “interfaith/multi-religious individuals and families.” I know that many of you have shared with us that you were raised in another tradition, be it Jewish or Catholic, Buddhist, Methodist or Hindu. Some of us choose to leave behind those other traditions, but some of us authentically feel those formative traditions are still part of who we are. We strive to make our UU communities a place where such “multireligiousity” can be supported and explored.
It is because we are a multireligious community that we find ourselves asking year after year “what do we celebrate and why do we celebrate it?” A touchstone phrase I find helpful in this inquiry is “not about us without us.” Not being Jewish myself, as I prepared this service, I went to visit the UUJA site, and I checked in again with our Jewish members and friends, and asked if they had any concerns, preferences, or guidance they were willing to offer for this service today. Marcia wrote back and offered this reminder: “Chanukah is so not an important holiday. It is barely celebrated in Israel. Of course, there is the lighting of the menorah. Chanukah is only celebrated as it is in this country because of its proximity to Christmas. Jewish kids need something special this time of year. It is almost like a secular Jewish tradition, instead of a real Jewish holiday.”
Jeff offered this reflection: “The story of Hanukah appears in the Book of Maccabees, which is not in the Old Testament. Nor the New Testament. It's in the apocrypha. This was considered a minor holiday, and not really the big deal that modern times have made it out to be. It was illegal to be Jewish during the reign of the Greeks in Israel. So when folks gathered to study the Torah, they would have someone on lookout and when the cops came by, he would warn the scholars. They would put their Torah away, and take out the dreidel… The scholars would act like they were gambling -- small change ("gelt"), nuts, anything one could use as "chips". That is why gifts are given for the eight days. But these gifts are supposed to be (if we were following the tradition) something small that can be gambled - coins, nuts, M&Ms, etc. Giving a video game console is NOT in the spirit of Hanukah (or some other expensive gift) The idea of giving expensive gifts, I believe, was co-opted by Christians, to "include" Jews in the Christmas holiday.”
Indeed, many of my Jewish friends and family over the years have expressed frustration with the way their Christian and UU neighbors conflate Hanukkah and Christmas as if they are equivalent, and our society promotes that idea in many subtle and not so subtle ways. So one reason we mark Hanukkah today is to promote religious literacy, to give us a slightly deeper understanding of the holiday, including misunderstandings about it. It’s a reminder, for those of us who are not Jewish, to be respectful about what this season means to those of us who are Jewish. So, for example, making a big deal out of Hanukkah if you are not Jewish can be a micro-aggression, since traditionally it is a minor holiday. If we are not Jewish, we de-center ourselves, let our Jewish friends and neighbors take the lead, and respect their wishes. If your Jewish friends have a different take on the holiday, listen to that too. It’s not about getting it “right” and doing it one way forever, it’s about relationship. Jewish UUs have all kinds of ideas and feelings about this holiday, and about their relationship of Judaism and UU, So as part of our UU practice we listen with open minds and hearts, and learn, and grow.
Marcia sent me an article by Rabbi David Golinkin which told me something surprising about the dreidel tradition:
“The dreidel game originally had nothing to do with Hanukkah; it has been played by various people in various languages for many centuries.
In England and Ireland there is a game called totum or teetotum that is especially popular at Christmastime. In English, this game is first mentioned as “totum” ca. 1500-1520. The name comes from the Latin “totum,” which means “all.” By 1720, the game was called T- totum or teetotum, and by 1801 the four letters already represented four words in English: T = Take all; H = Half; P = Put down; and N = Nothing.
Our Eastern European game of dreidel (including the letters nun, gimmel, hey, shin) is directly based on the German equivalent of the totum game... In German, the spinning top was called a “torrel” or “trundl,” and in Yiddish it was called a “dreidel,” …
Thus the dreidel game represents an irony of Jewish history. In order to celebrate the holiday of Hanukkah, which celebrates our victory over cultural assimilation, we play the dreidel game, which is an excellent example of cultural assimilation!”[ii]
So this year for us the dreidel can be a symbol of that cultural mixing that happens whenever we live in community together, and that tension of loyalty to our heritage and that natural sharing and growing that happens in community.
Finally, we honor Hanukkah because Judaism is one of the sources of wisdom for our UU faith. Without appropriating the holiday if we are not Jewish, we can still see the important religious values and symbols in the story of this holiday. The holiday, and the traditions and stories which surround it can have many meanings, but this year I am drawn to the importance of Hanukkah as a story of religious freedom. Of the courage it takes to practice your own faith when you are a minority, when you are encountering oppression. The story of Hanukkah reminds us to be grateful that we are able to practice our UU faith openly today, and reminds us of our commitment to fight for religious freedom for everyone so that our children and their children can practice their faith. As John Sigismund, the Unitarian King of Transylvania, wrote in his edict of tolerance back in 1586, if people are not free to practice their own faith “no one shall compel them for their souls would not be satisfied”… “ for faith is the gift of God, this comes from hearing, which hearing is by the word of God.” — Edict of Torda
Today I want to encourage those of us who have always been able to worship freely, have always had the freedom to claim our religious identity and heritage to notice that privilege, and imagine what it would be like to live without it. There are many interpretations and stories about the origin of the dreidel, but this year I am resonating with that 19th-century rabbinic story “that Jews played with the dreidel in order to fool the Greeks if they were caught studying Torah, which had been outlawed”[iii].
Let the dreidel from your goodie bag be a touchstone for these ideas- for religious freedom, for respect and gratitude for the ancient faith tradition that is Judaism, for the way our traditions transform us and are transformed by us in community, and (for those of us who are not Jewish) for navigating how we respectfully engage with one another’s traditions. To quote Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, Jewish philosopher and theologian “We need, in the 21st century, a global Chanukah: a festival of freedom for all the world’s faiths. For though my faith is not yours and your faith is not mine, if we are each free to light our own flame, together we can banish some of the darkness of the world.”[iv]
Notes:
Even the spelling of "Hanukah" is different from source to source, since it is a transliteration of a Hebrew word. I have included here whatever original spelling was used in my source material.
[i] Another moving testimony about being multi faith is here: https://www.uuworld.org/articles/orthodox-jewish-wisdom-religious-liberals
[ii] "The Surprising Origin of the Dreidel The well-known Hanukkah symbol has Christmastime roots."
By Rabbi David Golinkin https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/the-origin-of-the-dreidel/
[iii] https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/the-origin-of-the-dreidel/
[iv] https://rabbisacks.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/CandC-Chanukah-5.pdf
"Why Chanukah is the Perfect Festival for Religious Freedom", The Washington Post
(7 December 2015).
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