Hear Our Voice

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I know it’s more than a month until we light the first Chanukah candle (December 25 to be exact!), but Chanukah is very much already on my mind! Why? Because it’s the festival of the messy pursuit of freedom. And because it reminds me of Thanksgiving,
another holiday that seeks to raise up the messy pursuit of freedom. How do we know its messy?

Well, let’s just use these two examples to test my hypothesis that the pursuit of freedom is almost always messy. For Chanukah, we have two very different origin stories: the far more well known version that out of nowhere, the bad guy Syrian Greeks made
Jewish observance illegal, defaced and occupied the ancient temple in Jerusalem, and once the tiny band of Maccabees took back the temple from the ferocious warring host (not so miraculous apparently), they cleaned the temple but found only enough oil for the Eternal Light to last for one night, and miracle of miracles, it lasted for 8. Miracles abound! And to celebrate, what do we do? We light our Chanukiot, with an additional candle each successive night, in order to celebrate God’s miracle of abundance.

But the other, much better sourced and historically situated version, is that, practically inventing the concept of guerilla war tactics, the Maccabees’ ferocity push the Syrian Greeks out of Jerusalem. And then, a couple months late for the holiest of the chaggim, Sukkot – an 8 day festival, the Maccabees nonetheless celebrate Sukkot - better late than never! They then write to their brethren in Alexandria, Egypt, of their conquest and of their “inaugurating” a new holy day- “Sukkot Sheni” (second Sukkot) which they encourage others to observe in the years to come. (All of this second version can be found in the writings of Philo and the first and second books of Maccabees. The first version or “re-write” is written down in the Talmud hundreds of years later.)

With Thanksgiving, we are also challenged by at least two different versions. Which one reigns in your homes, at your tables, in your mind? Is it the one in which the pilgrims and the Indians sit down and break bread together, recognizing the reality of
each other and hoped for promise of peaceful co-existence? Or is it the one in which, following the meal, each side of the table tries to slaughter the other?

Freedom is messy. And the stories we tell about it say so much more about us than the reality of events that happened thousands or hundreds of years ago. Which version do you want to listen for and share in, this Thanksgiving? My advice? Think carefully, speak wisely, and have seconds!