Hanukkah/Chanukah
Rev. Paul Sprecher
Second Parish in Hingham
December 10, 2006
Hanukkah begins next Thursday. You may wonder why the dual title for the sermon, but perhaps the centering thought provides a clue. While our responsive reading used the first spelling, an invitation I received for a Chanukah Cantors’ Concert next Saturday night at Congregation Sha'aray Shalom right down Main Street here uses the latter spelling. Hanukkah, Chanukah, neither can quite capture the Hebrew spelling or pronunciation. So why are we talking about it here, anyway, in the middle of Advent, while we’re telling our children about Angels, rehearsing next week’s Christmas Pageant, and lighting an advent wreath?
In our Unitarian Universalist tradition, we remember this holiday because it symbolizes the quest for freedom of religion with which Unitarians and Universalists have long been associated. We are heretics in our traditions, and honoring diversity of belief is reflected in our fifth principle, which affirms freedom of conscience (as well as the use of the democratic process) and also our fourth principle, our commitment to “a free and responsible search for truth and meaning.” As John Haynes Holmes, minister of Community Church in New York put it when he was standing almost alone in his opposition to World War I: “Certainly it would be difficult to name our reason for being [as Unitarians] if the privilege of non-conformity were denied or even threatened among us. By tradition and by practice we are dissenters.” The Unitarian Arius was defeated by the Trinitarian writers of the Nicene Creed in 325 A.D. and some of his fellow heretics—as they then became—were murdered by the Roman army. Origen, the first Church Father who taught the doctrine of Universalism around 200 A.D., was declared a heretic 400 years later. Michael Servetus, the anti-Trinitarian who dared to challenge both the Catholic and the Protestant leaders during the time of the Reformation, was burned at the stake complete with his writings at the instigation of John Calvin, founder of Calvinism, in 1553.
The Unitarians of Transylvania, who trace their roots back to the era of the Reformation in the early 1500’s, have suffered terrible persecution for their beliefs, most recently under the Communist regime of Caescescu, and suppression of their beliefs ended only in 1990 after the Romanian revolution which toppled that regime. Here in the colonies, Universalism was bitterly opposed by the Standing Order Churches of Massachusetts like this one. The members of the church in Glouster, led by Universalist founder John Murray, were taxed to pay for the teaching of the doctrines of Calvinism which were anathema to them, some risking their property or being denied public office for their belief—for how could anyone who didn’t believe in eternal damnation for sinners couldn’t possibly lead a moral or ethical life?
In our own time, the courageous stand many of our members took in support of Martin Luther King, Jr., resulted in the martyrdom of two of members in 1965 as part of the struggle for voting rights in Selma, Alabama: Rev. James Reeb of Boston and Viola Liuzzo of Detroit. We have not been strangers to persecution in our tradition. In working last year for our Church of the Larger Fellowship (which serves Unitarian Universalists who are far from our churches and societies, shut in or elderly, or for some other reason unable to join in our local communities for fellowship), I heard from Unitarian Universalists who were afraid to breathe their true beliefs in the midst of the Bible Belt for fear their children or they would be singled out for bullying and derision—or for unwelcome proselytizing.
We have in our tradition a willingness to stand by our beliefs and insist on doing what our conscience demands, but we have also learned from our history that standing for our own freedom of conscience also means standing for the same rights for others. It is for that reason that we enforce no creed as a condition of membership, because we do not believe that any person, clergy or lay, can dictate to another what they must believe in their hearts. So what does that have to do with Chanukah? Candles? Eight Days? Peter Yarrow? Stories of parakeets? The story is behind the feast is deceptively simple. A Greek king, Antiochus IV Epiphanes (meaning “God Manifest” or “The Shining One”) came to power over the area including Palestine in 175 B.C. The Jewish leadership was divided among those who wished to adopt the advanced, cosmopolitan ways of the Greeks—call them secularizers, if you will—and those who were determined to obey the laws of Moses in the manner of their fathers—call them Fundamentalists, if you will. The latter term is, of course, an anachronism, since Fundamentalism is very much a Twentieth Century phenomenon, but it provides us a point of comparison. Orthodox or traditional are other terms we might use for this faction.
The story is mostly told in the apocryphal book of II Maccabees. It happened that there was factionalism even among those who wished to adopt Greek ways, but one of them, Jason, gave a bribe to win the high priesthood in Jerusalem. He then collaborated with Antiochus IV Epiphanes to undermine the practice of Judaism. According to 2 Maccabees 4,
12 [Jason] took delight in establishing a gymnasium right under the citadel, and he induced the noblest of the young men to wear the Greek hat. 13 There was such an extreme of Hellenization and increase in the adoption of foreign ways because of the surpassing wickedness of Jason, who was ungodly and no true1 high priest, 14 that the priests were no longer intent upon their service at the altar. Despising the sanctuary and neglecting the sacrifices, they hurried to take part in the unlawful proceedings in the wrestling arena after the signal for the discus-throwing, 15 disdaining the honors prized by their ancestors and putting the highest value upon Greek forms of prestige. [2 Macc 6:] 3 Harsh and utterly grievous was the onslaught of evil…. 5 The altar was covered with abominable offerings that were forbidden by the laws [of Moses]. 6 People could neither keep the sabbath, nor observe the festivals of their ancestors, nor so much as confess themselves to be Jews.
An elderly scribe of high repute named Eleazar was ordered to eat pork but spat it out; he was threatened with the rack and a friend urged him to pretend to obey but actually eat something kosher they would supply.
24 "Such pretense is not worthy of our time of life," he said, "for many of the young might suppose that Eleazar in his ninetieth year had gone over to an alien religion, 25 and through my pretense, for the sake of living a brief moment longer, they would be led astray because of me, while I defile and disgrace my old age. 26 Even if for the present I would avoid the punishment of mortals, yet whether I live or die I shall not escape the hands of the Almighty. 27 Therefore, by bravely giving up my life now, I will show myself worthy of my old age 28 and leave to the young a noble example of how to die a good death willingly and nobly for the revered and holy laws." When he had said this, he went1 at once to the rack.
NRS [2 Maccabees 7:1] It happened also that seven brothers and their mother were arrested and were being compelled by the king, under torture with whips and thongs, to partake of unlawful swine's flesh. 2 One of them, acting as their spokesman, said, "What do you intend to ask and learn from us? For we are ready to die rather than transgress the laws of our ancestors."
They were each tortured and killed, one after the other, all in the sight of their mother. I’ll spare you the gory details, but suffice it to say the Mel Gibson would find here more than enough materials for a movie at least as shocking and horrifying as The Crucifixion. It is in the telling of this story of the mother and her seven obedient sons that we first see a clear articulation within Judaism of a new expectation of resurrection and a vivid picture of heavenly bliss which in turn encourages the pursuit of martyrdom. The story continues:
2 Macc. 7:20 The mother was especially admirable and worthy of honorable memory. Although she saw her seven sons perish within a single day, she bore it with good courage because of her hope in the Lord…. 23 [She said, “T]he Creator of the world, who shaped the beginning of humankind and devised the origin of all things, will in his mercy give life and breath back to you again, since you now forget yourselves for the sake of his laws."
This terrible persecution did not go unanswered. When the king’s officers attempted to enforce their apostasy in the town of Modein, they called upon one of the priests in the town, Mattathias, to offer the sacrifice to their idols.
1 Macc 2: 19 But Mattathias answered and said in a loud voice: "Even if all the nations that live under the rule of the king obey him, and have chosen to obey his commandments, everyone of them abandoning the religion of their ancestors, 20 I and my sons and my brothers will continue to live by the covenant of our ancestors. 21 Far be it from us to desert the law and the ordinances. 22 We will not obey the king's words by turning aside from our religion to the right hand or to the left."
When another townsman came forward to offer the sacrifice in his place, Mattathias ran him through with his sword, did the same to the king’s officer for good measure, and then tore down the desecrated altar. He called on his fellow townsmen to revolt against the foreigners, saying "Let every one who is zealous for the law and supports the covenant come out with me!" [1 Macc. 2:27]; and he and his sons and many followers went to the wilderness to live with their families and their livestock to escape the persecution and to begin a campaign of guerilla warfare against the tyrant and his commands.
They were fortunate that the king, who had an unduly high opinion of himself—indeed, considered himself divine and able, for example, to walk on water—overextended himself in his elation and found himself fighting battles on several fronts and unable to hurry back to Palestine at once to quell the rebellion. When he finally realized how serious the matter was, he rushed back in a rage but was stricken on the way by a mysterious and disgusting illness which left him unable to marshal his forces for battle. After his untimely death, the rebels under the leadership of Mattathias’ son Judas Maccabeus retook the city of Jerusalem and the temple, drove the Greeks from the city and their land, and rededicated the profaned sanctuary to the Lord God of Israel. As the story ends, we learn that
2 Macc. 10:6 They celebrated it for eight days with rejoicing, in the manner of the festival of booths, remembering how not long before, during the festival of booths, they had been wandering in the mountains and caves like wild animals. 7 Therefore, carrying ivy-wreathed wands and beautiful branches and also fronds of palm, they offered hymns of thanksgiving to him who had given success to the purifying of his own holy place. 8 They decreed by public edict, ratified by vote, that the whole nation of the Jews should observe these days every year.
Hence the celebration of Chanukah on the 25th day of the month of Chislev in the Jewish calendar each year. The miracle of the oil, of which we sang in Peter Yarrow’s song “Don’t Let The Light Go Out,” was not recorded until the writing of the Talmud, hundreds of years after the events of this story were originally set down. The eight days of the festival were part of the original story because the battle had been hard and dangerous and so the celebration at its end was also long. However, Chanukah has long been associated with miracles, for it was truly a miracle that the Jewish people stood up and defeated the tyrant Antiochus IV Epiphanes and even more of a miracle that illness struck him just as he was racing back to exact revenge on them for the defeats they had inflicted upon him. Hence the miracle of the oil lasting for eight days is hardly a stretch against the much greater events which are their background. Isaac Bashevis Singer has a Rabbi in one of his other stories from the collection I read earlier speak of miracles this way:
Some people think that in olden times miracles were more frequent than today. That is not true. The truth is that miracles were rare in all times. If too many miracles occurred, people would rely on them too much. Free choice would cease. The Powers on High want men to do things, make an effort, not to be lazy. But there are cases where only a miracle can save a man.[1]
And so the holiday is often celebrated as a special holiday for children, with gifts and stories—tall tales, sometimes—of olden times and miracles and wonders.
I would like to suggest there’s more to this festival than stories for children and latkes. I mentioned earlier that Mel Gibson could make a moving if blood-curdling movie about the events which led to the festival of lights, Chanukah. It seems he is in fact contemplating such a movie, based on a novel by Howard Fast entitled My Glorious Brothers. Gibson, as it happens, is part of a particularly narrow and Fundamentalist offshoot of Roman Catholicism, and for Gibson the story is about the struggle of true believers against secularization. Let’s take ourselves back to the story from Maccabees again. This was a struggle between rational, cosmopolitan Greeks on the one hand and reactionary, orthodox holdouts on the other. Let’s ignore the persecution and torture that accompanied the tyrant’s crude methods for the moment. Faced with a choice between these options—broadminded, scientific, rational, skeptical Greeks vs. narrow-minded, reactionary true believers, where would we really side? If the assimilation process had been allowed to go on for a few generations in peace, as some of the Jewish leaders wanted in the first place, Judaism as such might well have ceased to exist. As it happened, the violence and coercion as well as the reality of foreign occupation created a deeply felt opposition from the population and resulted in a violent war of liberation. Without the violence, though, I rather think I might have sided with the Greeks. Indeed, in my own religious history, I have sided with the religious liberals against the orthodox, and this is in effect what that choice was about—except that, as I have discovered, I’m not really a secularist at all, but a religious liberal.
There are those in this society and around the world who feel that their world, their way of life, and their beliefs are being torn from them by modern, secular, western society. Such believers exist within Christianity, within Islam, within Buddhism, among Shintos in Japan and in many other places. Some of them are prepared to take strong measures to preserve and protect their ways of life. It is not surprising that our own more liberal values sometimes conflict with theirs. Even in our own congregation, we have political liberals and conservatives, some threatened by change and some who welcome it.
Our way as a religious tradition has been to extend toleration to all faiths. The first decree of religious toleration was issued by the Unitarian King Sigismund of Transylvania in 1568 at a time when the rest of Europe was convulsed by wars over religion. The descendants of those who issued that edict of toleration were themselves persecuted by others over the years, but they and we have never abandoned the commitment to the right of conscience and the right of each person to pursue “a free and responsible search for truth and meaning.” We will face challenges in coming years from those who would insist on conformity with their narrow ways. Our nation is facing threats from Muslims who believe that our way of life is threatening their most deeply held beliefs. How are we to respond to these threats to our own most deeply held beliefs, indeed to our very safety?
The first step, I believe, must be to reach out to strangers close at hand, to learn how to love neighbors to whom we have an instant aversion—Samaritans, shall we say, or Muslims, or Christian Fundamentalists, or political liberals if we are conservative and vice versa—and learn to love them as ourselves. Our Friday night Soup and Hot Topics are one way for us as a community to gather and learn from each other and learn to talk and listen compassionately to our differences and our similarities. We, too, are religious people, and we, too, are threatened by a secularized culture of unremitting commercialism and materialism, pointedly during this holiday season. My spiritual companions, We live in one world. We are all children of the earth, of the universe, of God if you will, and we have only this home which we have been given to share. We must, God willing, learn how to love our neighbors and perhaps to teach tolerance as we practice it to the best of our ability.
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