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Happy Chanukah — 7 Comments

  1. Happy to you too.

    I read somewhere long ago – not in class – that the ascendance of Hanukkah to its current significance or emphasis was in part due to a desire to have a parallel celebration to Christmas.

    I have no idea if it is true or how one would go about actually demonstrating such a proposition. I think you would have to find a population of Jews somewhere who had no contact with western Christians to act as a baseline.

  2. DNW:

    I was told the same thing. Also don’t know whether it’s true, but it makes sense.

    The big Jewish holidays are Passover, Yom Kippur, and the Jewish New Year. There are many subsidiary holidays in Judaism, too, and Chanukah was apparently one of them. It’s still considered nowhere near as important as those I just listed, but it’s nice for the kiddies at Christmastime.

  3. It’s true — thirty years ago, when I lived in Israel, banks were open and schools were in session; there was no time off for Hanukkah. The holiday’s basis is outside of the Tanakh — the Book of Maccabees is not part of the cannon. It’s even subsidiary to the subsidiary holidays. But it’s fun, and I love donuts (the festive food in Israel for Hanukkah.)

    I have loved this song since I first got the CD it was on, about twenty years ago. I’ve always thought it would be great in a musical or a movie…

  4. ” … the Book of Maccabees is not part of the cannon.”

    Yeah but, not to be too flippant, it’s got some of the best stuff in it from a certain perspective.

    Almost as good as when Jehu riding up in a fury, demands of of the eunuchs peeping out of the upper story windows as to who is on his side or not. Then eying Griselda* the pagan wife and priestess or whatever she and her name was, says to them “Throw the bitch down!” … or something along those lines.

    Or Joab’s sneeringly dismissive remark to the guy who comes panting up to him that he has seen Absolom:

    ” And a certain man saw it, and told Joab, and said, Behold, I saw Absalom hanged in an oak.

    And Joab said unto the man that told him, And, behold, thou sawest him, and why didst thou not smite him there to the ground? and I would have given thee ten shekels of silver, and a girdle. “

    Of course from a strictly spiritual aspect they may lack something I guess.

    * Yeah yeah, I know I know …

  5. I had a Jewish boss once, long ago. And after the holiday, and knowing something of Jewish history, I asked him if he had “had a holy holiday” … “or if he had spent it laying on a couch eating chips and watching ball games.”

    During that same sentence I could see his face go from seeming bewilderment at what he (I later surmised) was apparently imagining as an insult in the process of being delivered, to a recognition that it was a sympathetic challenge.

    He acknowledged, apparently touched, that he had indeed tried to have a genuine holiday and to live its meaning.

    I wish the same success for any other Jewish folks who might, as Neo’s visitors, read this.

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