The Unitarian Universalist Community Church of Santa Monica

"A Ritual Memory"

Each time I prepare for a Hanukkah service here,
        I have to question whether we can rightfully celebrate it
                in a Unitarian Universalist context.
The central story of Hanukkah,
        about the fervent Maccabees
                and their resistance to Hellenistic culture,
                        teaches Jews to resist assimilation
                                and to defend their tradition from
                                    outside influences.
The Hanukkah tradition reinforces Jewish identity
        and roots it in Jewish history.

We Unitarian Universalists have chosen
        to move beyond religious identity
                to create an intentionally pluralistic environment
                        in which people of all religious backgrounds may 
                              participate.
We study Judaism and other religions
        so that we can appreciate
                and understand their history and message.
For those of us who practice Jewish customs,
        this approach helps keep alive the aspects of tradition
                that we cherish and find meaningful.
The Jewish heritage is not compromised,
        but it does take its place alongside
                the many other traditions
                        that have informed and inspired us,
                                and taught us who we are as one humanity.
And Hanukkah has more to teach us
        about who we are as one humanity
                than might initially appear on the surface.
The story tells how the Maccabees fought to keep their traditions
        and won their survival,
                celebrating with the rededication of the Holy Temple of 
                      Jerusalem.
But the story of the Maccabees' triumph
        did not survive in Jewish scripture.
You cannot find it in the Hebrew Bible.

The story survived in Greek,
        in the writings of the Hellenized Jews,
                assimilated Jews with worldly, secular ways.
The history of Hanukkah was preserved in writings
        the early Church fathers gathered from the Greeks
                and called "the Apocrypha."
If early Christians had not valued and saved these texts,
        the Hanukkah story would have been lost forever.

Ironically, a holiday that teaches a message opposed to assimilation
        would never have survived if the assimilated Jews
                had not recorded it in Greek!
It was not until the end of the nineteenth century,
        when barriers between Christian and Jewish biblical scholarship
            broke down,
                that Jews discovered the Christian apocryphal literature
                        and in it,
                                the original story of Hanukkah.
Hanukkah's proud message of Jewish identity
        offered a winter festival
                to counter the encroachment of Christmas.
Jewish scholar Arthur Waskow notes,
       "Hanukkah was reborn with much more emphasis on the Maccabees,
                on resistance to assimilation
                        and the defense of religious and ethnic pluralism,
                                on the giving of gifts,
                                        and on the pleasure of children.
"The ancient ironies of assimilation and pluralism," Waskow adds,
        "that had characterized Hanukkah from the beginning
                acted themselves out again,
                        as, in an attempt to differentiate themselves
                                from the people around them,
                                        the Jews made Hanukkah more like
                                             the holidays
                                                of those very peoples."

No religious tradition ever survives in its original state.
These winter holidays, including Hanukkah,
        are a layering of cultures and customs
                and a merging of themes from every influence available.
Everything is being assimilated all the time,
        for that is how humans gather stories,
                using every bit of folk lore and glitter they can find,
                        to make the telling more vivid and alive.
And that is how their message grows universal.

Even Hanukkah, which has a particular point of view,
        has accumulated influences
                and broadened its associations.
Arthur Waskow notes that Hanukkah may also have pagan references.
In recapturing the Temple from the Syrian Greeks,
        the Maccabeans performed their rededication ceremony
                during the solstice,
                        perhaps to rebut the pagan message.
Yet what may have started in opposition
        has retained the one element
                that everyone associates with the solstice:
                        the lighting of candles in the dark.

Despite its interfaith history and Christian and pagan influences,
        Hanukkah still teaches Jews important lessons
                about who they are.
It teaches them that they belong to a culture
        that has had to struggle to survive.
It teaches them that even when they were an oppressed minority,
        a small courageous band secured their freedom.
And it teaches them that Jews are like all people
        in that their customs
                and the deeper messages they contain
                        are yet another imaginative spiritual narrative
                                about what it means to be human.

The rituals we practice, such as lighting the menorah,
        connect us to specific meanings.
But they also give us a touchstone for memory,
        a way to associate, over time,
                with unconscious meanings
                        and their universal power.
The story I read the children
        offers an example of how that happens.

Rachel is a young Jewish girl
        who has gone to spend Hanukkah with her Grandma.
Grandma is recently widowed,
        and she and Rachel are still grieving their loss.
When it comes time to light the menorah,
        Rachel asks her Grandma why she uses such a funny, ugly one.
And Grandma tells the story of the menorah,
        how Grandpa made it for her
                when they were too poor to buy a fancy silver one.
Over time they cherished the hand-made menorah so much
        they kept the custom of using it every year.

In this story, Rachel learns that ritual objects,
        such as the menorah,
                contain important associations
                        and carry forward memories
                                that remind us of who we are.
The menorah is not simply an ugly, makeshift object.
It is the repository of something very sacred
        to Grandma and to Rachel:
                the love they feel for one who has gone.

So the menorah is not ugly after all.
It is beautiful,
        because it represents love,
                and family history,
                        and continuity that is achieved
                                only by returning to the same practice
                                        year after year.
When Rachel understands the meaning of the menorah,
        she is able to sense her GrandpaÕs presence once again.
Rachel learns about who she is,
        not only as someone with a specific religious history,
                but as a human being whose rituals
                        connect her to the strongest emotions and values
                              in her life.
That is a universal meaning,
        emerging from a particular point of view
                and arriving at a place
                        where all people can agree:
                                our rituals make us human.

The other rituals associated with Hanukkah
        convey varied themes.
The game of spinning the dreidl
        is frivolous and childlike.
The giving of Hanukkah gelt is intended to reward
        serious study of the Torah.

Food is another ritual
        thought to transmit memory.
According to Arthur Waskow,
        some of the Hanukkah customs
                "became a channel for the very Jewish approach
                        of taking an idea and giving it physical reality
                                in the form of food --
                                        so that eating the food
                                                would then recall the idea."
The eating of ritual food transfers the memory
        of who the Jewish people are
                from one generation to the next.
There is another universal human practice.
Can any holiday be truly
        what we need it to be without the foods that belong to it?
Recipes are ways of remembering
        the people who gave them to us,
                long after they are gone.
Our associations with rituals tell us who we are.
They give us specific, cultural or religious meanings
        that form our identity in one way,
                and they give us universal, human activities
                        that connect us to all people in another.

Perhaps the oldest, most universal theme
        in Hanukkah is the one the Maccabees tried hardest to resist:
                the assimilation of pagan practices
                        into religious life.
Whether the lighting of the candles in the Temple
        was the intentional appropriation of a pagan custom
                or a practice that was already part of Jewish culture --
                        and probably it was some of each --
                                we cannot escape the fact
                                        that here is yet another winter 
                                             festival
                                                in which humans are
                                                   lighting candles
                                                        in the dark.
When days grow short
        and people need the uplift of celebration and tradition,
                we turn to practices that are as old as fire
                        and as deeply embedded in our souls
                                as any memory can be.
We remember that in dark times 
        whether they are dark times for the soul
                or dark times for the Jewish people 
                        we can rise up and be fully ourselves.
What better way to commemorate that truth
        and carry it forward from one year to the next,
                than by lighting a candle as the sun goes down,
                        and telling the story of how it was done.
Each of the many stories of people standing up for themselves,
        of struggling to hold on to the traditions and meanings
                that make them who they are --
                        each of these stories deserves to be remembered,
                                and told,
                                        and treasured as evidence
                                                that without freedom,
                                                        people cannot be
                                                             truly human.
The stories also tell us
        that there is no end to the ways
                in which we see light in the darkness,
                        whether it is the turning of the earth
                                back towards the sun,
                                        or the courage of a people
                                                in the midst of oppression.
The themes may meet and merge,
        but that only adds to the depth of the meanings
                they hold for us.
They grow more universal with each passing year,
        and that is something we have every reason to celebrate.
The more complex and colorful the ritual life of humankind,
        the more connected we may all be
                to the experiences that we hold in common.
And in that connection,
        to universal meanings
                and common understandings,
                        however different our traditions may be,
                                we may find peace.      

Sources:
"Seasons of Our Joy," by Arthur Waskow (Boston: Beacon Press, 1982)
"The Ugly Menorah," by Marissa Moss (New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1996.)