November 2013

Thanksgivukkah?

Because the Jewish and Gregorian calendars are calculated differently, Chanukah falls at different times each year. Though we usually celebrate Chanukah sometime in December, this year, for the first time since 1888, Chanukah falls on Thanksgiving. According to quantum physicist Jonathan Mizrahi, this won’t happen again until 2070, then again in 2165, and then not until 76,695.

What are we to make of this convergence? How can we use it as an opportunity for learning and reflection, to deepen our experience of both holidays?

Well, first of all, this year brings a whole new array of holiday delectables. Some ideas from www.todayshow.com include sweet potato latkes with cranberry sauce, challah turkey (or “Tofurky”) stuffing, and cranberry raspberry sufganiyot (jelly donuts) with chocolate “gelt” sauce. Yum!

On perhaps a deeper level, as Rabbi Michael Simon teaches in a thought-provoking article in the Wall Street Journal, we can find new meaning in both holidays by learning about their common Biblical origin. Back in the time of the Chanukah story, the Macabees weren’t able to celebrate Sukkot at the appointed time, because they were hiding from the Greeks. So, once they were free and able to rededicate the Temple, they created Chanukah, an eight-day festival of thanksgiving modeled after Sukkot. Further, they thought it appropriate to rededicate the Temple on such a festival, since King Solomon had dedicated the First Temple on Sukkot.

Similarly, when the pilgrims came to America, they wanted a way to celebrate the bounty they encountered. As deeply religious people, they looked to the Bible for a holiday that expressed gratitude, and found Sukkot, the Jewish harvest festival. So, they created Thanksgiving and held a festive meal that honored both their religious roots and their new land. Thus, celebrating our festival of lights amidst Thanksgiving reminds us that Chanukah is really also about giving thanks and appreciating the bounty that we have.

Finally, both Chanukah and Thanksgiving lift up the value of religious freedom. As the stories go, the Maccabees won their freedom to practice Judaism despite the Greeks’ prohibitions, and the pilgrims won freedom from religious persecution in England. The stories remind us to celebrate and work for religious freedom today here in America and around the world.

Ironically, however, both of these stories are more complicated. As Rabbi Simon teaches, though the pilgrims did gain religious freedom for themselves, they were not advocates of religious freedom for others. Fortunately for America and the world, instead of following the Plymouth Pilgrim’s theocratic community, which brought us the witch trials and other stories of intolerance, America wound up following the lead of another Puritan – Roger Williams. Though he was banished for doing so, Williams championed a separation of church and state, and eventually won the day.

And this brings us back to Chanukah. As Rabbi Simon writes, contrary to popular belief, though “the Maccabees were fighting for freedom from Greek occupation and oppression, they were not fighting for religious freedom.” They themselves were Hellenized. They took on Greek names and ways of dressing, and the very act of dedicating a building after a military victory was a Greek, not Jewish tradition. The Maccabees were fighting a civil war with the Jews of their day that they saw as even more Hellenized, whose practices they did not approve of. As Rabbi Simon writes, Like the Puritans who landed at Plymouth Rock, the Maccabees had a very narrow view of who and what they would accept when it came to religious.”

So what do we do with these myths about both holidays, when we know that even their heroes didn’t fully live out the very values their stories teach us? Well, as Rabbi Cohen writes, myths “are one of the vehicles where societies safeguard their values. In the case of Thanksgiving and Chanukah, we have decided that religious freedom is something we sacred, and have chosen to celebrate it through both these holidays.” And that is something for which we can be thankful indeed.