Hanukkah: A Time For Remembering and Responsibility

Hanukkah is a both/and kind of holiday.

It’s a celebration of a martial victory, a successful resistance to a predatory colonial empire. As we say in our Hanukkah addition to the daily prayer, when “the wicked Hellenic government rose up against Your people Israel to make them forget Your Torah and violate the decrees of Your will … You, in Your abounding mercies, stood by them in the time of their distress. You waged their battles, defended their rights, and avenged the wrong done to them. You delivered the mighty into the hands of the weak, the many into the hands of the few, the impure into the hands of the pure, the wicked into the hands of the righteous, and the wanton sinners into the hands of those who occupy themselves with Your Torah.”

There’s no doubt that this is a stunning victory worth celebrating.

But Hanukkah is also a celebration of a different kind of miracle—a spiritual victory that shines brightly each year as we light candles in remembrance. We learn in Talmud Bavli Shabbat 21b, “What is Hanukkah? Our Rabbis taught: On the twenty-fifth of Kislev [commence] the days of Hanukkah, which are eight, and we do not lament the dead during them and we do not fast during them. For when the Greeks entered the Temple, they defiled all the oils there, and when the Hasmoneans prevailed against and defeated them, they searched and found only one vial of oil which lay with the seal of the High Priest with only enough oil to burn for one day; yet a miracle was made with it and they lit with it for eight days. The following year these [days] were appointed a Festival with [the recital of] Hallell and thanksgiving.”

Other Jewish holidays may be commemorated with fasts and mourning. But Hanukkah is different. It’s meant to be a real, full-blown celebration of life and food and miracles.

Today, Hanukkah remains a celebration of Jewish peoplehood and our Jewish brit (covenant) with HaShem. As the Rav, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, teaches, the political victory won by the Hasmoneans did not last long. The land was conquered by the Romans who destroyed the re-dedicated Temple. But the Maccabean wars represented a learning moment for the Jewish people. They discovered what they would fight for and fight against. The Jews never revolted against Alexander the Great. They offered him tribute and he mostly left them alone. What provoked a grueling guerilla resistance that took years to accomplish its goal, was the attempt by the Seleucid Greeks to impose their gods on the people, to get between us and the One we worship. The Judean people fought religious erasure, and took a big step on the way to becoming Jews in doing so.

The Judean people fought religious erasure, and took a big step on the way to becoming Jews in doing so.

The Hasmonean dynasty and the Temple are gone, but Jews everywhere still celebrate the miracle through which shines our relationship with one another and with HaShem. As Rabbi Soloveitchik wrote, “Hanukkah is celebrated today, and that is a sign that the holiday, and its commemoration of God’s miracles, belongs to the group of Jewish holidays that have Passover as their pinnacle. These holidays are based on an everlasting value, which no political destruction or military downfall can erase.”

This year, I’m struck by the proximity of Hanukkah and the American holiday of Thanksgiving—a holiday and a connection to Hanukkah that Rabbi Soloveitchik happily endorsed. What could be more Jewish than enjoying a feast with beloved family and friends while consciously practicing gratitude? And we can be especially grateful to live in a time and place when we do not have to compromise our pride in who we are.

But consciously commemorating the anti-colonialist aspect of Hanukkah complicates our Thanksgiving celebrations. The phrase “settler colonialism” has become fraught, with whole strings of debate attached to it, but I’m not sure how else one could describe the conquest of the Americas and the displacement of indigenous people. How can we place our hanukkiotin windows, proud beacons of our survival and thriving, and not recall that generations of indigenous Americans were sent as children to boarding schools that were designed to make them forget their languages, their cultures and their own covenants with the Most High?

Given that Jews understand the importance of pushing back against attempts to erase Jewish religion or culture, are we not also responsible for ensuring that the religions and cultures of others are not forgotten? Perhaps the Jewish community has a special responsibility here.

I’m not trying to trash your Thanksgiving dinner. I’m hoping that our communal celebrations can include the very Jewish activity of storytelling, the kind that draws out complexity and points to unfinished business.

I’m hoping that our communal celebrations can include the very Jewish activity of storytelling, the kind that draws out complexity and points to unfinished business.

Los Angeles sits on traditional unceded Tongva land. Some Tongva thinkers are reviving a concept called kuuyam, being a good guest. They don’t imagine that we can return to an idealized past, but they are calling on us to transform our future in this place. As Charles Sepulveda writes in “Our Sacred Waters,” “Residents of Tongva land (Tovaangar), for example, can be Kuuyam and not act as colonizers or seek to further domesticate the environment for their own benefit. They can be welcomed guests, and not looked at by the Native community as settler colonizers—no matter their skin color, histories, or origins. The status as Kuuyam is neither demanded nor ordered. It is instead a relationship offered and chosen.”

Jews have a value corresponding to kuuyam, one that we affirm in our daily recitation of those behaviors that sustain us in this world and the next: hokhnasat orkhim, hospitality to guests. That value assumes a relationship in which guests appreciate and respond to the courtesy they receive.

As guests on this land, let us take the opportunity this Thanksgiving to educate ourselves regarding its history. Even as we come together for celebrations with family and friends, we can support initiatives such as Tongva Tah-rah’-hat Paxaavxa and Acjachemen conservancies that aim to restore Tongva relationships with this land and the spiritual practices that express them. We can delight in and support expressions of indigenous culture and spiritual values as we delight in our own Hanukkah festivities. We certainly can come together to eat with friends and give thanks, but while we do it, let’s acknowledge the unfinished journeys on which we are all embarked in this messy, unredeemed world.

Rabbi Robin Podolsky serves on the Board of Governors for the Sandra Caplan Community Bet Din, writes at shondaland.com and jewishjournal.com, advises the Jewish Student Union at Occidental College and serves as writing facilitator and dramaturg for Queerwise, a spoken word and writing group. She also serves on the National Ritual Committee for Bend the Arc.