12.17.2009
Happy Chanukah!
I'm sorry for the long silence. Things have been a bit awry in my life as of late, and this blog has suffered. Sorry, blog (and readers).
I thought that this semi-recent David Brooks op-ed about the Chanukah story was interesting. I always love it when people discredit fairy tales about holidays and talk about the real history behind them.
Parts of this Yoni Brenner Shouts & Murmurs New Yorker piece made me laugh out loud. On the subway. (There were some parts that I liked less.)
Happy Chanukah!
Labels: Chanukah, Jewish holidays, links
12.21.2008
Still true
This is still true. I wish I was in a space to write something this hopeful and assured this year, but I am not. Maybe by the 6th night of Chanukah, I will be.
Tonight is Shira's eighth yahrzeit. You can read more about her here and here. I don't have anything to say about her yahrzeit this year. I am thinking about her, though.
Tonight is Shira's eighth yahrzeit. You can read more about her here and here. I don't have anything to say about her yahrzeit this year. I am thinking about her, though.
Labels: Chanukah, In Memoriam, Jewish holidays
12.09.2007
Reflections on Chanukah: "Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy cometh in the morning."
I am half-sitting on my bed, watching the candles, un-ergonomically typing with the laptop on my lap. It's worth it, though, to be able to hang out with the glowing candles. Last night was the first night that I lit at a reasonable hour (5:45 pm) and therefore had the time and stamina to sing Maoz Tzur [Rock of Ages] and then just watch the candles and try to think about what Chanukah was doing to/for me, and I for it, this year. I repeated this tonight by lighting at 6:25 pm, after davening Maariv [the evening service], which furthered my reflective mood.
Chanukah is so much nicer when you light before 10 pm. I hate how many nights I've lit at 10 or 11 pm and then struggled to stay awake until the candles burned out, since I refuse to sleep in a room with any candles burning. It is unfortunate that I've lit alone, and so late, the first three nights this year. On Friday afternoon, there was a very hurried dash from Chanukah candles to Shabbat candles to a run, with food, to get into the eruv before shkiya. Working on the logistics of lighting is something I should be more attentive to in the future, since I can tell what a difference an earlier and less hurried lighting makes.
Aside from that, though, I am sad that Chanukah is so firmly associated with loss in my mind these days. It's not enough that I associate the loss of my friend Shira with Chanukah, and also the time I spent with my grandfather before he died, but now I also associate my deceased grandmother with Chanukah? Eight nights in a row is too many to dwell on death, absent shiva/shloshim, when it is natural to dwell on death for so long. It's also too much sadness for one holiday. By Shabbat, I couldn't stand it anymore!
So last night, watching the candles struggle valiantly to stay lit between the frigid cold of the glass window and the hot air wafting out of the clanking radiator underneath, I thought about lighting candles at the darkest time of the year and how Chanukah could stop being solely about sadness and loss for me.
I thought about the miracle of Chanukah being not that we won some short-lived military victory against the Seleucids, or that the oil lasted eight days instead of one, but that we bother to light candles during this dark, depressing time of year at all, rather than huddling under the covers and waiting for the sunlight to return.
I thought about this idea a lot in the years following Shira's death, when I tried to wrap my mind around the idea of celebrating anything on anyone's yahrzeit. Lighting candles? Singing hallel? Whatever for? It seems impossible, but, lo and behold!, through the intervention of time, fading memory, and increased focus on the gifts we received from a person during her lifetime, we somehow live to celebrate again.
In my more classically frum days, I would have dismissed the idea of comparing Chanukah to any other religion or culture's practice of lighting candles around the winter solstice as ecumenical nonsense. But you know what? Like so many other things that I was sure of when I was eighteen, it turns out that I was wrong. It's not that Chanukah isn't about the military victory and magic oil, but that is not all its about. One of the things that I love about Judaism is the way that it incorporates earlier practices into theologically meaningful holidays. The idea of lighting candles for eight days during the darkest time of the year precedes Chanukah according to the Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Avodah Zarah:
Aside from the candles to brighten our path, we have another aid on which to lean. And that is God, the God who is "yotzer or u'voreh choshech," who "creates light and creates darkness." This bracha, or blessing, from Shacharit [the morning service], is one of my all-time favorite blessings. We Jews don't believe in a God who is all lightness. We believe in a God who creates darkness, also. We don't understand the darkness a lot of the time, but we believe that it comes from God. Hand-in-hand with this belief comes the faith that, as the morning follows the night, spiritual and emotional light inevitably follow dark. The world is a mean, nasty place sometimes. Some nights, some Decembers of the soul, seem interminable. But they are not. Dawn will approach, and whether we try to hasten its approach by lighting candles or by sitting in front of a light box (10,000 lux for about fifteen minutes a day is the recommended dose) or not, it will come.
Despite our worst fears, God will not return the world to chaos. That is the covenant that God made with Noah and all of humanity after the flood. This is the miracle of Chanukah to me, right now--that we have faith in "yotzer or u'voreh choshech," that we light candles in the darkness, that we combine our faith in God's hand in our lives with our own efforts at hastening the arrival of the dawn.
Tonight, after reciting Maariv and before lighting candles, I recited the 30th Psalm, as is customary during Chanukah, because of the connection between the Maccabean rededication of the Temple and the original dedication of the Temple. The verses that particularly speak to the idea of a God that creates light and darkness, and a God who promises not to let us languish in the pit forever although he makes no promises against us falling into that dark space in the first place, are highlighted below.
God does hide his face. We do become frightened as Adam did when the days seemed about to shrink into oblivion. But God eventually turns our mourning into dancing. God promises us that nothing that is bad will be bad forever. Redemption will come. We will be girded with gladness one day, and live to praise God again.
It sometimes seems like folly to praise the God who brings darkness, the God who causes the days to shorten, the God who takes away the dawn of friends, family, and life itself, and who causes us to gird ourselves with sackcloth in the beginning. I choose to believe, instead, that such praise of God is part of the miracle of faith, of recovery, and of the dawn that follows the darkness.
[And now the candles are all burned down, and I have a Chanukah party to attend.]
Chanukah is so much nicer when you light before 10 pm. I hate how many nights I've lit at 10 or 11 pm and then struggled to stay awake until the candles burned out, since I refuse to sleep in a room with any candles burning. It is unfortunate that I've lit alone, and so late, the first three nights this year. On Friday afternoon, there was a very hurried dash from Chanukah candles to Shabbat candles to a run, with food, to get into the eruv before shkiya. Working on the logistics of lighting is something I should be more attentive to in the future, since I can tell what a difference an earlier and less hurried lighting makes.
Aside from that, though, I am sad that Chanukah is so firmly associated with loss in my mind these days. It's not enough that I associate the loss of my friend Shira with Chanukah, and also the time I spent with my grandfather before he died, but now I also associate my deceased grandmother with Chanukah? Eight nights in a row is too many to dwell on death, absent shiva/shloshim, when it is natural to dwell on death for so long. It's also too much sadness for one holiday. By Shabbat, I couldn't stand it anymore!
So last night, watching the candles struggle valiantly to stay lit between the frigid cold of the glass window and the hot air wafting out of the clanking radiator underneath, I thought about lighting candles at the darkest time of the year and how Chanukah could stop being solely about sadness and loss for me.
I thought about the miracle of Chanukah being not that we won some short-lived military victory against the Seleucids, or that the oil lasted eight days instead of one, but that we bother to light candles during this dark, depressing time of year at all, rather than huddling under the covers and waiting for the sunlight to return.
I thought about this idea a lot in the years following Shira's death, when I tried to wrap my mind around the idea of celebrating anything on anyone's yahrzeit. Lighting candles? Singing hallel? Whatever for? It seems impossible, but, lo and behold!, through the intervention of time, fading memory, and increased focus on the gifts we received from a person during her lifetime, we somehow live to celebrate again.
In my more classically frum days, I would have dismissed the idea of comparing Chanukah to any other religion or culture's practice of lighting candles around the winter solstice as ecumenical nonsense. But you know what? Like so many other things that I was sure of when I was eighteen, it turns out that I was wrong. It's not that Chanukah isn't about the military victory and magic oil, but that is not all its about. One of the things that I love about Judaism is the way that it incorporates earlier practices into theologically meaningful holidays. The idea of lighting candles for eight days during the darkest time of the year precedes Chanukah according to the Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Avodah Zarah:
I don't know about you, but I've had days during the darkness of December where I've certainly thought, "Woe is to me...the world is returning to chaos." Whether I attribute this to my own sins or some more modern variation thereof is a separate matter entirely. But, my God! I don't think you have to have full-fledged Seasonal Affective Disorder to fear the clutching darkness of winter!ת"ר לפי שראה אדם הראשון יום שמתמעט והולך אמר אוי לי שמא בשביל שסרחתי עולם חשוך בעדי וחוזר לתוהו ובוהו וזו היא מיתה שנקנסה עלי מן השמים עמד וישב ח' ימים בתענית [ובתפלה] כיון שראה תקופת טבת וראה יום שמאריך והולך אמר מנהגו של עולם הוא הלך ועשה שמונה ימים טובים
“Our rabbis taught that when Adam saw the days becoming shorter, he said: 'Woe is to me, because I have sinned and the world is returning to chaos.' He prayed and fasted until the winter equinox when he noticed the days becoming longer. 'This is the way of the world,' he said, and he established an eight day festival.' (Tractate Avoda Zara, 8a)
Aside from the candles to brighten our path, we have another aid on which to lean. And that is God, the God who is "yotzer or u'voreh choshech," who "creates light and creates darkness." This bracha, or blessing, from Shacharit [the morning service], is one of my all-time favorite blessings. We Jews don't believe in a God who is all lightness. We believe in a God who creates darkness, also. We don't understand the darkness a lot of the time, but we believe that it comes from God. Hand-in-hand with this belief comes the faith that, as the morning follows the night, spiritual and emotional light inevitably follow dark. The world is a mean, nasty place sometimes. Some nights, some Decembers of the soul, seem interminable. But they are not. Dawn will approach, and whether we try to hasten its approach by lighting candles or by sitting in front of a light box (10,000 lux for about fifteen minutes a day is the recommended dose) or not, it will come.
Despite our worst fears, God will not return the world to chaos. That is the covenant that God made with Noah and all of humanity after the flood. This is the miracle of Chanukah to me, right now--that we have faith in "yotzer or u'voreh choshech," that we light candles in the darkness, that we combine our faith in God's hand in our lives with our own efforts at hastening the arrival of the dawn.
Tonight, after reciting Maariv and before lighting candles, I recited the 30th Psalm, as is customary during Chanukah, because of the connection between the Maccabean rededication of the Temple and the original dedication of the Temple. The verses that particularly speak to the idea of a God that creates light and darkness, and a God who promises not to let us languish in the pit forever although he makes no promises against us falling into that dark space in the first place, are highlighted below.
God does hide his face. We do become frightened as Adam did when the days seemed about to shrink into oblivion. But God eventually turns our mourning into dancing. God promises us that nothing that is bad will be bad forever. Redemption will come. We will be girded with gladness one day, and live to praise God again.
It sometimes seems like folly to praise the God who brings darkness, the God who causes the days to shorten, the God who takes away the dawn of friends, family, and life itself, and who causes us to gird ourselves with sackcloth in the beginning. I choose to believe, instead, that such praise of God is part of the miracle of faith, of recovery, and of the dawn that follows the darkness.
[And now the candles are all burned down, and I have a Chanukah party to attend.]
Labels: Chanukah, Jewish holidays, life, Torah (broadly defined)
12.04.2007
Remembering
This is not the holiday for remembering (that would be Rosh Hashanah, Tisha B'Av, and Yom HaShoah), but I remember anyway, every Chanukah.
Tonight is Shira's seventh yahrzeit. You can read more about her here and here. I don't have anything to say about her yahrtzeit at the moment. If I think of something, I will post it when I do. Suffice it to say that I remember her and wish she were here with me.
This is also my first Chanukah without the presence of my maternal grandmother, a"h. Since my grandfather, a"h, passed away in February 2004, my aunt, sister, and I have taken turns lighting Chanukah candles with my grandmother, via phone.
It's been an important part of my Chanukah over the past three years. I have had many Jewish roommates over the years, but we don't have the same schedules or light together, so most nights, I light alone, in my room, whenever I get home (late), and I struggle to stay awake until they burn down, to minimize the fire hazard. I think it's safe to say that I miss celebrating Chanukah with my family. I'm sure that my grandmother loved lighting with us via phone, but I also loved it, since it gave me someone to light with. My aunt divvied up the nights. Because of my late schedule, I could sometimes arrange to be lighting at the same time as my grandmother, three time zones West. Other times, I would light earlier and just repeat the brachot, HaNeirot Halalu, and Maoz Tzur with my grandmother later. Once, I "lit" with my grandmother in the lobby of an apartment building, on my way to a Chanukah party. I never did it from the street, because the background noise of a Manhattan street would make it impossible. So, I am sad. This year, I will be lighting alone, without my grandmother.
Something else recently reminded me of my grandmother. I saw someone pushing an elderly man down the sidewalk in a wheelchair. Based on their age difference and their mannerism, they seemed to be a grandson and grandfather. I realized, with a pang, that I would never push my grandmother in her wheelchair again. There is something so...gratifying, I guess, about doing something for someone who has done so much for you. Someone who took care of you when you were small, who cooked for you and pushed you in a baby carriage. At some point, they need you to do those things for them. And you do them willingly, happily, and with gratitude that you can finally repay some of their kindness in some small way. Also, there was something nice about the challenge of trying to minimize bumps and push the wheelchair straight even when the road was slanted. (I pushed her to and/or from seders a few times, and we usually went in the bike lane, since it was a lot less bumpy than the sidewalk. And it was late at night, on a weeknight, in a suburb. The streets were empty.)
I went to the doctor today, and, in the waiting room, I observed an elderly gentleman, who I overheard was a year younger than my grandfather would have been, had he not died in 2004. He was wearing jeans and a fleece jacket. Something about the way they loosely hung on him reminded me of my grandfather's overalls. He also had a sort of Midwestern twang. I spent a lot of time with my grandfather in December 2003, when he was sick and knew he was dying. I brought him beeswax candles, because he had once told me that he liked the smell, but cancer had already robbed him of his sense of smell by then.
My maternal grandparents used to come visit us twice a year: December vacation and Pesach. December vacation started on December 26 at my Jewish day school, and it sometimes overlapped with Chanukah. These visits continued until my grandmother, who had MS, could no longer make the cross-country flight. I never stopped associating my grandparents with Chanukah, snow, and buying Christmas chocolates and cookies on sale on December 26. In college, I used to visit my grandparents in California over my winter break, which also sometimes coincided with Chanukah. I would come with my own battered tin chanukiah, and set up shop in front of their kitchen window. The candles reflected in the plate glass (which once broke because it got too hot from the candles), and beyond them, I could see their neighbors' window. The Satos. I learned to ride a bike in their driveway and my grandparents' driveway, which abutted each other.
Sigh... Happy Chanukah!
Tonight is Shira's seventh yahrzeit. You can read more about her here and here. I don't have anything to say about her yahrtzeit at the moment. If I think of something, I will post it when I do. Suffice it to say that I remember her and wish she were here with me.
This is also my first Chanukah without the presence of my maternal grandmother, a"h. Since my grandfather, a"h, passed away in February 2004, my aunt, sister, and I have taken turns lighting Chanukah candles with my grandmother, via phone.
It's been an important part of my Chanukah over the past three years. I have had many Jewish roommates over the years, but we don't have the same schedules or light together, so most nights, I light alone, in my room, whenever I get home (late), and I struggle to stay awake until they burn down, to minimize the fire hazard. I think it's safe to say that I miss celebrating Chanukah with my family. I'm sure that my grandmother loved lighting with us via phone, but I also loved it, since it gave me someone to light with. My aunt divvied up the nights. Because of my late schedule, I could sometimes arrange to be lighting at the same time as my grandmother, three time zones West. Other times, I would light earlier and just repeat the brachot, HaNeirot Halalu, and Maoz Tzur with my grandmother later. Once, I "lit" with my grandmother in the lobby of an apartment building, on my way to a Chanukah party. I never did it from the street, because the background noise of a Manhattan street would make it impossible. So, I am sad. This year, I will be lighting alone, without my grandmother.
Something else recently reminded me of my grandmother. I saw someone pushing an elderly man down the sidewalk in a wheelchair. Based on their age difference and their mannerism, they seemed to be a grandson and grandfather. I realized, with a pang, that I would never push my grandmother in her wheelchair again. There is something so...gratifying, I guess, about doing something for someone who has done so much for you. Someone who took care of you when you were small, who cooked for you and pushed you in a baby carriage. At some point, they need you to do those things for them. And you do them willingly, happily, and with gratitude that you can finally repay some of their kindness in some small way. Also, there was something nice about the challenge of trying to minimize bumps and push the wheelchair straight even when the road was slanted. (I pushed her to and/or from seders a few times, and we usually went in the bike lane, since it was a lot less bumpy than the sidewalk. And it was late at night, on a weeknight, in a suburb. The streets were empty.)
I went to the doctor today, and, in the waiting room, I observed an elderly gentleman, who I overheard was a year younger than my grandfather would have been, had he not died in 2004. He was wearing jeans and a fleece jacket. Something about the way they loosely hung on him reminded me of my grandfather's overalls. He also had a sort of Midwestern twang. I spent a lot of time with my grandfather in December 2003, when he was sick and knew he was dying. I brought him beeswax candles, because he had once told me that he liked the smell, but cancer had already robbed him of his sense of smell by then.
My maternal grandparents used to come visit us twice a year: December vacation and Pesach. December vacation started on December 26 at my Jewish day school, and it sometimes overlapped with Chanukah. These visits continued until my grandmother, who had MS, could no longer make the cross-country flight. I never stopped associating my grandparents with Chanukah, snow, and buying Christmas chocolates and cookies on sale on December 26. In college, I used to visit my grandparents in California over my winter break, which also sometimes coincided with Chanukah. I would come with my own battered tin chanukiah, and set up shop in front of their kitchen window. The candles reflected in the plate glass (which once broke because it got too hot from the candles), and beyond them, I could see their neighbors' window. The Satos. I learned to ride a bike in their driveway and my grandparents' driveway, which abutted each other.
Sigh... Happy Chanukah!
Labels: Chanukah, In Memoriam, Jewish holidays
12.22.2006
Bringing Back the Shechinah
BZ of Mah Rabu fame posted a lovely dvar Torah for Chanukah on jspot.org, the blog of the Jewish FundS for Justice. Go read it. You'll be glad you did.
Shabbat shalom, chodesh tov, and chag urim sameach!
Shabbat shalom, chodesh tov, and chag urim sameach!
Labels: Chanukah, Jewish holidays, links, Torah (broadly defined)
