HANUKAH-NOW A MAJOR HOLIDAY FOR JEWS TODAY

This year, in an unusual calendrical quirk, the first night of Hanukah will fall on the Eve of Christmas. My Google search pointed to the fact that this happens very rarely, maybe 4 times during a 100-year period. Last time, it occurred in 2005. While we, Jews, plan to light the first of the eight candles on Saturday night, Dec.24, 2016, our Christian neighbors will begin to celebrate the birth of Jesus. 

In Jewish tradition Hanukah is viewed as a “minor” festival. For example, Jewish law permits regular work on this day. As I remember, during my childhood in Istanbul, Turkey, we did not give much attention to the holiday. True, we did light the candles, ate “bimuelos” (putty fritters deep-fried in oil) or “borekas” (pastry filled with cheese or vegetables; my wife still makes them even during the year), celebrated the “merenda” (like, ‘pot-luck’) dinner on the last day of the festival, and sang special prayers and songs, but life went on as usual. Some of our prayers differed from those of Eastern European Jews and we never had “latkes” (potato pancakes) or played with “dreidels” (four-sided tops).  The use of “sufganiyot” (jelly doughnuts) in Israel is relatively new.  I also do not remember receiving any gifts on Hanukah. 

The reason why Hanukah was considered minor is most likely because it is not found in the Bible, but comes from the post-biblical period. The Apocrypha, a collection of books compiled after most of the Bible was edited, includes two books dealing with the festival: The First and Second book of Maccabees. The first is a “royal history” of the Hasmonean dynasty, whereas the second claims to be a shortened version of a five-volume history of the period by Jason of Cyrene. There are also a number of references to Hanukah in the writings of Josephus, the 1^st cent. CE Jewish historian, as well as in the rabbinic literature (eg., Pesikta Rabbati 2:5; BT Shabbat 21b).

Today, things are different. Especially among Jews who live in close proximity to  Christians, Hanukah is now observed as a major holiday competing with Christmas. And it is getting even bigger by the year. Today, we celebrate it with family dinners, elaborate synagogue services, gifts to the family members, and special foods for the holidays, including latkes.

I see nothing wrong in this development. Hanukah includes many elements (forget about the so-called miracle-which was not) that make it a very significant festival for Jews today. Among the values it proclaims, one can mention, the right to be different, the necessity to fight oppression, the pride in one’s Jewish identity, the commitment to traditional values, the significance of Jewish survival and the necessity to support Israel. Hanukah also reminds us that our Jewish existence today is a testament to the light we still need to shed in the darkness that envelops our civilization, by stressing human values and respect for diversity. That is not bad at all. 

Happy Hanukah, and, to my Christian neighbors, a Merry Christmas.

Rabbi Rifat Sonsino, Ph.D.

Dec. 2016

Books by Rifat Sonsino:

FINDING GOD (URJ; Behrman House)

THE MANY FACES OF GOD (URJ; Behrman House)

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN I DIE? (URJ; Behrman House)

DID MOSES REALLY HAVE HORNS? (URJ; Behrman House)

SIX JEWISH SPIRITUAL PATHS (Jewish Lights; Turner)

THE MANY FACES OF GOD (URJ; Behrman House)

AND GOD SPOKE THESE WORDS (Commentary on the Decalogue; URJ; Behrman House)

VIVIR COMO JUDIO (Palibrio)

MODERN JUDAISM (Cognella)

MOTIVE CLAUSES IN HEBREW LAW (Scholars Press)

CAN YOU COMMAND "LOVE" OF GOD?

In the Hebrew Bible we are often told “to love” God, such as “Love (AHB) the Lord, all you faithful? (Ps. 31: 24), or “You shall love (AHB) the Lord your God” (Deut. 6: 5). 

Here we can raise two issues: 1. Can you command love? , and 2. Even though some people easily understand that one can “love” a spouse, a child, even a country, many have a hard time conceptualizing what it means to “love” God. 

Historically speaking, the concept of “loving” God comes from the treaty terminology of the Ancient Near East, and simply means “to be loyal to.”  Especially in ancient Anatolia, many Hittite rulers signed treaties with their vassals requiring them to “love” their overlord. Similarly, in the Amarna letters we find that Rib-Abdi of Byblos stating that the city is divided into two: “half of it loves the sons of Abdi-Ashirta, and the other half (loves) my lord” (EA 138:71-73), or in the Vassal Treaties of Esarhaddon we read: “If you do not love the crown prince designate, Ashurbanipal,….”(here some curses follow; See ANET, 537). We have a reflection of this meaning in the Hebrew Bible, when it states that “Hiram [King of Tyre] loved (AHB) David always” (I K 5: 15). The Latin-Vulgate translation uses here the term “amicus” [friendly]. In the Canaanite Akkadian of Amarna, the verb ramu, the functional equivalent of AHB, meant “to favor.” So, in the past, “to love” primarily meant “to be loyal.” It had nothing to do with the emotional content that the verb “love” implies today. 

What about in Jewish sources? In the early ones, such the Talmud, to “love” God simply meant to study rabbinic texts, minister to scholars, and generally do God’s will by carrying out the Mitzvot (See, for ex. Yoma 86a). During the medieval times, the mystics (like Bahya ibn Pakuda) stressed that to “love” God is to have an intense longing for the nearness of God and a desire for communion with God, whereas many rationalists argued that “loving God” simply means to have a knowledge of God. Maimonides puts it this way: “According to the knowledge so the love” (Mishne Torah, Repentance 10: 6). 

What about us today? I maintain that, even though love cannot be commanded, actions leading to love can be ordered. As W.G. Plaut’s Torah Commentary puts it, “Each Mitzvah [commandment] done in the right spirit is an act of loving God” (p. 1211). Thus, our practice of Judaism must be done in the highest spirit of loyalty to our Jewish tradition, a tradition that should be maintained, strengthened and, at times, adapted to the needs of our times. Our prayers must be offered with devotion, our holidays observed with appropriate joy, and our rituals carried out with a sense of reality and necessary re-interpretation to make them relevant to our needs today.  

As to the second issue, I am more comfortable with the Maimonidean rationalistic approach that states that thinking and studying about God is to love God. In my non-theistic view, to love God is to find out what God stands for. This is manifested in the commitment we make to discover of the mysteries the universe, and the realization that we stand in awe before the awesome energy, namely God, that keeps it going. 

How do we get there? Hassidic masters have taught us that the Torah commands us three times to love; twice our neighbors (Lev. 19: 18, 34) and then God (Deut. 6: 5). We love humans first and then we love God. Not the other way around. Only after we have learned how to love people can we come to the “love”-namely, the understanding and appreciation of God.

Rabbi Rifat Sonsino, Ph.D.

Nov. 2016

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Books by Rifat Sonsino:

FINDING GOD (URJ; Behrman House)

THE MANY FACES OF GOD (URJ; Behrman House)

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN I DIE? (URJ; Behrman House)

DID MOSES REALLY HAVE HORNS? (URJ; Behrman House)

SIX JEWISH SPIRITUAL PATHS (Jewish Lights; Turner)

THE MANY FACES OF GOD (URJ; Behrman House)

AND GOD SPOKE THESE WORDS (Commentary on the Decalogue; URJ; Behrman House)

VIVIR COMO JUDIO (Palibrio)

MODERN JUDAISM (Cognella)

MOTIVE CLAUSES IN HEBREW LAW (Scholars Press)

SONSINO'S BLOG: HONORING PARENTS; WHAT ABOUT LOVING THEM?

SONSINO'S BLOG: HONORING PARENTS; WHAT ABOUT LOVING THEM?: In the Ten Commandments, we are told to “honor (KABED) your father and your mother” (Ex. 20:12; Deut. 5;16). Some English translations ...

HONORING PARENTS; WHAT ABOUT LOVING THEM?

In the Ten Commandments, we are told to “honor (KABED) your father and your mother” (Ex. 20:12; Deut. 5;16). Some English translations render KABED as “respect” or as “regard (treat with honor, due obedience and courtesy).”  Similarly, in the Apocrypha, Tobit tells his son Tobias, to “honor (your mother) all the days of your life” (4: 3).  In Lev. 19: 3, the term is even stronger: “You shall revere your mother and father.” The Hebrew word here is YARE, and means, almost “fear, stand in awe.”  In the New Testament, children are required to “obey” their parents (Ephesians 6: 1; Colossians 3: 20). 

The Hebrew Bible expresses the hope that by honoring your parents, “you may long endure on the land that the Lord your God is assigning to you.” In other words, you will live longer. We find a clear rationale for the dictum in rabbinic literature: you need to honor them “because the father and the mother are the reason for your existence” (Sefer Ha-Hinukh, 33). 

Two questions: 1. To whom is this commandment addressed? Parents can easily impose themselves on their children when they are young. The Talmud asks: What does honoring mean? It answers: “Providing them with food and drink, clothing and covers, and taking them in and out” (Kid. 31b). My impression is that the instruction is directed to adult children who are responsible for the wellbeing of their elderly parents who cannot fend for themselves. It is then that honoring becomes more relevant.

2. The verb “honor” here is noteworthy. One would have expected to find “you shall love your parents.” Is this on purpose? Could that mean that we must “honor” our parents, but not necessarily “love” them? 

Jewish literary sources put a high emphasis on the necessity to show respect for the parents, but parental authority on the children is not absolute. For example, according to Jewish law, “a man should never terrorize his household” (Git. 6b). If a father orders his children to break a Torah law, the children can ignore his demands (Shulhan Arukh, YD, 240: 15). If the father objects to his son’s marrying someone of his choice, the son can disregard the father’s objections (Shulhan Arukh, YD 240: 25). 

On the other hand, Jewish sources also show that, honoring the parents is an obligation even if there is no loving relationship between children and mother/father. For, as  Maimonides, the great Jewish philosopher of the medieval times, once wrote to Obadiah, the proselyte, saying, “It is possible for a person to honor, hold him in awe and obey one whom one does not love.” 

 

Years ago, when I was in congregational rabbinate, I had to confront the dilemma of “honor” vs. “love” in a concrete life situation: Once a woman came to see me in my office, and told me that her father was ill, and needed personal attention. Her question to me was whether or not she had to comply with his requests. I said, the Decalogue instructs us to look after our parents, and, as the Rabbis add, “even if you have to go around begging for it “(JT, Peah, 15d). She retorted: Rabbi, you do not know all the facts. My father sexually abused me when I was young. I cannot touch him! 

Upon reflection, I said to her: I don’t expect you to help him out physically and personally. The biblical text tells us to “honor” our parents, not necessarily to “love” them. We are not obligated to love a parent who has been abusive. If you cannot do the job yourself, you are still obligated to take care of him. Just hire and pay for another person, maybe a nurse, to look after his wellbeing for the rest of his life. She liked the idea, and followed my suggestion.

I posed this dilemma to my Ethics class at Framingham State University, some of whom had indeed experienced abuse by parents, and they, overwhelmingly, voted to abandon them at the time of their need. “Let him rot in hell,” said one. Jewish law, as I understand it, is otherwise. I would argue that we still have responsibilities towards abusive parents, but we must find other means to carry them out. 

What do you think?

Rabbi Rifat Sonsino, Ph.D. 

Oct. 2016

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Books by Rifat Sonsino:

FINDING GOD (URJ; Behrman House)

THE MANY FACES OF GOD (URJ; Behrman House)

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN I DIE? (URJ; Behrman House)

DID MOSES REALLY HAVE HORNS? (URJ; Behrman House)

SIX JEWISH SPIRITUAL PATHS (Jewish Lights; Turner)

THE MANY FACES OF GOD (URJ; Behrman House)

AND GOD SPOKE THESE WORDS (Commentary on the Decalogue; URJ; Behrman House)

VIVIR COMO JUDIO (Palibrio)

MODERN JUDAISM (Cognella)

MOTIVE CLAUSES IN HEBREW LAW (Scholars Press)