Chanukah is a holiday to celebrate a military victory. That’s fairly common, across cultures and stuff. It’s interesting to me that America doesn’t have such a holiday. Well, and some of us celebrate Patriot’s Day (April 19th), and some of us celebrate Bunker Hill Day (June 17th), or even Evacuation Day (March 17th), but outside of Boston Proper, the American holidays are not commemorations of military victories. Or defeats, I suppose, as technically the Battle of Bunker Hill was a defeat, largely I suppose because everybody was on the wrong hill.
England celebrates a law-enforcement victory. Australia observes a total military disaster. Egypt celebrates a revolution and a successful attack. The Italians celebrate the eventual resistance to the Nazis. The Mexicans celebrate victory over the French. The French celebrate the fall of the Bastille, Vietnam celebrates the fall of Saigon, Estonians celebrate the defense against the Hun, the Maltese celebrate their victory over the Turks, the Turks celebrate their victory over the other Turks. The Irish, well, let’s leave that one. Some Jews do celebrate Jerusalem (Re-unification) Day, but I don’t, and I know anyone who does (as far as I know). Other than that, Chanukah is our only military holiday.
It’s a minor holiday. I say that all the time, I know. It is. For one thing, it isn’t mentioned at all in Scripture. Scripture lays down a calendar of holidays and observances, and Chanukah isn’t mentioned. Well, fine. The events it commemorates hadn’t happened yet. Compare it to Purim, for that. Oh, right, there’s an entire freaking book in the Tanach about Purim. There are the books of Maccabees, yes, but they were left out of the canon. And not by accident.
In the Oral Tradition, then, there must be a lot of stuff about Chanukah. After all, there’s a whole tractate on Purim, so what does the Talmud say about Chanukah? Well, in Tractate Shabbat Chapter Two, there’s some stuff about the lamps: Shammai says we should go from eight lights down to one, but we do it the way Hillel preferred, starting with one and going up to eight. Take that, Shammai! Hah! Then they get around to this:
What is 'Hanukah? The rabbis taught: "On the twenty-fifth day of Kislev 'Hanukah commences and lasts eight days, on which lamenting (in commemoration of the dead) and fasting are prohibited. When the Hellenists entered the sanctuary, they defiled all the oil that was found there. When the government of the House of Asmoneans prevailed and conquered them, oil was sought (to feed the holy lamp in the sanctuary) and only one vial was found with the seal of the high priest intact. The vial contained sufficient oil for one day only, but a miracle occurred, and it fed the holy lamp eight days in succession. These eight days were the following year established as days of good cheer, on which psalms of praise and acknowledgment (of God's wonders) were to be recited.
Nothing about the military victory. The Rabbis then go on to discuss the details of the lamp-lighting obligations. If your house has only one door, you are obligated to light only one menorah, but if your house has two doors, then you must light two menorahs, unless both doors come out onto the same street. Also, what if, for the Shabbat that falls during Chanukah, you only have enough money for either the lamp oil (or candle or whatnot) or the Kiddush wine, but not both? Which takes precedence? Rabha says it’s the menorah. That sort of thing.
And that’s it. Oh, there’s one other mention in Chapter III about handling an extinguished menorah, as an extension of handling the Shabbat candles, but that’s it.
What I’m saying, minor holiday.
Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.
So, Judaic holidays don’t seem very astronomy/harvest oriented, or am I wrong?
Like, Christmas is pretty clearly an adaptation of a solstice festival, and Jesus is pretty clearly an avatar of the harvest (like Osiris or that Aztec dude (Xipe Totec was his name-o), where you flayed your victim and then wore his skin in celebration). Easter, likewise, is all about the vernality of it all.
I guess Yom Kippur could be seen as a end-of-harvest thing, and Chanukah as a solstice thing, but that really doesn’t seem to be it.
There’s probably something analytical to be said about Diaspora and conquest, as well as the monotheistic strategies of conversion by assimilation versus Being Chosen, but I have a terrible cold, and the analysis isn’t making its way through the sinuses right now…
peace
Matt
Well, and if Chanukah is all about the menorah (which it seems to be in the Talmud), remember that it’s on a lunar calendar, not a solar calendar, and look up in the sky tonight. Not much moon, huh? It may not be the longest night of the year by a few minutes, but it’s the darkest. As for the harvest, the major holidays imposed by Torah are Shavuot, Passover and Sukkot (along with Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah, and of course Shabbat, which doesn’t count for this sort of thing). Shavuot and Sukkot are both specifically harvest holidays; Passover is somewhat of a harvest holiday as well. In medieval times, Chanukah, possibly coincidentally, flourished in parts of Europe where the grape/wine cycle made the new vintage ready to open in early December. I wonder if stronger spirits were on a cycle that made them available at Purim/Carnival time, in the late winter/early Spring.
In post-Industrial Revolution Judaism, Sukkot and Shavuot (which were also Pilgrimage festivals, the which not so much these days) have declined in prominence to the point where most non-Jews aren’t aware of them at all, and many (probably most) American Jews don’t do much of anything to observe them. But the cycle is there.
Thanks,
-V.
Right on. I joined Clan Rosenbaum for their building a Sukkah, last year, which was great fun. I know not this Shavuot, though, you’re correct.
So, wikipedia implies that Passover is related to the first grain harvest, Shavuot regards the last grain harvest, and Sukkot celebrates the final harvest of just about everything else.
Anyway, yay cycle! I’m glad to learn that it’s present in Judaism, as well. I was beginning to doubt my assumptions about the Bronze Age.
peace
Matt
One of our local rabbis has acknowledged that Hannukah is a bigger deal in America than in other countries because of the proximity to Christmas, which makes sense in light of how big a deal we make of Christmas here. I’ve heard this said elsewhere as well, but Hannukah is the first recorded battle for religious freedom that I know of, and deserves some respect on that basis.
As my step-daughter’s contemporaries at Temple Emmanuel used to rap (badly): Go Judah! Go Judah! Go Judah Maccabee!
July 4 is a holiday celebrating a military victory. Yes, the date has nothing to do with a military victory. But we have the trappings of military glory, fireworks to symbolize war, martial music, festive parades of soldiers, and we eat the roasted flesh of
our enemiesbarnyard animals. If you ask Americans what major war we won on Independence Day, they’ll tell you it was the War of Independence (or the Civil War, or the French Revolution, or possibly the invasion of Grenada, because we are stunningly uneducated). They won’t say that the holiday doesn’t celebrate a military victory.But if you ask them what we celebrate on July 4th, they will say the signing of the Declaration of Independence. It is commemorating the military victory over the Crown, but we have chosen to observe it on the anniversary of the document, not on Yorktown Day. Unless you live in Hampton Roads, but that’s different.
And the Maccabees were fighting for religious freedom in much the same way that the Pilgrim Fathers were—freedom from the wrong religion, and freedom to force the entire community to observe the right religion in exactly the same way. Not to knock the Maccabees or the Pilgrim Fathers, who were being oppressed, but still.
Thanks,
-V.
Actually, I suspect if you ask most Americans what we’re celebrating on July 4th, they’ll say “The 4th of July! Duh!” I’d like to be wrong about that.
On a vaguely related topic: There was a funny thing on TV Nation (which fortunately must have been on the air during one of the two years that I watched television in the last two decades or so), one time, where Michael Moore asked a bunch of Canadians if they knew the American national anthem, which they did. He then asked a bunch of Americans if they knew the Canadian national anthem, and nobody did. Except one guy, who went “Oh, sure. Oh, Canada! Dum dum dum dum da dummm…” Moore asked why he knew it, and he said something to the effect of “I’m a hockey fan.”
peace
Matt
I came across a Daniel Radosh note that reads in part:
It’s a good point. I shouldn’t make the claim that Chanukah is a minor holiday in the (most obvious and easily understood) sense that it is experienced as less important than Shavuout, Sukkot or even Purim by Jews today, or Jews for the last generation or two. It is minor in two senses. First, in the sense that there the Rabbis describe two categories of holidays: those that Scripture commands us to observe, and those that we observe by tradition. Second, it commemorates a minor event in the history of the people Israel. I still claim that those are valid reasons to still call the holiday minor, and I still claim that those are valid reasons to work toward a culture wherein Chanukah would be minor, but I grant that right now, it isn’t.
Thanks,
-V.
May all the blessings be upon everyone during rosh hashanah. Happy rosh hashanah everybody.
[This appears to be spam, so I’ve removed the link, but there’s no reason Gentle Readers should not have a nice Rosh Hashanah anyway. Thanks, -V.]