Before Shabbat

Bibi won. Not by a hair. Not by a long shot. It was not even close. Bibi won re-election in a decisive manner. With an unquestionable victory, Netanyahu is not expected to come under pressure to change his mind about forming a right-wing nationalist coalition with Kulanu, Bayit Yehudi, Yisrael Beytenu, Shas and United Torah Judaism, rather than a national-unity government with the Zionist Union. President Reuven Rivlin is to begin consultations with the elected parties Sunday, with the goal of appointing Netanyahu to form a government after official results come in next Wednesday. Netanyahu is to have then four weeks to form a government, ending April 22, the eve of Independence Day. He can ask Rivlin for a two-week extension, but sources close to him said he did not want to do so, because following his victory, he was in a position of strength. http://tinyurl.com/kmpzq25

Many people who describe themselves as politically progressive were heartbroken by the turn of events. They truly believed that Bougie Herzog and Tzipi Livni would lead a progressive centrist coalition. The polls backed up their hopes… until the results poured in.

Close Israeli friends of mine who watched the election results in Tel Aviv described feeling as depressed and let down as they were the night Rabin was assassinated. For them Bibi’s reelection was some form of betrayal, the snuffing out of a developing dream of moving away from a growing concern for the fate of a democratic Israel: “the resurgence of hate speech; attacks by settlers on Palestinians and their property in the West Bank; the Knesset’s attempts to rein in left-wing human-rights organizations; and, most of all, the unequal status of Israeli Palestinians and the utter lack of civil rights for the Palestinians in the West Bank. A recent poll revealed that a third of Israelis think that Arab citizens of Israel-the nearly two million Arabs living in Israel proper, not the West Bank-should not have the right to vote.”http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/11/17/one-state-reality

Reading this quote from David Remnick from the November 17th New Yorker, it’s not surprising that Bibi’s last minute call to his base on Tuesday – as the vote was underway – in which he railed against what he called “left-wing organizations” that he said were busing Arab-Israelis to the polls in an effort to bolster the center-left and oust him from office, was so effective. In that same November article, Remnick masterfully detailed the many twists and turns for the state of Israel: “the persistence of occupation; the memory of those lost and wounded in war and terror attacks; the Palestinian leadership’s failure to embrace land-for-peace offers from Ehud Barak, in 2000, and Ehud Olmert, in 2008; the chaos in Libya, Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon; the instability of a neighboring ally like Jordan; the bitter rivalries with Turkey and Qatar; the regional clash between Sunni and Shia; the threats from Hezbollah, in Lebanon, from Hamas, in Gaza, and from other, more distant groups, like ISIS, hostile to the existence of Israel; the rise of anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic sentiment in Europe and its persistence in the Arab world; a growing sense of drift from the Obama Administration. All these developments have pushed the country toward a state of fearful embattlement. The old voices of the left, the “pro-peace camp,” have too few answers, too few troops. And so Netanyahu, the champion of a status quo that favors settlers and the Likud, retains his perch. His strategic vision seems to be a desire to get from Shabbat to Shabbat.”

Yes I am disappointed. Yes, I am worried that the prime minister’s official abandonment of the two state solution (I’m not sure he ever truly believed in it) and then his halfhearted clarification that he never abandoned it creates more cynicism towards his intentions. I’m worried that there is no easy rapprochement to be had between the US and Israel over Iran and how to handle the next weeks and months of nuclear negotiation. I’m worried that Abbas will turn to an ever more receptive European theater and seek international support, thus gaining real world legitimacy. I’m worried this election will even further speed the power of the BDS movement, in Europe and in the US, too.

With all this disappointment and angst, I love Israel no less. In the midst of tremendous turmoil, nothing about my allegiance to the state of Israel diminishes. Let’s face it. I’ve had US presidents who I vehemently opposed, whose policies were abhorrent to me. I didn’t move away. I am utterly fed up with the current standoff in Washington and the Congress who seems to keep sinking ever low in polls and in stature. When a US president does something with which I agree, I am gratified. When a president acts in a way that draws my wrath, I speak out. When the US stands for justice and freedom, I stand tall. When the US acts in a way I deem as morally questionable, I will not be silent. So it is with Israel. I will not give a pass to Israel when there is injustice in its borders. I will stand with other Jews and Israelis who expect, who demand, more. Leaders come and go. Policies are passed or vetoed. Challenges are met with strength or with vacillation. I will never be silent about my nation or my people.

I am disappointed in the election results. And I know that some of you feel very differently. Some of you believe strongly in Bibi’s vision of Israel and support his decisions. And so we will continue to have a robust and respectful difference of opinion. Which is, of course, the foundation of democracy.

Am Yisrael Hai! The nation of Israel lives on!

Shabbat Shalom

Bibi had his day with Congress sans 50 or so folks who refused to grant the prime minister a full house. The applause was thunderous. The cheers were full throated and heart felt. Bibi’s speech was dramatic: his oratorical skills are legend here and back in Israel.

I must admit that I am no fan of Bibi Netanyahu. It’s not that I don’t agree with his politics. I’m not certain ultimately what his politics are, other than preserving the status quo.  And I emphatically believe that the status quo is slowly choking off more and more pathways to some beginning of a denouement with the Palestinians.

Perhaps we shouldn’t go there. I tend to veer away from overt political commentary, and I know that some of you may disagree with my positions on Israel. But remaining entirely silent about the prime minister’s speech is, I think, irresponsible. Because I think it created real fault lines in the otherwise strong US-Israel relationship.

For the first time there is an overt relationship being crafted between the Israeli prime minister and one American political party. For the first time an Israeli prime minister publicly dissed the president of the United States in his own capital.  And I wonder; was this the true goal of the speech? To make Israel a partisan issue like almost everything else in this country, from climate change to health care to gay marriage, and so forth? To shine up his image as a tough guy which will appeal to a part of his electorate back home that he needs to win for his reelection? To convince the world that he is right and Obama wrong? I don’t know but it is worrying.

An aspect of the prime minister’s speech that particularly irked me was when he pointed to Elie Wiesel who was sitting in the gallery. “My friends, standing up to Iran is not easy. Standing up to dark and murderous regimes never is. With us today is Holocaust survivor and Nobel Prize winner Elie Wiesel. Elie, your life and work inspires us to give meaning to the words, “never again.””

A BCC reporter is being criticized for describing this moment in a tweet as Bibi “playing the Holocaust card again.” But that is exactly what this was. Peter Beinart bravely called it like he saw it and was accused of belittling a man upon whom most Jews and Christians alike confer saintly credentials.  But the plain fact is that an aged Elie Wiesel has been co-opted by the prime minister. “I wish I could promise you, Elie, that the lessons of history have been learned. I can only urge the leaders of the world not to repeat the mistakes of the past.”

By drawing a direct correlation between Hitler and the current Iranian regime, Bibi infers that this is an all or nothing gambit, a notion his best intelligence officials reject. Teheran is not Berlin.

The Holocaust is a permanent part of Jewish life and Jewish history. It lurks in shadows. It is used and abused. Israel is of course the reification of ‘Never again.’ I get that. We live that. But are we not, at last, strong enough, secure enough, and clear enough, not to have to show the world our scars to justify our desire for safety and peace? After all the accomplishments of the Jewish people since 1945, must we still use Holocaust imagery in our statecraft?

So many issues to discuss. So much in the balance. Let’s never be afraid to discuss things in an honest and open way, even when we disagree.

The other day I watched the latest ISIS video on YouTube.  I found it horrifying, almost too gruesome to watch. It was not a beheading – that I will not watch. I would never want my clicking on it misconstrued as support for this kind of obscene brutality.

The video I viewed was of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kgvakdb-gBM ISIS terrorists, some clad in traditional Moslem garb, and others in secular garb, destroying ancient artifacts in an Iraqi museum. It made me feel ill to watch these statues and friezes getting smashed with tire irons and sledge hammers.

Why would anyone break into a museum – before it’s even opened to the public – in order to destroy large artifacts and steal smaller ones in order to sell them on the black market? What’s the motivation? These were beautiful relics from the palace of King Sennacherib and other recent archaeological finds from the ancient Assyrian empire. What could possibly be offensive?

The answer comes from the bottom of the screen where the following is written. “The monuments that you can see behind me are but statues and idols of people from previous centuries, which they used to worship instead of God. Those statues and idols weren’t there at the time of the Prophet nor his companions. They have been excavated by Satanists.”

It’s like what happens when creationists run into dinosaurs and realize that the very existence of these old bones means their version of creation doesn’t work so well. All of the statues and relics and idols in the museum signify that civilizations in the Near East existed 1000 years before Mohammed. For these men, such thought is impermissible. For them, history begins with Allah and will end with Allah. There can only be one path, one moral code, one way.

These frightening men believe that they are the sole arbiters of culture and religious belief. They think that they can destroy all notions of history and culture and art that do not align with their terribly narrow and toxic take on the universe. They want to obliterate the past and control the future.

Diversity is the enemy of ISIS. It is the enemy of all fundamentalist sects. Diversity destroys all totalitarian regimes. Diversity leads to equality: of men and women, of Christians and Jews and Moslems, of theists and atheists, of all humanity. Diversity is the champion of multiculturalism.

One of the things I love about progressive Judaism is our collective understanding that we alone do not determine the trajectory of the universe. We share in the travails and the triumphs of all humans. The central progressive Jewish lesson is the lesson our mothers taught us: “you have to learn to share.”

We must continue to uphold proclaim dignity for all human beings. We can’t let ourselves be led into cynicism and extremism by the actions of thugs and terrorists. We must be thoughtful and wise and openhearted without being naïve and self-delusional. That’s not easy. But in the end, we must continue proclaiming that everyone has to learn to share.

Of course Isis cannot control the ultimate warp and woof of history. They may destroy ancient artifacts, but they cannot destroy history itself. They will swing their sledgehammers. But in time, it is their ideology that will shatter. The oneness of God’s creation will win out, because it must.

Shabbat shalom

rebhayim

A friend of mine owned a Jewish bakery. One of his employees was very Orthodox, from an insulated Orthodox family and community. When the baker suggested creating a line of Valentine’s Day cakes and cookies, she was horrified. “This is a kosher bakery! You can’t display such a thing! It’s like puttingtreif in the window!”

Inevitably someone will call to ask me, “Rabbi? Is it ok if my kids exchange Valentine’s cards with other kids? After all, it’s a Christian thing, isn’t it?” This is a variation on the Halloween question as to whether it’s appropriate for Jewish kids to hit the streets on October 31st in search of tricks and treats.

My ruling on this is unambiguous. Valentine’s Day is as Christian a holiday as Halloween. Which is to say, not at all. There was at least one, if not more, saints named Valentine or a derivation thereof. They were remembered on February, as well as in July.

However, the connection with love and pink hearts is a totally secular phenomenon attributed to a few sources. The first source is Geoffrey Chaucer, the famed author and cultural icon of the Middle Ages who is credited as being the father of English literature. Apparently the Middle Ages was a time when there was a leisure class with time to dwell on romance and flowery language. Chaucer took advantage of this trend, creating a lasting connection between romantic love and chivalrous deeds.

The British, not generally known as the most passionate of people (or is this the influence of Downton Abbey?), are the second source of Valentine’s Day traditions. Valentine’s Day has historical roots mainly in Greco-Roman pagan fertility festivals and the medieval notion that birds pair off to mate on February 14. The history of exchanging cards and other tokens of love on February 14 began to develop in England after Chaucer, and then drifted across the Channel to France and eventually across the Atlantic to the US shores.

America was a ripe and ready market for European cultural transplants. Valentine’s Day, fuelled by the rise of capitalism and industry in America was a perfect match. Which introduces us to the third source of Valentine’s Day: the greeting card industry. Valentine hearts, candy, flowers and so forth, have been pushed at every conceivable commercial angle to the tune of billions of dollars in revenue.

To reiterate, there is absolutely no Jesus anything in Valentine’s Day. None. Whatever Jewish allergy to Valentine’s Day still exists, particularly among Orthodox and some Conservative Jews, has a lot to do with a fear of cultural assimilation. If a holiday or custom is safely located in Torah, it’s ok. But to take a secular practice and engage in it brings Jews right up next to non-Jewish activities that could be misconstrued as Christian. Therefor Valentine’s Day among traditional Jews is what is called pahst nischt, “not ok”.

Postmodern Judaism embraces full participation in secular American behaviors. July 4th, Thanksgiving, Halloween, and Valentine’s Day are all expressions of being an American. The idea of being included within a collective besides the Jewish experience is an utterly new thing in Jewish life. It is a true expression of inclusion and citizenship that is actually quite precious.

So by all means, enjoy Valentine’s Day if you choose. Just don’t use being Jewish as an excuse to short someone a box of candy.

In the opening sequence of the very noir movie Blue Velvet, the camera pans across a quiet, bucolic scene. But as the camera zooms in closer and closer and closer, we end up looking into the subterranean world below the pleasant scene. And there we see worms and centipedes and insects and rot. It is classic David Lynch imagery. Everything is fine, we say, but glance at the underbelly of the world and there find horror, or at least the very unseemly.

It’s a nihilistic notion that the world rests on a rotten foundation being eaten out from under us by voracious beasts, large and small. Because the decay is so far out of our reach, it seems unlikely that there’s a thing we can do about it. In such a hopeless world, does anything we do make a difference? Or can we just suck it up and learn to live with the rot?

These thoughts came to mind as I read yesterday’s New York Times. Researchers at Weill Cornell Medical College released a study on Thursday that mapped DNA found in New York’s subway system — a crowded, largely subterranean behemoth that carries 5.5 million riders on an average weekday, and is filled with hundreds of species of bacteria (mostly harmless), the occasional spot of bubonic plague, and a universe of enigmas. Strikingly, about half of the sequences of DNA they collected could not be identified — they did not match any organism known to the National Center for Biotechnology Information or the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. http://tinyurl.com/l6fu725  Almost half of the DNA found on the system’s surfaces did not match any known organism and just 0.2 percent matched the human genome [emphasis mine]. http://tinyurl.com/ls2fgme

What does it mean to live on a planet that has been researched and measured and analyzed, only to be told that almost half of a sample of DNA from a New York subway matched no known organism? Are their alien species taking the train to Brooklyn? What forms of life have we still not bumped into formally?

It’s a mean and angry world filled with fanatics who would burn us all alive. It is a scary world filled with fundamentalists of all stripes who denounce diversity as evil.  Do they outnumber us or we them? We can despair over the cooties, seen and unseen, and give in to the rot. Or we can just keep on keeping on. There are no guarantees. There are no neutral zones. There’s no such thing as true safety.

Jews have every reason to give up. We have every rational excuse to jump ship. History has pummeled us senseless. We have all heard stories of Jews who changed their names, who denied their Jewishness, survivors of various anti-Jewish violence who raised their kids as Christians because it was too scary to be “out”. We decry their behavior but we should instead acknowledge their fear as something real to be respected and pitied. The truth is that in the fight or flight equation, running away is a legitimate choice.

The guy who did the DNA subway research was inspired by watching his baby daughter at preschool, sticking stuff in her mouth and then handing to the next kid who does the same and so forth. He marveled at her resilience and wondered just how much contact we had with others. And apparently, even after subterranean contact with utterly unknown bacteria and other microbes on subway poles, humans manage just fine – even without Purell.

Yes we’re still here… Against all odds, despite all cooties.  Like a fiddler on a roof we struggle to keep our balance as we play our music. And not just because of tradition, though Tevye is correct… Long after other nations and peoples have risen and fell, we continue to exist because we have a story to tell, a story that acknowledges the rot while not being overcome by it. Life isn’t so great… but the alternative ain’t so hot.

The early mapmakers wrote in the unknown and unmapped regions, “Here there be dragons.” And do you know how the Jewish people respond? Full speed ahead.

Shabbat Shalom,

rebhayim

What would we be doing right now if we were a congregation in France? What would be the zeitgeist of our community? What kind of decisions would we feel compelled to make? How many new armed guards would we be hiring? What programs would be curtailed or outright cancelled? Would people come to services out of solidarity or stay home for fear of violence?

Whatever the complexities of these practical questions, I have no doubt that we would face them as resolutely as our French brothers and sisters at this moment. Whatever the answers would be, we would address them and then implement them without hesitation. We believe in the strength and the resilience of our people.

But there is another question French Jews are asking each other, THE question.  And we as American Jews have no analog experience from which to answer it: should we stay or should we go now? Or to state it in apocalyptic but honest language, is this the end of Jewish life in Europe?

The first evidence of Jews in France dates back to the 6^th century. Since then Jews have experienced horrors and honors, oppression and freedom. When Napoleon made Jews equal citizens of France after the French Revolution it was a new high water mark for Jewish life in the Diaspora. It spelled the beginnings of modernity and the possibility that Jews could enter the secular world as equals to their non-Jewish neighbors. When Alfred Dreyfus, an assimilated Jew and a career officer in the French Army at the end of the 19^th century was charged with treason on trumped up charges (as a Jew he was an easy target in the terribly antisemitic French army),  there were all kinds of antisemitic incidents. Dreyfus was later cleared, but what of the antisemitism? As always, a complicated story, but perhaps part of the answer is revealed in how many Jews were rounded up in France during the Holocaust. Or is it revealed in the way France alone amongst other European nations, came to Israel’s aid in the 50s and 60s?

The story of the Jews of France is filled with point-counterpoint. What’s undisputable is the impact Jews have had on the French Republic – and vice versa. And now, in the wake of the murders in the kosher market in Paris and other recent antisemitic violence, are the Jews of France at risk? Statistically speaking, the chances of being hurt or killed in a terror attack are still greater in Israel. A new Israeli citizen from France said, “But it’s not the same thing, because here, we look out for one another. There, the feeling is that nobody will protect us; we don’t know if people on the street will help us if something happens.”

“If 100,000 Jews leave, France will no longer be France. The French Republic will be judged a failure.” So said French Prime Minister Manuel Valls. And I would agree. A judenrein France would be the ultimate disgrace of a modern nation founded on the principles of liberty, fraternity and egalitie.

Would we do? Would we be planning our exit? Would we opt out? Of course I don’t know. Thank God I don’t need to answer that question. So I have the freedom to wonder: isn’t the exodus of French Jews to Israel exactly what these terrorists want? Isn’t scaring Jews to run away an old picture from a well-worn playbook? Isn’t that yesterday’s news? And isn’t it awful that in 2015 I have ask these questions?

I stand with my French Jewish brothers and sisters. If they believe that it is time for them to leave, then so be it. What would I do? As the son of a Holocaust survivor, I couldn’t bear being forced to leave a democratic nation, terrorism or not. I think I believe in making a stand. Either choice right now feels dangerous and fraught with meaning. No matter what, I am relieved that there is an Israel. I am relieved that Jews, thank God, actually have a choice. That’s the good news in all of this.

I had so hoped that this new year would somehow be better than 2014, a year that was filled with so much suffering and death. I don’t know why I let myself embrace that thought, but I did. And here we are, just inside the doorway of 2015 and the news from Paris is horrible and overwhelming. Of course I know there’s plenty of good news in the world. America has more jobs, the stock market seems secure and bullish, kids have gotten into college, the Ebola scare has been tamed, and of course, we’re here, breathing, living, connecting.

It’s not that there is bad news; it’s always been around. It’s the increasing virulence of the headlines and the worsening ways in which some humans extol killing and maiming innocent people as a statement of faith. This scourge of terrorism feels pernicious and long lived.

I actually chose the title of this week’s Before Shabbat 2 weeks ago while I was in Israel. I wanted to tell you a story about identity and Jewishness and Zionism and the different names we acquire at different phases of our lives. The title remains but the original story was wrested away in Paris.

Today I stand in solidarity with all of the journalists and writers and cartoonists and photographers and stringers and critics who risk their lives to speak out and share their thoughts and ideas. Je suis Charlie.

I mourn the loss of Stéphane Charbonnier and Jean Cabut and Georges Wolinski and Bernard Verlhac, Philippe Honore and Bernard Maris, Elsa Cayat and Mustapha Ourrad, Michel Renaud, Frederic Boisseau, Ahmed Merabet and Franck Brinsolaro, the 12 victims killed at the offices of Charlie Hebdo, a raunchy political newspaper. I honor them and their bravery to lampoon the status quo. I applaud their right to “go too far” in their statements or their imagery even when I am offended by their crudity. The world needs such people to remind us of our temporality. Freedom requires us to take a deep breath and not take ourselves too seriously.

Radical Islam is utterly unable to abide diversity of opinion and belief. Freedom of thought and expression are anathema to any totalitarian regime. The mere fact that humor and the act of laughing at oneself are unlawful in the eyes of radical Islamists is absurd. That political humor, even poor or low brow humor, might provoke assassination and mayhem is beyond belief.

As David Brooks wrote in the New York Times today, “…provocateurs and other outlandish figures serve useful public roles. Satirists and ridiculers expose our weakness and vanity when we are feeling proud. They puncture the self-puffery of the successful. They level social inequality by bringing the mighty low. When they are effective they help us address our foibles communally, since laughter is one of the ultimate bonding experiences.” http://tinyurl.com/o6wf2qt

I have another name today. Actually it is always one of my names but usually not in French. Je suis Juif. I am a Jew. I am one of the customers at the kosher supermarket purchasing last minute Shabbat wine and a challah. Je suis Juif. I’m buying Shabbat candles with my grandson, schmoozing with the cashier about Israel. I don’t have the names of the 4 dead yet, but I know mine. Je suis Juif. I am a Jew, a vulnerable person by virtue of my name and my history. For centuries I hid from the mercurial wrath of antisemites and their ilk. For centuries I tried to avoid trouble, to do the complicated Jewish equivalent of “putting on the ole master”.

But no more. Je suis Juif. I will not go gently into that good night. I will stand for justice and for freedom, for my people, for all people. I will speak out in the face of inequity: in the USA, in France, in Israel.

I guess it was irrational to assume a new year would somehow bring us closer to a Messianic era. I see that the work for this year more than ever is to declare as did the Bratslaver rebbe, “Don’t despair.” It won’t be easy. But that’s a part of why we’re here. Nous sommes Juifs.

“True story of Hanukkah?” you may ask. “Isn’t there only one story?” You’d probably be referring to the tale of the Jewish festival of lights, which celebrates the Maccabean Revolt (167-160 BCE), and the narrative that Jewish rebel Judas Maccabeus vanquished the evil Greek emperor Antiochus and rededicated the Temple, at which the miracle of the oil occurred. Only… this isn’t the whole story. (For a great historical overview of the Hanukkah story click here)

But before I reveal the whole story, I share with you a thought. Why have we conspired to keep the story of Hanukkah in the dark? Why do we relegate it to a relatively juvenile passive tale of a miracle happening to us?

Hanukkah has become a significant festival only in the last 75-100 years in a desperate attempt to keep up with the ever more commercial mayhem that is Christmas. With advertising for Christmas starting the first day after Halloween, some Jewish parents need a counterweight, something to divert their kids’ attention to a Jewish theme. In the old days Hanukkah was about lighting candles, eating latkes, spinning dreidels, gambling with chocolate gelt, and maybe opening a tchotchke or two. Now it’s presents and more presents and an easily digestible story.

The Hanukkah story was all but lost by the second century. In fact someone asks the question in the Talmud, “What is Hanukkah?” This is not a pedagogic technique. I think the questioner sincerely challenges his colleagues to share their thoughts. It’s only then that we hear the story of the oil lasting 8 days hence 8 nights of Hanukkah… Nice story. Only…

Spoiler alert… Only the real story of Hanukkah is not about the miracle of oil. The eight days was all about the festival of Sukkot lasting eight days. Confused? It seems that in 164 BCE, when Sukkot time came along, the Temple in Jerusalem was in the hands of the enemy. Therefore our ancestors could not observe this 8 day holiday. We’re not in tune with the Jewish holiday cycle and its agrarian roots. But for our ancestors, the agricultural aspects were primary components of the holiday. Not to observe Sukkot, the festival of the Fall harvest, was experienced as bad form, if not bad karma. What if it cursed the harvest? When the Temple was reclaimed, our ancestors decided that they would start off the rededication by practicing Sukkot; better late than never.

Why does the miracle of the oil story hold sway over the ‘real’ story? At its heart the story of Hanukkah is about revolutionaries evicting a foreign culture and its acolytes. It’s about a corrupt institution (the Temple) being challenged by those who depended on its sanctity. It’s also about a people who were striving to hold the line against innovation and reform, who believed that any change was bad and destructive. All of which is to say that the real Hanukkah story is like lots of stories: good guys acting like bad guys and vice versa. It’s like the home team that slowly gets lazy and indolent and the outsiders prepare to pounce. It’s about how a small force can bring havoc down on the heads of a large established nation and its army. Do you see the problem? We love the Maccabees and their courage. We hate their fundamentalist coercion and their binary worldview. We applaud their audacious unmasking of the corrupt priesthood. We are appalled when the Maccabean descendants themselves become corrupt.

The real story leaves us with many more questions and dilemmas. Is it any wonder that our ancestors went for Hanukkah ‘lite’? It’s so much easier to take the story out of the realm of human foibles and greed, placing it instead in God’s hands, make about the triumph of light over darkness.

Just this morning I taught the TBA preschoolers the miracle of the oil Hanukkah story. That’s how our children should start learning about this holiday. But it does us no good to stay with that story alone. Our Judaism must be openhearted enough to embrace the subtle meaning of miracles of light. It must also be hardheaded enough to withstand the ambivalent message of how the Jewish people have sought to change the way we do things and how sometimes we are our own worst enemy.

Our only hope is to be honest and forthright about our past and to stand in the present with integrity. We cannot afford to wait for another miracle story. This time we’re the ones who must bring the light. We have to make the miracle with our own hands and love and sweat and pain. That’s the real Hanukkah story.