Chag Urim Sameach

 I love Chanukah.

It isn't the most important holiday on our calendar by any stretch of the Jewish imagination but it is definitely my favourite and, in my opinion, the most fun.

I suppose that we could argue that Purim is also loads of fun and I do agree that putting little kids in costumes and letting them loose to scream like banshees definitely ranks high on the enjoyment meter, but Purim is more of the "drink until you can't remember that there is a holiday" sort of fun. Chanukah is a more "lovely and sophisticated, let's gather with friends and family" great time. There is no specific Chanukah religious service where we join in the synagogue, so Chanukah is that one time during the year when being together really and truly is the celebration.

And then came Covid...

Every year for the past dozen or so, my mom and I have hosted a Chanukah party at our Southern home. We cook and we bake and we pay attention to small Chanukah-related details. One year, I even learned how to make sufganiyot. This year, that get-together has obviously been put on ice as we are lighting our own Chanukiot from our own and separate Toronto addresses. We aren't pretending that we can put aside the Covid restrictions for the sake of the holiday and be together for even a short amount of time to celebrate. But while I am mourning the loss of our traditions, I am taking comfort in the fact that by forgoing them this year, we are keeping each other safe and there is the promise of holiday celebrations yet to come. 

I don't want to sound bitter or angry but I must admit to seething just a bit when I hear of people who observe other holidays pretending that Covid is on hiatus during those occasions. My family hasn't had a holiday together since March and most of them were far more religiously significant than Chanukah. We have done Zoom seders on Pesach and weekly Shabbat candle lightings. We watched YouTube Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur synagogue services on our computers and have held interactive Torah study sessions online. My community has joined with others across Canada for all-night study on Shavuot and Selichot and will do so again this Saturday during Chanukah. My husband sat shiva for his mother alone in our condo without the comfort of in-person visits with family and friends so, please spare me the lament that you can't possibly do Christmas with only the people that you live with.

I get it. We are all tired and sad. There is so much that we have lost this year. There is no normalcy. I should be with my mom making cookies in Florida and my granddaughter should be with her other grandparents celebrating the holidays in the Midwest. It really sucks. But, we can get through it if we remember that we need each other to sacrifice right now in order to literally survive. 

So, this Chanukah, my Chanukiot are set up in the window here in downtown Toronto ready to have their annual Hillel/Shammai candle debate. We are ordering our latkes from a local cafe in order to help out their business during the city's second lockdown. I baked and decorated (!!) Chanukah cookies. Gifts have been dropped off for Molly and a few surprises will hopefully be coming via delivery for my grown-up kids. (Baruch Ha-Shem!) I will Zoom with my synagogue family over the next few days for candle-lighting and my actual family more often than I care to mention. We celebrate alone this year so that we can all gather in person next Chanukah. Please, everyone, do the same. 

Chag Urim Sameach. May the candles illuminate the darkness we are all experiencing and may we all find health and peace. 

The Great Hillel/Shammai Throw Down of 5780

Several years ago, in order to teach my children about the Talmudic debate between Rabbis Hillel and Shammai over the order of the Chanukah candles and the proper way to light them, I took two separate Chanukiyot and decided to honour each rabbi that participated in the discussion.

Chanukah 5770

According to Reb Shammai, when lighting the menorah, one should begin with the days remaining in the holiday and ignite with maximum potential. On the other side of the argument, Reb Hillel declared that one should always begin with the days completed and ignite instead with realized potential. Thus it was deemed that the House of Shammai would begin with eight lights on the first night and count downward over the week while the House of Hillel would begin the holiday with a single candle on the first night and increase. There are Talmudic proof texts given for both theses; Shammai had some archaic ramblings about sacrificing bulls on Succot. But Hillel's general rule that we should always increase in matters of holiness rather than diminish ultimately won out. (The Talmud actually mentions a vote taken on the debate.) And so today, we Jews light our Chanukiyot as Rabbi Hillel dictated.

I have given some serious thought to this famous Talmudic argument. We Jews may not follow the teachings of the minority opinions but we give them great weight and we do not pretend that they don't exist. These opinions are still found written in the tractates of the Talmud right alongside the majority. (I like to think of them as the RBG decisions.) The dissents matter because they inform our practice and we can look to them with fresh eyes given whatever the period we live in and the societal norms that govern us.

So, even though it is considered halachically correct to light our Chanukah candles in a Hillelian manner, I wondered if Shammai's method might hold some weight today. What if we, alongside our regular practice, added some informed new ritual that gave credence to the teaching of the other side? 

We tend to believe that snuffing out a flame is negative. A fire is often synonymous with love, creativity, holiness, or blessing. Extinguishing that beauty is unthinkable. But, what if a fire isn't a good thing? What if, instead of contributing to all that we wish to celebrate, the flame is instead a destructive force? Fire can be deadly and it has the potential to destroy. Wouldn't we want to extinguish that which tears us down? Wouldn't Rabbi Shammai's observance then take on a different, yet still, dare I suggest, holy philosophy, for our celebration of the holiday?

And so, I offer an updated Chanukah practice. I am returning to my custom of lighting two separate Chanukiyot on each night of Chanukah this year; one for Rabbi Hillel and the hope of increasing the holiness in our lives, and one for Rabbi Shammai and the hope of eradicating the destructive forces that poison our world. Here is my rubric.

On Day 1: We light all eight candles for the wholeness that we wish and hope the world to be.

On Day 2: We extinguish the candle of racial, sexual, or religious intolerance.

On Day 3: We extinguish the candle of xenophobia.

On Day 4: We extinguish the candle of environmental destruction.

On Day 5: We extinguish the candle of the acceptance of poverty.

On Day 6: We extinguish the candle our own arrogance and narcissism.

On Day 7: We extinguish the candle of our indifference.

On Day 8: We extinguish the candle of willful ignorance.

May the coming days bring light to the darkness and may we extinguish the fires of apathy. May all who celebrate, look to both Hillel and Shammai for inspiration and may we all find peace.

Chag Urim Sameach.

Chanukah 5780

Timeliness

I spent some quiet time with a friend yesterday and we talked extensively about changes and timeliness. She told me that she was making a concerted effort to tackle the decades-long procrastination of wading through the mountains of "no longer relevant" stuff that was cluttering up her home and mind. Given our impending move, it is a task to which I am intimately acquainted. Sifting through the clutter of our lives has been a year-long process that has been draining on both body and soul. But, the conversation with my friend got me to thinking about the nature of timeliness and how and when we make momentous decisions in our lives.

I have always been in awe of those of us who make "five-year life-plans" and stick to them like shoes to tar. We all know the type. 

Year One: Get Married and save some money. 

Year Two: Get that dream job. 

Year Three: Buy our dream house. 

Year Four: Renovate said dream house. 

Year Five: Have first dream child. 

When it works, it's amazing; clean and straightforward. But, life is all about the curves and how we react to them. Show me the person for whom this type of planning has been successful and I will counter with ten who have had to alter their projections.

Now, I am certainly not suggesting that we shouldn't have a plan. What kind of Type A personality would I be if I did that? (I have moving lists that are longer than Santa's at Christmas.) I am merely proffering up the thesis that there are times in our lives when we should do something because it feels right in that space and time. Case in point: By today's standards, we had our children when we were relatively young. We absolutely made a conscious choice. We certainly weren't financially secure and we sure as shit didn't have a clue as to what we were doing 90% of the time. (A deep and heartfelt apology to my sons.) Most of our friends back then were still in their partying and very single '20s, some were backpacking the world, and on many occasions, we were left on the outside looking in simply by virtue of the changed nature of our family status. And yet, I didn't regret my choice then and I still don't regret it today. My boys were and continue to be the best that I have done with my life. The Husband and I instinctively knew that the time was right to start a family (even with all of the obvious obstacles) and with any luck at all, we would reap the benefits of young parenthood in our middle age. Timeliness.

But as I have aged, (gracefully, I might add) I have come to realize that time has a nasty habit of flowing in only one direction. When people around me today talk of five-year life-plans I wince and attempt to bite my tongue. I have seen and experienced too much to pretend that life isn't in the here and now, and that if circumstances allow, those momentous decisions we have been putting off should be made while we are still able to reap the benefits.  

Hence our upcoming move to the urban jungle of Canada's largest city. We have talked about it for years. For the sake of timeliness, the time to stop talking is now. (with a hat tip to Rabbi Jordan Pearlson z"l) Over the past two years, we have been rocked to our core by changes. Births, deaths, illnesses, retirements, weddings, new jobs, new businesses, new relationships, new understandings of old ones, aging, and most of all, a deep-seated understanding that life offers no dress rehearsals. Moving is difficult. I won't pretend otherwise. It has dredged up much emotional turmoil and physical pain. (My back and knees might not survive until August.) But as my conversation with my friend, yesterday reminded me, I have passed the long-term planning stage in my life. I am living for today because tomorrow might bring a shitstorm.

Rav Hillel famously said: אם אין אני לי, מי לי? וכשאני לעצמי, מה אני? ואם לא עכשיו, אימתי 

Im ein ani li, mi li? U'kh'she'ani le'atzmi, mah ani? V'im lo 'akhshav, eimatai?

If I am not for myself, then who will be for me? But when I am for myself, then what am "I"? And if not now, when? (Pirkei Avot 1:14)

Hillel understood the struggle we face trying to find a balance between self and others. Living a life of complete selfishness or selflessness never works. Both must be factored into the equation. But, Hillel went one step further. He acknowledged that since we are uncertain as to what each day of our lives might bring, we must look at each opportunity as a "once in a lifetime" opportunity since we really don't know if it will ever come around again, and even if we think it might, the context will have certainly altered. Timeliness.

This is one of my favourite songs of the past several years. Do yourselves a favour and spend 4:30 minutes listening. You won't be sorry. 

The Great Hillel/Shammai Chanukah Candle Debate

**Due to the arrival of Chanukah this evening, my regular feature Almost Wordless Wednesday will be presented as an Almost Wordless Thursday tomorrow. 

Last year on Chanukah we tried an experiment in our home. We lit two Chanukiot on each of the eight nights of Chanukah. Now that exercise isn't terribly unusual in and of itself. Many families will light several special Chanukah menorahs each night that may have sentimental value or familial or historical significance. The result is a substantial illumination that is befitting the holiday. But as a kibbitz last year, The Husband and I decided to light one chanukiah in the tradition of the Beyt Hillel and one in the tradition of the Beyt Shammai. It wasn't long before we began to really talk about the ritual and about the meaning behind it. And within the confines of those eight days, our little joke took on some significant meaning. But first, some Judaic perspective.

Two of the Talmud's most learned sages were Rabbis Hillel and Shammai. Their disputes are detailed and legendary. The schools of disciples which they headed often debated on matters of ritual and theology, always with honour and reverence, and in most cases the ideas of Hillel won out. Those arguments are meticulously recorded in the Talmud. Yet, the school of Shammai didn't just disappear into the ether and his students continued to follow his teachings. The Talmud tells us Elu V'Elu Divrei Elohim Chayim; that both sides are "for the sake of heaven" and therefore are the words of the living God and should be respected.

One of Hillel and Shammai's most famous debates concerned the lighting of Chanukah candles. It was the determination of Shammai that one begins lighting with the days remaining, while Hillel taught that one begins with the days completed. Thus it was that Shammai would light eight candles on the first day and decrease the number by one on each successive day. Hillel followed the opposite path of lighting one candle on the first day and increasing the number by one on each successive day. Thereby Shammai celebrated the days to come and Hillel the days that had already passed.

Of course there was Halachic rationale for both philosophies. Shammai's comes from the holiday of Sukkot where it was tradition to bring bulls for the sacrifice. On each of the days of the holiday, that number would be steadily decreased by one. Thus the candles of Chanukah should follow the same counting. (There is some thought that the first Chanukah was actually a delayed celebration of our fall festival of Sukkot. The postponement was brought on by the Maccabees battle and subsequent victory over the Hellenists, thus making a rededication of the temple necessary.) 

Hillel's reasoning was that when it comes to matters of holiness we should always attempt to increase our commitment. The Chanukah candles remind us of our continual striving for a greater level of holiness in our lives. 

As was usually the case, Hillel's arguments won the day and thus it is our practice to light the candles in increasing rather than decreasing order. As The Husband and I began our little experiment last year, it occurred to me that even though Hillel's practice is followed today, Shammai's point of view is neither deleted nor dismissed. This is an inclusive brand of Judaism that I find very appealing. While law has become codified, it is neither static nor without counter-arguments. Majority and minority opinions both carry weight within our tradition. We continue to discuss, to change, to include, and to move progressively forward so that Judaism can remain relevant today. 

So tonight on this first night of Chanukah I will again light two Chanukiot. One to honour the mitzvah of the holiness of the lights in the tradition of the accepted practice of Hillel, and one to honour the inclusiveness of the minority in the tradition of Shammai.

I wish all who celebrate a Chag Urim Sameach. To my American Jewish friends who are observing a once in a cosmos converging of Chanukah and Thanksgiving, I wish you double blessings. To everybody else Happy Thanksgiving or Happy Wednesday/Thursday.