The Winter Festival: Chanukah
And How "This Too Shall Pass" Is The Order Of The World
Dear Friends,
Chanukah is in a little over two weeks and even though it is technically still fall, I’m definitely already feeling the winter blues. Yes, I live in California and yes, I know I’m a major weenie for sitting here with my space heater (who we lovingly call Katrina) while other parts of the world are sub zero. But it’s actually pretty cold here AND, maybe more importantly, it’s dark. I’m moving slower, feeling a little sadder, and trying not to pathologize the natural effects of this time of year. This is all to say, right now I’m thinking about Chanukah as a winter holiday first and foremost. In fact, this year Chanukah will begin in the fall and usher us into the winter.
Chanukah starts: Dec 18
Winter starts: Dec 21
Chanukah ends: Dec 26
Chanukah will be our road into winter – our portal. So for you, a reflection on this.
Love, Meg
We all know the story of Chanukah. Or, some version of it. The Maccabees. The oil. Dreidels. Miracles. Civil war (oh you didn’t learn that part in Hebrew school?). It’s written in the books of the Maccabees (which wasn’t included in the Hebrew biblical canon but is in the Catholic biblical canon) and was retold beautifully in 1996 on Nickelodeon’s “Rugrats.”
But buried deep inside of the Talmud there is a short midrashic story about a primordial winter festival with strong similarities to Chanukah. A story about the ebbs and flows of nature.
Avodah Zara 8a
the Sages taught: When Adam the first man saw that the day was progressively diminishing, as the days become shorter from the autumnal equinox until the winter solstice, he did not yet know that this is a normal phenomenon, and therefore he said: Woe is me; perhaps because I sinned the world is becoming dark around me and will ultimately return to the primordial state of chaos and disorder. And this is the death that was sentenced upon me from Heaven, as it is written: “And to dust shall you return” (Genesis 3:19). He arose and spent eight days in fasting and in prayer.
Once he saw that the season of Tevet, i.e., the winter solstice, had arrived, and saw that the day was progressively lengthening after the solstice, he said: Clearly, the days become shorter and then longer, and this is the order of the world. He went and observed a festival for eight days.
Could you imagine what it would feel like if you didn’t know why the night came earlier and earlier? The fear that the tide of darkness would only ever increase until you drowned in it. Adam wonders if the growing night is in fact his sentenced death. But then, imagine what it would feel like to notice the days lengthen for the first time. The relief of summer. The softening of your muscles that have been tightened in the cold. “This is the order of the world,” Adam says. The order of the world is to expand and contract, like a lung. To beat and pause, like a heart. To be born and to die. Kohelet agrees.
Surely, winter is our time for ingathering. Huddling and hibernating. At times we feel like Adam, will this ever end? Am I dying? Will I be warm again? Motivated again? Myself again? A loved one may tell you Gam zeh ya’avor, this too will pass. But then you think, I’ll believe when I see it.
The chanukiah is our physical reminder that yes, warmth will come again. It is our way to see it and feel it and hear it and smell it and touch it. The strike of the match and that first scent of burnt paper stinging your nose. The hiss of fire. Warm wax. Light is on its way.
Even the way we light the chanukiah is designed to remind us of the increase of light. Famously, Hillel and Shammai (Jewish sages from the last century BCE and the early 1st century CE) debated over how to light this 8 branched lamp. Shammai said to start with all the lights illuminated and then gradually decrease each day. This would better mimic the way oil was used up over the 8 days of Chanukah, and it would serve to represent the diminishing nature of sacrifices that priests offered during Sukkot (the holiday from which Chanukah was modeled, our tradition also teaches). On the other hand, Hillel said to start with one light and add a new one each day. This would help people keep track of the days of the holiday and, Hillel says, holiness is supposed to increase throughout the 8 days. As the oil diminished, the miracle increased. The tradition says that while Shammai’s reasoning may be more exact and literal, even sharper, it is Hillel’s way that is better for the peoples’ spirits. In the winter we don’t need to watch the candles recede – we already see that in the natural world. Just look out a window at 4pm in December. Instead, we need to remember “the order of the world.” The day will widen, again.
We take this reminder, the lit chanukiah, and we put it in our windows for all to see. A symbol of Jewish pride and hope. Pirsum hanes, we are told. Spread the miracle. Publicize it so all can share in this necessary reminder. But which miracle? On Chanukah we celebrate the miracle of the oil (made up by the rabbis) and the miracle of a small band of zealots defeating the Seleucid Empire (that one’s trickier). Let us also celebrate the miracle of “the order of the world.” Thank God the winter comes – winter brings us pomegranates and parsnips and snow and rain and rest. How incredible, the variety we experience in the natural world! Variety enabled by the impermanence and change of the natural world.
Yes, thank God the winter comes, and, thank God the winter goes.
Gam zeh ya’avor. This too shall pass. That is the order of the world.