What Do We Celebrate?
Adapted from Rabbi Braun’s sermon in 5770
The Guinness book of world records is an absolutely fascinating book and it tells us a tremendous amount about what our society values and celebrates.
A few weeks ago a slide show of these records caught my eye and I began to scroll through.
The first seven entries were as follows.
- Nov 13 2008 – largest rubber band ball @ 9032 pounds.
- July 18 2008, 1,253 people dressed as smurfs, largest smurf dress up gathering ever.
- Sept 13, 2008 fastest 100 meter hurdle by a female wearing fins.
- Jan 9, 2003 world’s largest pocket knife 12 ft 8 inches 268.9 lbs.
- Lets get out our Israeli pride, largest lemon ever grown 16 lbs 9.7 oz.
- Nov 9, 2008 most beer steins carried over 40 meters female. 131 feet and 3 inches
- This is even better than the smurfs- tightest frying pan roll. Tightest circumference of a 12 inch aluminum frying pan rolled with bare hands in 30 seconds. 6.87 inches.
What makes this compelling? Why should anyone care about any of these? Is there any value to any of these records? I think that we would agree that these are come of the most ridiculous things we have ever heard and that there is no real reason at all to celebrate these “accomplishments.”
And yet people work very hard at these things. Each of these records actually has broken an old record which means that someone else tried to do them.
Apparently many see a value in simply being the best is some arena regardless of the inherent worth of value of the activity. I can do something in this world that no one else can do. I would suggest that this is a result of an “over focus” on the human being. This is all about man, or woman wearing fins. Once we become too obsessed with man and his abilities we run the risk of seeing value in these absurd accomplishments.
What do Jews celebrate? Jews never celebrate man exclusively. Our celebrations always focus on God, God’s involvement in our lives in many different ways and the meeting of man and God. That is what we value and that is worth celebrating. In many of our holidays, both rabbinic and biblical there is real and great human initiative but that is always balanced by our awareness of God and our limitations.
We see this very clearly by Chanukah as well. On Chanukah we celebrate a military victory. The Hasmoneans went to war and won. There was necessary and courageous human initiative. Nevertheless when we describe that victory in prayer it is in the context of thanks to God for delivering the mighty to the hands of the week and the many into the hands of the few. That prayer is an attempt to balance our perspective on the war and victory. Yes we fought is and we would not have won had we not fought it, but let us not forget that hand of God at play in the world and our lives and our wars.
The same idea helps us explain a very strange passage in the Gemara detailing the reason for our celebration on chanuka.
The Talmud in Shabbat 21b asks its famous question- “mai chanuka?” what is chanuka? The answer is well known; the temple was defiled and they found a pure cruse of oil and were able to light the menorah etc.
There are two primary issues with that Gemara.
- The cruse of oil does not seem to be a good enough reason to create a festival for all to celebrate. The restoration of Jewish sovereignty in Israel is a good reason. The victory over the Hellenists is a good reason. God’s salvation is a good reason. The cruse of oil does not seem to fit into that category. I know some of you did not like hearing that because you grew up on that answer but it is worth a thought especially considering the fact that halachically they could have lit with impure oil. Sure pure is better but they could have lit anyways. In essence the Gemara’s answer is that we celebrate the ability to light in a better way. It just doesn’t measure up.
- What about the war and victory? Why is that mentioned only as a means to an end? It seems to be the focus and it is in al hanissim?
The best answer to that question is the following. The Hasmoneans while excellent at Chanukah time became corrupt and power hungry over time which led to the downfall of their dynasty. They became focused on the human and his power and it led them astray. The piece in the Talmud is written centuries after Chanukah and by that time they knew what had happened to the Hasmoneans. Thus the focus on the oil is really an attempt to divert attention away from celebrating the victory of a dynasty that had since become obsessed with power and failed to learn the lesson of Chanukah.
That same temptation and obsession with the body and the material and man caused many of the Jews to Hellenize and adapt Greek cultures obsession with the body and the material. Chanuka is also a celebration of traditional Judaism over the Hellenists.
So many years later the same issues and same temptations exist.
The message that we share with the world on Chanukah is one of balance and one of spirituality.
When Israel fights is wars today we recognize that we must fight and will not win without fighting and at the same time see the hand of God in those wars and battles.
And when we ask what do we celebrate and value, the answer still is – spirituality and our relationship with God. We recognize the beauty and value of the human body but understand that its value lies in its being used correctly. We do not believe in the ultimate value of the human being and the celebration of human power. We don’t believe in being the best simply because we want to be the best and we certainly should not celebrate inane activities such as beer stein carrying and frying pan rolls.
