Two of my younger nieces were singing the most lovely Chanukah songs in the back seat of the car most of the way from Jerusalem to Ben Gurion airport last week. One of them was born the day before Chanukah, so for her they're sort of birthday songs as well. I'm going to carry the warm memory of those sweet little voices all through the holiday, though I didn't learn any of the melodies well enough to remember them very well.
In Israel, in addition to latkes, they eat a lot of jelly doughnuts (sufganiot) at this time of year. The connection is the same. Oil. As in the one-day supply that burned for eight days in the Temple until more could be brought -- the miracle of Chanukah.
Chanukah is our second festival of freedom (the first, of course, being Passover). The redundancy speaks volumes about the importance of freedom in our tradition. Freedom from oppression, both political and religious. Freedom to determine our own destiny, to use our own language, to worship our own God, to celebrate our own achievements and mourn our own failures.
Throughout our history, the Jewish people have also joined in the struggle for the freedom of others. It's part of what we're taught, from a very early age, as a basic Jewish, and human, value. If you know Jewish history, you know that we have a deep aversion to oppression. It's simply an intolerable evil. And it's this aversion that, for better or worse, to our benefit or to our detriment, is ultimately going to lead to some sort of resolution of Israel's dispute with the palestinians. It's one of our great strengths but also one of our great weaknesses, as it's all too easy to exploit.
This year, the Iraqi people are celebrating their own miracle of freedom, still in progress. Let's hope it won't be as short-lived as our Chanukah miracle turned out to be and that they'll continue to celebrate it, in peace, for many years to come.
Shabbat Shalom.
Chanukah sameach.
