JEWISH SENTINEL

JEWISH WORLD • DECEMBER 20-26, 2024 13 SATURDAY, DEC 28 @ 6PM Chabadof TheHamptons ד " בס Drive through the streets of East Hampton showing your Jewish pride with a bright menorah on your car! 6:00 pm- cars line up at 17 Woods Lane 6:30 pm- parade departs Reserve a menorah for your car: jewishhamptons.com/dreidel seen by the neighbors. On the oth- er, we have one of the two major observances of Christianity, this one involving the birth of the titu- lar founder of the religious sects that fall under that rubric. There is no comparison in terms oI significance, although no one would know that when seeing huge public chanukiot amid massive public Christmas displays. Among the traditions of Christ- mas are hanging wreaths on doors and windows (many Jews now hang cut-outs of chanukiot on theirs), decorating homes with all kinds of things, including strings of letters that spell “Merry Christ- mas” (many Jews now decorate their homes with cut-outs of dreidels and strings of letters that spell out “Happy Hanukkah”), and stringing Christmas lights (for which we now have “Hanukkah lights,” usually strung in a Star of David pattern). C hristmas is a religious holiday (although it is easy to miss that amid all the commercialism sur- rounding its observance), and the customs and traditions of Christ- mas are meant to enhance its sacred nature. That makes them religious customs and traditions and, there- fore, covered by the “chukat ha-goyim” prohibition. ,n the sSecific case oI the &hrist- mas lights, one of three possibili- ties is the likeliest for the origin of the custom: 1. Decorating homes with can- dles and greenery was a feature of the very pagan winter solstice festi- val, which was dedicated to Saturn and later morphed into Christmas. 2. The lights are meant to memo- rialize the “star of Bethlehem” that supposedly foretold the event cele- brated at Christmas. 6anta needs the lights to find the houses on his gift-giving jour- ney. Celebrating Hanukkah this way clearly violates the principle of chukat ha-goyim. On the other hand, the Talmudic commentary known as the Tosefta states that it is permissible to wish a non-Jew a happy holiday “for the sake of peace.” (See its commen- tary to Mishnah Avodah Zarah 1:3.) Despite its problematic origins and because of the sages' ability to adapt, Hanukkah now has a Jewish religious purpose: It stands for the triumph of faith in God over the forces of paganism, with God (not the Hasmoneans) as the ultimate author of the victory, as indeed God was. Given all this, a fair question is: What makes Hanukkah such a pop- ular Jewish holiday? On a scale of one to ten on the list of festivals, after all, Hanukkah, a “minor” festival, probably should be a 1. Yet Hanukkah may even top Passover on the popularity scale. Most Jews observe it for the entire eight days (and let us not forget the endless series of presents), whereas only the 3assoYer seder on the first night outstrips it as an observance. One possible reason is timing. The month of Kislev falls in mid-to- late November and runs into De- cember on the secular calendar. (This year, it began on December 2, which Peans the first day oI +a- nukkah, Kislev 25, will fall the day aIter³oh, figure that out Ior yourself.) In other words, Hanuk- kah occurs when the nights are the longest, meaning during the winter solstice Hanukkah continued from page 8 continued on page 18 It doesn’t compare to Christmas in terms of significance, but many are unaware of this. ;he re]olt began ^hen 4attathias sle^ a Seleucid soldier.