JEWISH SENTINEL

8 JEWISH WORLD • DECEMBER 20-26, 2024 Oy Hanukkah, Oy Hanukkah It should be observed for the right reasons only Some emulate the 6ther ^ith a *hanukah )ush. ANALYSIS continued on page 13 By SHAMMAI ENGELMAYER H anukkah is not a Jewish version of Christmas and should not be treated as such. Yet our oh-so-minor festival has become more important than some of our major ones. It also has be- come a costly eight days, as parents and grandparents outdo themselves to Iulfill children’s wish lists oI dream gifts. It is not surprising that Hanukkah seeks to emulate popular culture rather than stick to its religious roots. Hanukkah has no religious roots That it e[ists at all testifies to its popularity with the people and to the ability of our Sages of Blessed Memory to make the best of a bad situation. (To them, anything that extolled the Hasmoneans as heroes probably was a bad situation.) The festival is not mentioned anywhere in the Tanach (the Bible), even though there were at least two books—First and Second Macca- bees – that could have been includ- ed. There is not even a debate re- corded over whether to include either or both books, as there was, say, for the Song of Songs, or the Book of Esther. There also is virtually nothing about the festival in the Mishnah, which is primarily the product of the sages of the First and Second Centuries C.E. The four references that do exist are made in passing as parts of lists that include other ob- servances. Considering that the Mishnah in its present form was not edited until around 200 C.E., by which time Hanukkah was an established mi- nor festival, the paucity of refer- ences to it only highlights its prob- lematic origin. The Babylonian Talmud, essen- tially a product of sages from 200 to 600 C.E., has more to say about Hanukkah, but little of it goes be- yond describing its rituals. Contrast this to Purim, which has its own biblical book (Esther) and Talmudic tractate (Megillah). The sages also went to considerable lengths to increase the stature of Purim’s male hero, Mordechai, cre- ating a legend that made him one of the great religious leaders of his time and one of its most outstand- ing scholars. They made no similar effort to add luster to any of the Hasmoneans. There are several valid reasons why Hanukkah was so ill-thought of, especially by the Mishnaic sag- es. Not the least of its problems was that, in many ways, Hanukkah (or its Hasmonean heroes, popular leg- ends notwithstanding) borrowed from the very Hellenistic culture whose defeat the festival is sup- posed to symbolize . T h is is an outright violation of Jewish law, starting with the Torah. (See Leviticus 18:3 and Le- viticus 20:23 especially.) Accord- ing to Deuteronomy 12:30, the rea- son is “that you not be snared by following them.” Not heeding this law, we are told, is one of the rea- sons God caused the First Temple to fall and the people to be exiled (see Ezekiel 11:12). Torah law led to a class of rules and regulations usually referred to as chukat ha-goyim, or laws and customs of the nations (meaning every nation but our own). The Tal- mud’s designation is darchei ha-emori, the way of the Amorites, in which the Amorites represent the nations. (See the Babylonian Tal- mud tractate Shabbat 67a and b for some interesting examples, includ- ing a ban on husbands and wives exchanging names.) In brief, any chukat ha-goyim that are idolatrous in nature or based on superstition should be banned, provided that the superstition is rooted in pagan be- lief. (Warding off the evil spirits among the gods is apparently be- hind the spousal name-switching ban, which is why that is no longer included in the prohibition.) Of course, if a law or custom has nothing to do with religious ritual or worship, then most authorities— but not all—have no problem with our mimicking the behavior. The same holds true for superstitions that have no religious underpin- nings. Let us, then, look at the Hanuk- kah-as-Christmas conundrum. On the one hand, we have a minor Jew- ish festival that involves only one ritual—the lighting of an eight- branched menorah, or chanukiah, preferably in front of one’s door or, at least, in a window that can be A M A Z I N G S H O W W I T H W A C K Y A C R O B A T I C C H A D HOT SIZZLING LATKES | DELICIOUS DONUTS | CHANUKAH SWAG | HOT COCOA | MENORAH LIGHTING | FUN FOR THE WHOLE FAMILY! WEDNESDAY, DEC. 25 | 3:30 PM HERRICK PARK, EAST HAMPTON Chabad of The Hamptons presents: RSVP to: Jewishhamptons.com/dreidel Featuring KI C K OFF TH E F ES T I V A L OF L I GHTS W I TH TH E L I GHT IN G OF A 12 FOOT M EN O RA H A T HE RRI C K P ARK. BH