8th night

As we celebrate the last night of Hanukkah, ask yourself what part of your identity would you stand up and claim? What right would you fight for? What practice would you take into hiding?

We celebrate Hanukkah, meaning dedication, because the oil that should have lit the candelabra for one night during the rededication lasted eight. The second temple was rededicated because it was desecrated when Syrians took over Jerusalem and forbade the Jews from practicing. Today, being told that you cannot believe or worship as you choose is unimaginable. Pause and try.

Judaism has a long history of being reimagined and retranslated to fit the world it finds itself in. When the Jews were banned from practicing their religion they didn’t stop, but rather found ways to observe that would allow them to both honor their beliefs and keep their lives.

In the 14th Century, the Spanish Jews who pretended to convert to Christianity were called crypto-Jews or ‘morrano,' swine. They would secretly observe by wearing a clean shirt or lighting a special lamp on the Sabbath or by avoiding forbidden foods. The value of the culture, the community, the spiritual beliefs, was enough that throughout generations, throughout so many episodes of persecution, Jews to maintained that identity potentially at the cost of their life.

Jews were persecuted, tried, tortured, and killed. That is beyond my conception and I honor those chapters in history now as we do when we like Hanukkah candles. What in my life yields enough value that I would fight to keep it, that I would rather risk death than be ordered to desist, that living without it would be a death in itself? (Texting while driving, anyone)

Today we worship without intentionality. In our free moments, we seek comfort and connection by scrolling. We repeat prayers of worries and fears that spin in our mind. Rituals of waking, eating, dressing are hurried and unmarked as we rush to the next thing. As we celebrate the last night of Hanukkah, ask yourself what in your life adds value on a fundamental level? What belief or identity is intrinsic to your sense of self?