Gil Ronen has made a new short film, showing Chanukah scenes in Israel.

http://films.izfone.com/chanukah

By Sarah Rochel Hewitt
Originally published in the National Jewish Outreach Program’s Bereshith Newsletter.

When I was five or six years old, my parents gave me a scarf for the eighth night of Chanukah. I can picture all of the candles alight on the kitchen table as my dad and brother went to the basement to shoot a game of pool and my mom followed shortly thereafter. Left alone in the kitchen, I sulked over the lousy final present. After all, shouldn’t the last night of Chanukah be the night reserved for the best present? I can honestly say, I don’t know exactly what I was thinking, but I do know that when my mom came upstairs a few minutes later she found me holding the box over the flames. Thank G-d, no damage was done to anything but the box (not even to the ugly scarf).

In our family, Chanukah was definitely about the presents. Blessed with generous parents, my brother and I received something on all eight nights. We waited anxiously for my father to return home from work so we could quickly eat dinner and begin our “Hot and Cold” search. In hindsight, perhaps the best part of the Chanukah gift giving custom was the many lessons I learned from it.

Anticipation is often the best part of exchanging gifts — something I discovered the hard way when I was probably around 10 years old. A few weeks before Chanukah, I stumbled across the place in the basement where my mother would stash the gifts. I knew what I had asked for and was delighted to see a wrapped box of just about the right size. Lo and behold, just my luck, a corner of the wrapping had come loose. Now what would you do? Of course I peeked. It was the Barbie Dream Van for which I had so fervently hoped. I was so happy, but I had no one with whom to share my excitement because no one could know that I knew. I certainly had great expectations of playing with it, but when I brought the large box to the table from its hiding spot that Chanukah, I felt something missing inside. There was no curiosity, no anticipation, no need to shake it to try and guess what was inside. I had spent my excitement before I even had the gift, and I am certain that my parents were well aware of my dampened level of excitement. I can honestly say that never again did I wish to peek at the presents ahead of time. Read more You’ve Got To Give A Little ›

Last year I was asked to speak at a small Chanukah gathering for a kiruv organization. The crowd was a mixed one ranging from not- yet-shomer shabbos to fully frum for 15 years. As always, I didn’t know what to speak about until the night before. This is what I said:

Last night my family and I went to my mother’s house for a Chanukah party. We do that every year, getting together with my brothers and their respective families. Even though there is a minhag to have dairy on Chanukah, at my mother’s house we always have meat. (You have to listen to your mother) Everything was going along fine. My mother was giving the grandchildren “the chocolate gelt”, which no Chanukah party would be complete without, and there was a whole tumult. I was in charge of buying the gelt this year because my mother doesn’t drive and she couldn’t find pareve gelt close to her home. I walked over and asked what was going on. They screamed “these are dairy, they’re dairy!” I asked myself “How did I do that?” I remembered when I had bought the gelt that the packaging of the dairy and the pareve coins were strikingly similar. Usually, they put the dairy coins into the blue nylon plastic netting and the pareve ones in the red netting or the gold foil is the dairy and the silver foil is the pareve. But these were exactly the same except for the little writing on them saying “pareve” or “dairy”. I grabbed the gelt and sure enough they were the pareve ones, call me the “Man who saved Chanukah.”

I was thinking about what we can learn from that confusion. We see in the story of Chanukah that there were two warring cultures, the Greek culture and the Jewish culture. We usually spend our time discussing the differences between these cultures, how disparate they were and that, thank G-d, the Jewish culture was able to win that physical war and that ideological war.

What we often overlook is that there is a lot that is very similar between the two cultures. Winston Churchill speaks of how the Jewish people and the Greek people have made the greatest contributions to Western civilization. He says that Jerusalem and Athens were the prime places from which wisdom and knowledge eminated. But we don’t have to rely on Churchill for this point. The Rambam, one of the greatest Jewish philosophers, says that Aristotle, the greatest Greek philosopher, was just a step below prophecy. There is a halacha that a sefer torah can be written in one of two languages. One of them, of course, is Hebrew, the other is Greek. There are many references in the commentaries, especially the Zohar, that speak in praiseworthy terms of the Greek culture and how there is a certain level of respect that must be given to it and that the “ancient Greeks” had a certain level of “emunah” that should not be ridiculed. I was thinking how this is a very interesting thing. I think we find in our struggles, in our daily lives, that most of us are not running after something that is obviously “not Jewish”, obviously “not Jewish”. If there is any type of a question or any area that we personally or communally fall into it’s because it is something that “looks” Jewish, it is something that sounds good, it sounds right. We’re not running out to do something that we know is completely forbidden. What we can learn from that, just like the story of the chocolate coins, is that you’ve really got to look very well at whatever it is that you are interested in incorporating into your life. You’ve got to look to see if it’s pareve, see if it’s dairy, see if it’s kosher. Even if things are packaged exactly the same way, you’ve got to look deeper than the surface.

One of the understandings of Chanukah is that we bring light into our homes, into our lives. Light is exactly what we need in order to distinguish between two things that are apparently the same.

The gemorah (Brachos 53b) states that you cannot make the brocha on the havdalah candle until you have benefited from its light. The gemorah defines “benefit” as being close enough to the light to distinguish between two coins. That is one of the reasons that some people look at the tips of their fingers in the light of the havdalah candle (since the difference between the nail and the skin can be determined by the same amount of light that you need to distinguish between two coins). We need to shine the light of our intellect and the light of the Torah into our lives so that we can properly discern what is Jewish and what is “all Greek to me.”

A Lichtiger (Illuminated) Chanukah to everyone.

We are all familiar with the story of Chanukah – how the Greeks wanted to subvert Jewish life by injecting it with Greek values. Unlike Purim where Haman wanted to destroy the Jewish body as well as obliterate any remnant of Torah learning and mitzvah observance, the Greeks had a much more seemingly innocuous approach – “No, go ahead – learn your Torah, observe your mitzvos, pray to your Jewish G-d but do it with a Greek twist – do it because it makes intellectual sense. As we say in our prayers “to forget Your Torah, Your statutes….”. This was epitomized by the Greeks desire to contaminate all of the oil in the Temple – rendering it halachically permissible for lighting the menorah but defiled nonetheless.

This seemingly insignificant subtlety created a transformation within the masses of Jewry and produced Jews that traded the hallmarks of Jewish identity – Jewish names, Jewish clothing and Jewish speech (which by these distinctions our Jewish ancestors had merited “Yetzias Mitzriyim” [the Exodus from Egypt]) for Greek names, Greek clothing and the Greek language– Hellenists. What began as an enlightened embracement of “modernism” ended in outright idolatrous worship. It was only through the miracle of the “poc shemen” [the Chanukah oil] that brought our nation back from the brink.

Yet how many of us consider that we may have fallen for the same innocuous approach right here in present day America?! While America is a “madina v’maluchus shel chesed” [a nation and government of kindness] where Jews openly and freely live Judaism, its values and cultural message are the same as the former Greek Empire – be a modern Jew; be an American Jew [as opposed to a Jewish American]. You can go to the movies, watch television with theater sound on high definition 36 inch plasma screens, surf the net, go on kosher cruises, choose family planning, have both spouses pursue full-time yet dynamic careers and provide our children with the “best of the best” secular education – yet still be a Torah learning, mitzvah observant Jew.

What seems as pareve [neutral] pursuits are in reality pipelines by which American culture and values are fed to contaminate our Jewish sensibilities. What is the result? An American Hellenist: a transformation of the Jewish masses with names like Joe instead of Yoseph, Abe instead of Avrahom; mall bought fashion that is borderline tznius [modesty] that even when it meets all halachic requirements – still pales to the majestic elegance of women’s “hemishe” [Jewish made] clothing, casual speech instead of refined words permeated with Torah values that befit a prince or princess of Hashem.

This isn’t advocating a shtetl [a ghetto] mentality. It is no coincidence that this years Chanukah spans Parshas Vayeishev – Mikietz. Yoseph was the only one of Yaakov’s twelve sons with the appellation of “Yoseph HaTzadik”. While his brothers were tzadikim – they were shepherds able to spend their time in isolation and in contemplation of Hashem. Yoseph distinguished himself in his avodas Hashem by being in the heart of the moral depravity of Egypt, glamour of Egyptian aristocracy and potential drunkenness of ultimate power yet maintained his distinction as a Torah Jew.

We do not have to be tzadikim – we just have to be like the Menorah – “a light unto the nations”. By full Jewish names, truly modest dress and words of Torah; by being “un-plugged” from American entertainment/media while immersing ourselves in more Torah learning and mitzvos b’hiddur [performed with the highest of standards] – we can walk among our fellow Americans yet still radiate G-dliness and inspiration; in the world, yet above the world. By having our Jewish purity intact like the “poc shemen” – we look to light every person, place and moment with “…and the pursuit of the world will be knowledge of Hashem”.

Growing up, one of my family’s annual traditions was making Chanukah cookies. We would spend an entire day rolling out dough, cutting out shapes and decorating hundreds of cookies. After we were finished making them, we would save some for ourselves and then package up the rest in bundles to give to friends. My parents would often come to my school and do a presentation on Chanukah for my class (I was one of only a few Jewish students), and would hand out the cookies along with latkes.

Once I became religious, it made it hard to participate in our yearly ritual. I moved away from home because I wanted to be able to be part of a religious community (there were very few Orthodox Jews in Alabama, nothing that could be called a “community”) and didn’t get the opportunity to visit very often. Read more Making Chanukah Cookies ›

If you think about it, it’s very ironic. The Maccabees at the time of the miracle of Chanukah were willing to give up their lives to protect their Jewish values. Their adversaries were the Greeks. The Greeks’ worship of the human body was epitomized by the Olympic Games. Here is the irony: Israel has her own version of the Olympic Games. What are they called? The Maccabi Games!!

My Rabbis at Ohr Somayach would often share this insight around Chanukah time, highlighting the contrast between the Jewish values of the Maccabees and secular values of the Greeks.

Yet I would always remember my own experiences at the Maccabi Games. How two weeks ignited a spark inside me that changed my life and began a spiritual journey that led to me becoming a Rabbi.
Read more Chanukah, the Maccabi Games and the Pintele Yid in Each of Us ›