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Rabbi - Hanukkah
Significance Is Minor

By Rachel Leifer
The Hattiesburg American
Hattiesburg, Mississippi
 12-28-5

The Talmud - a collection of Jewish philosophies, laws and traditions based on the Torah, or Scripture - contains an illustrative story about Hanukkah.
 
Seventy rabbis were discussing various Jewish festivals. They touched on the sabbath, the high holy days of Rosh Hashanah (the new year) and Yom Kippur (the day of atonement), Passover and Sukkot, a harvest celebration.
 
When their talk ended, one of the rabbis asked, "What about Hanukkah?" The 69 other religious scholars responded, "What is Hanukkah?"
 
The anecdote offers telling insight into Hanukkah's relative insignificance among Jewish holidays, said Hattiesburg Rabbi Celso Cukierkorn of Congregation B'Nai Israel.
 
"Hanukkah is not really important," said Cukierkorn. "It's a festival that became important in America because it coincides with Christmas."
 
The gift-giving and decorating widely thought of as central to Hanukkah, which commenced this year at sundown on Sunday, are American creations designed to make Jewish children feel included during Christmas, the most important Christian holiday, Cukierkorn said.
 
Neil Solomon said he strives to help his children understand the real meaning of Hanukkah. "Historically speaking, it's a holiday about a minority resisting assimilation into the majority culture," said Solomon, a physician who lives in Hattiesburg and teaches Hebrew school at B'Nai Israel. "And what's happened in this country to Hanukkah? It's been made into the Jewish Christmas - the opposite of what it's supposed to stand for."
 
To fight the misnomer in his own household, Solomon and his family don't make much of the holiday, reserving their energies for more religiously significant festivals like Yom Kippur and Passover.
 
Solomon said his four children don't feel they are missing out on much, though. "Their main problem is that they get bored during Christmas because all their friends are doing stuff with their families," he said.
 
"Hanukkah is more of a nationalistic, cultural holiday for Jews, and not so much religious," he said. "It was never meant to be a major holiday. Unfortunately because of commercialism and ridiculous political correctness, it's been assimilated into the pre-existing Christmas culture."
 
Indeed, the American Hanukkah is different from the Israeli version, which commemorates the triumph of the Jewish army, led by the Maccabee family, over Greek-Syrian leaders in 164 B.C. According to the country's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Hanukkah involves the lighting of a menorah and spinning of the dreidl (a four-sided top marked with Hebrew letters representing the message, "a great miracle occurred here"). Schools are closed for the eight-day festival, but workplaces remain open. It focuses primarily on restored sovereignty, a potent message for a country established as a Jewish homeland in 1945.
 
Because Hanukkah's parallels to Christmas in the modern American tradition, children have come to look forward to it, said Kevin Passer, another of B'Nai Israel's congregants.
 
"As a kid, it's sort of a big deal to get presents," said Passer, a psychiatrist at the Detox Clinic of Hattiesburg in Oak Grove. "Just like everyone else, they're hoping it's a toy instead of another sweater."
 
But Passer and others prize the more traditional Hanukkah customs as well - lighting the candles, spinning the dreidl and making potato pancakes called latkes.
 
Foods cooked in oil evoke Hanukkah symbols, explained Passer, who fried up several hundred latkes at the recent B'Nai Israel Hanukkah celebration.
 
The popular yarn about the miracle of the flask of oil - when a portion of the sacramental olive oil meant to keep the reclaimed Jewish temple's candelabrum lit for one day lasted for eight, hence the eight-day festival - is more symbolic than historical, said Cukierkorn.
 
"We did win a battle for our religious freedom," said Cukierkorn. "But we lost the war. The oil miracle was created as a metaphor for the soul of the Jewish people, or for any oppressed people."
 
Though the holiday gives Jewish families much appreciated time together, its significance in the religious calendar is minor.
 
"Hanukkah is hardly the be-all, end-all of Jewish holidays," said Solomon.

 

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