As universally known “Christmas” is a Christian Holiday that celebrates the birth of Jesus. The familiar Jewish celebration of “Hannukah,”commemorates the Maccabean victory over the Seleucid Empire in the Second Century BCE and the related miracle of the lamps burning for eight days with only enough oil for one day. The two celebrated events occur at the same season and time of year,
We have always recalled thefond memories of a notable experience, which memorably occurred in our third grade of public school, during the season of these two holidays. As young children of European Jewish immigrants, the colossal ambiance of the bright, decorative, and celebratory holiday of Christmas was fascinating to us, yet was an effective reminder that we, born into a non-Christian ethnic American population, were not participants in the highly publicized and popular Christian holiday. As Jewish children, however, we did identify with the far less inclusive or universally advertised holiday known as “Hannukah.”
Santa Claus and his reindeer, decorated evergreen trees, gift stockings, candy canes, and all of the attractive phenomena, of the great American holiday, conceivably, including the Macy’s Parade, were for others. To be clear, we did not, see ourselves as essentially different or separate from other American children and were notably proud of our own distinct ethnos, we were nonetheless, fascinated by the universal celebratory light show and traditional folkloric practices of the holiday celebration of the birth of Jesus, as recounted in the New Testament.
The less ornate, contemporary holiday, Hannukah, is celebrated with family and close friends. at home.The festive day is often called, “The Miracle of the Lights” and honors the ancient reconquest of Jerusalem from the Selucid Empire and the rededication of the Second great Jerusalem Temple. The Old Testament event incorporates the participants’ symbolic diet of fried potato pancakes; the oil necessary to their preparation analogically symbolizing the apocryphal lamps which contained barely one day’s supply of oil but miraculously, burned for a celebratory eight days. There are traditional holiday songs and games (ex, “dreidl) and (as contrasted with substantial Christmas gifts) ttraditional gift of a few holiday coins (Hannukah “gelt”) to young children,
What is inspiringly memorable is the demonstration of the benevolent intention of our sensitively aware schoolteacher who, on that day, drew a straight line down the middle of the chalkboard and wrote on one side, in all capital letters, the word, “Christmas,” and the other, “Hannukah.” We were pleased and gratified at her sensitivity and the inclusive act of awareness, in the face of all of the hype, public notices, and advertisements relative to Christmas, regarding that part of the class which were not Christian. We were grateful for the thoughtful and kind recognition and felt comfortably included in the seasonal celebratory ambiance,. In a contemplative recollection, sometime thereafter, we entertained the further thought that the well-intentioned schoolteacher was overgenerous since Christmas, pragmatically and historically plays an existentially vital role in Christian theology and that, Hannakah, remains a less significant holiday, merely in celebration of an historic military victory,.
Years later in one of my (usual) contemplative ruminations, I concluded ( not detracting one bit from the teacher’s benevolence) I generated some further thoughts concerning the relational importance of the holidays. I concluded that, in the context of the Christian faith, the holiday of Hanukkah, indeed had existential importance. It was the epiphanic realization, that if the Maccabean army lost and Judaism was erased from existence, Christianity could not have historically evolved (from the Hebrews); and, as a result, the joyous holiday of Christmas would not exist.
N.B. While we are on this metaphysically significant subject, we would beneficially request of our humanistic readers thatwhen the opportunity should appropriately present itself, to advise any self-identified acolyte of ” Christian White Nationalism,” that any cursory reading of the New Testament reveals that Jesus was a brown-skinned Palestinian Jew, as the Biblically presented son of Jewish parents, viz., Joseph and Mary a/k/a “Madonna.”
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