South Africa's Chief Rabbi Memorializes Nelson Mandela

As the whole world mourns the passing of a great leader and advocate forgiveness and reconciliation, it is worth noting that South Africa's Jewish community were among Nelson Mandela's most ardent supporters. And it is worth listening to the memorial delivered by that nation's Chief Rabbi, Warren Goldstein, as he is joined by former President Thabo Mbeki and Mary Kluk at the Jewish Community Memorial and Prayer Service for Nelson Mandela, at Oxford Synagogue, Johannesburg.


 




And to add to the tribute, here is President Obama's statement on the passing of Nelson Mandela:

 



And we join together with people of good will all across the globe in celebration of Mandela's contributions to social justice and peaceful co-existence.

Light One (More) Candle

As we look forward to the last night of Hanukkah, let's take a listen to what some of us consider to be the best Hanukkah song every written, "Don't Let the Light Go Out," written by Peter Yarrow, and performed here by his famous folk music trio, Peter, Paul and Mary:




This rendition, Peter, Paul and Mary - Light One Candle (25th Anniversary Concert), was performed live in 1986, and the entire concert is now available on DVD:

And the lyrics are worth repeating here:

Light one candle for the Maccabee children
With thanks their light didn't die;
Light one candle for the pain they endured
When their right to exist was denied;
Light one candle for the terrible sacrifice Justice and freedom demand;
And light one candle for the wisdom to know
That the peacemaker's time is at hand! 

Don't let the light go out,
It's lasted for so many years!
Don't let the light go out!
Let it shine through our love and our tears! 

Light one candle for the strength that we need
To never become our own foe;
Light one candle for those who are suff'ring
A pain they learned so long ago;
Light one candle for all we believe in,
That anger not tear us apart;
And light one candle to bind us together
With peace as the song in our heart! 

Don't let the light go out,
It's lasted for so many years!
Don't let the light go out!
Let it shine through our love and our tears! 

What is the memory that's valued so highly
That we keep it alive in that flame?
What's the commitment to those who have died?
We cry out "they've not died in vain,"
We have come this far, always believing
That justice will somehow prevail;
This is the burden, This is the promise,
This is why we will not fail! 

Don't let the light go out,
It's lasted for so many years!
Don't let the light go out!
Let it shine through our love and our tears! 

Don't let the light go out!
Don't let the light go out!
Don't let the light go out!

And with Hanukkah almost over, let's keep that flame burning, and carry that illumination with us, wherever we go!

Dr. Dreidel

Matt Rissien, the Director of Youth Activities at Congregation Beth Shalom in Northbrook, Illinois, has posted The Dreidel Song: Hanukkah Rap on YouTube that we just had to share here on the Adas Emuno blog:





And Thanksgivukkah may be over, but there's still a few days left to spin the Thanksgiving turkey dreidel introduced by Conan O'Brien:





And that just goes to show that you don't have to be Jewish to love dreidels, a fact that Conan O'Brien may have learned from a song by Don McLean that made the Top 40 back in 1971. Here's a live version from 2009:





Maybe you'd prefer something a bit more traditional? How about this recording of Cantor Moshe Oysher signing Drei Dreidel in Yiddish?



The write-up from YouTube is worth sharing here:

Born in 1907 in Bessarabia, Imperial Russia (Moldova) and died in 1958 in New York. Although he may have come from a family of cantors going back six generations, he seems to have been drawn to the stage and popular entertainment from an early age. Oysher joined a Canadian travelling Yiddish theatrical troupe in 1921 and moved to New York City in 1923. By 1932 he had started his own company, entertaining in the USA and South America. After returning to the USA from Buenos Aires in 1934, he had difficulty finding work in New York's Yiddish Theater. When he was offered the opportunity to sing for the High Holy Days at the First American-Rumanian Synagogue in NYC's Lower East Side, he accepted the position and became a cantorial sensation!

Despite his great success as a cantor Moishe Oysher was ever the entertainer and became quite famous for his starring roles in three Yiddish films including, "The Cantor's Son" (1936), "The Singing Blacksmith" (1938), and "Overture to Glory" (1940). He was also a successful recording artist.

Moishe Oysher was able to combine his passion for the Chazzanut with his love of performance, creating a crowd-pleasing style that thrilled audiences in synagogues and theaters. His recordings represent the world of our fathers and grandfathers who appreciated Oysher's rich voice and fiery style.

And here's one for the kinderlach, straight from Shalom Sesame, Baby Bear and Telly Play Dreidel:






And to end on a bit of a country spin, here's Julie Silver doing her version of The Dreidel Song:




So, by all means, go out for a spin, or stay in, and keep those dreidels turning, and those Hanukkah candles burning!

Attitude of Gratitude for Hanukkah

Did you see Rabbi Schwartz's article in the Jewish Standard dated November 22nd? Entitled Attitude of Gratitude: How the Early Christians Helped Save Chanukah, you can read it over on the their website, or enjoy it right here on our congregational blog:

The holiday of Chanukah almost disappeared from the Jewish calendar.

The early Christian community had a role in helping save it.

Therein lays a complex and ironic tale, but one well worth recounting. The church’s role in the preservation of ancient Jewish writings excluded from the Hebrew Bible is remarkable and underappreciated. I have only recently come to a fuller awareness of this historical phenomenon as publisher of a new three volume anthology of Second Temple literature, Outside the Bible: Ancient Jewish Writings Related to Scripture. (The Jewish Publication Society will publish the book next month.)

How did it come to pass that Chanukah almost disappeared? As a “new” holiday, not commanded in the Torah, Chanukah’s status was shaky from the start. Indeed, I and II Maccabees, the earliest sources that mention the festival, portray the first Chanukah, in 164 B.C.E., as nothing other than a belated celebration of the all-important eight-day holiday of Sukkot. The name Chanukah nowhere appears; instead, the festival is called Sukkot in Kislev.

When the text says that “Judah, his brother and the entire community of Israel decreed that the days of rededication of the altar should be celebrated with a festival of joy and gladness at this time every year…” (I Mac. 4:59) it is likely hinting that subsequent Hasmonean rulers desired to establish a new festival to perpetuate the memory of their exploits. That this did not sit well with the Pharisees and their rabbinic heirs is quite evident. Chanukah as a special name for the holiday only appears in the first-century C.E. Megillat Ta’anit, which already was two hundred years after the Maccabean revolt. Josephus refers to a Festival of Lights but is unsure about the name’s origin. The well-known miracle story of the little jar of oil that lasted for eight days still is unknown to him; that story does not make its first appearance in the sources until the Talmud, more than 500 years after the revolt.

The Talmud declines to give Chanukah its own tractate, like the other holidays. Discussion of the festival is embedded in Tractate Shabbat, with the telling opening “Why Chanukah?” That is where the miracle story emerges, perhaps to justify the popular practice of the holiday and to draw attention away from the Hasmoneans’ militaristic exploits. Elsewhere in the Talmud, a story records how two prominent sages, Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus and Rabbi Joshua ben Hannaniah, went out of their way not to comply with a fast declared during Chanukah, and castigated the community that wanted to do so. “A thorough survey of the evidence,” Professor Moshe Benovitz writes, “suggests that despite the origin of the festival in Israel… Chanukah was not widely observed in rabbinic circles in the land of its origin from the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE until the third century.”

To add insult to injury, the sages excluded the Books of the Maccabees from their biblical canon, thereby proscribing the key historical source relating to the holiday. To this day, many Jews are surprised to learn that the Maccabees are mentioned nowhere in the Hebrew Bible.

And this is where the role of the Jewish diaspora, and the early Christian community that arose in it, enters the tale.

For the Jews in post-destruction Judea, it is understandable that a festival proclaimed by the very rulers who dragged the country into chaos would be suspect. It is likewise understandable that whatever popular sentiment clung to the celebration was extinguished after the catastrophe of 70 C.E. As Dr. Benovitz adds, “Is it conceivable that in the shadow of the destruction Jews would continue to joyously mark a period of independence that ended 107 years earlier, when all hope for its renewal has been shattered?”

But popular backing for the holiday remained largely intact in the great Jewish communities of Egypt and Babylonia. When the Jews of Alexandria translated the Hebrew Bible into Greek, they retained the Books of Maccabees. The earliest Christians adopted this Hellenistic biblical canon. The original Hebrew version of I Maccabees and the original Jewish II Maccabees—written in Greek—disappeared from history, but the church preserved them in its own copies of the Septuagint—the Greek Old Testament. Clement of Alexandria commented on them in the second century, and Origen did the same in the third; we have surviving texts from the fifth-century Alexandrinus Septuagint and the eighth-century Venetus Septuagint.

In another ironic twist, the early church saved another text that the medieval Jewish community in Europe later used to bolster its celebration of Chanukah. The Book of Judith, written in the Maccabean period, also was excluded from the Hebrew Bible. Jerome translated the popular text from the Greek (or possibly Aramaic) into Latin. In the tenth or eleventh century, Jews availed themselves of the Latin Vulgate to render the story back into Hebrew. At the same time, they rather audaciously reinterpreted the tale, set during the Assyrian conquest, into a Maccabean exploit. Judith became a central figure in prayers and stories about Chanukah, and even became a common figure adorning European Chanukah menorahs.

In the last 50 years, scores of remarkable Second Temple-era Jewish texts have come to light with the discoveries of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Cairo Genizah. The manuscripts found in remote monasteries around the world, like Santa Katarina in the Sinai desert, are less well-known.

Were it not for the church, these scriptures and commentaries would have been lost to history. Instead, the sacred library of ancient Israel is once again coming to light. Maybe that too is part of the miracle of Chanukah.

So, How Was Your Thanksgivukkah?

So, how was your Thanksgivukkah? What did you do to celebrate the double holiday? Feel free to share your thoughts and experiences with us by leaving a comment. And whether you do or not, here are a few more videos on this rare concurrence that, according to some estimates, may not happen again for some 75,000 years.

Here's a report from our friends at Fox News on Happy Thanksgivukkah: Jewish families celebrate Hanukkah with Thanksgiving:




And here's Happy 'Thanksgivukkah'! Immigrants Celebrate in Tel Aviv from Israel National TV:




Of course, every year during the eight days of Hanukkah we celebrate at least one Shabbat as well, so tonight we say Shabbat Shalom along with our Happy Hanukkah!

Happy Thanksgivukkah!

So, how are you celebrating this double holiday of Hanukkah and Thanksgiving? Whatever combination of turkey and menorah, latkes and cranberries, sweet potatoes and sufganiyot you may be enjoying, here are some videos to put you in the holidays spirit!

First, a report from Bloomberg on the youthful creation of a menurky (menorah in the shape of a turkey):




And from a bissel business to a bit of music, here's "Oils" - A Thanksgivukkah Miracle (Royals song parody):




And how about The Thanksgivukkah Song from Buzzfeed? Here it is:




And what about Six13 - The Thanksgivukkah Anthem? Take a listen:




Well, however you will be observing these twin celebrations, we wish you all a very happy Thanksgivukkah!

Time to Burn

Here's a new song in celebration of Hanukkah, posted by The Maccabeats over on YouTube:





So, let's start burning those candles, seven more nights to go after tonight! 

And on behalf of Congregation Adas Emuno, we wish you all the happiest of Hanukkahs, as well as a festive Thanksgiving tomorrow night!