Said to Myself

What are we celebrating on Chanukah? At the most basic level we commemorate the  Hashmonaim defeating the Greeks and reclaiming the Temple. According to the Rabbis after these Maccabees beat their enemy and rededicated the Temple they found one cruse of pure oil for the Menorah. This oil was enough to last for one day, but it lasted for eight days, which was enough time for them to produce more pure oil. To the Maccabees this miracle was proof that God approved and sanctioned their military efforts. It seems that at its core Chanukah is a victory of Particularism over Universalism. But was it really a fight between the Greeks and Jews or between the Hellenized Jews and religious zealots? Many believe that this was truly a civil war. How might the celebration of Chanukah help us rethink reconciliation after a civil war?

In order to answer this question we should explore the when and where of the commandment to light the Chanukah candles. But before we get to that we need to explore the phenomena of traffic. I happened to have just read a great book on the topic of Traffic by Tom Vanderbilt. It is well worth the read. Vanderbilt points out many things, but one is that we all hate traffic. That is interesting that traffic has such a negative connotation today while it originally was a good thing. The word traffic comes from the Italian traffico (14c.) which comes from from trafficare “carry on trade”. It was only much later (1825) that traffic came to mean “people and vehicles coming and going”. As Vanderbilt writes

It originally referred (and still does) to trade and the movement of goods. That meaning slowly expanded to include the people engaging in that trade and the dealings among people themselves–Shakespeare’s prologue to Romeo and Juliet describes the “traffic of our stage.” It then came to signify the movement itself, as in the “traffic on this road.” At some point, people and things became interchangeable. The movement of goods and people were intertwined in a single enterprise; after all, if one was going somewhere, it was most likely in pursuit of commerce. This is still true today, as most traffic problems occur during the times we are all going to work, but we seem less likely to think of traffic in terms of motion and mobility, as a great river of opportunity, than as something that makes our lives miserable.

Traffic

Traffic jam as a phrase is first recorded much later in 1908, ousting earlier traffic block (1895).

Vanderbilt goes on to define this traffic problem:

We say there is “too much traffic” without exactly knowing what we mean. Are we saying there are too many people? Or that there are not enough roads for the people who are there? Or that there is too much affluence, which has enabled too many people to own cars? One routinely hears of “traffic problems.” But what is a traffic problem? To a traffic engineer, a “traffic problem” might mean that a street is running below capacity. For a parent living on that street, the “traffic problem” could be too many cars, or cars going too fast. For the store owner on that same street, a “traffic problem” might mean there is not enough traffic.

Traffic

At its core the traffic problem is the tension between meeting all of our needs on the road while trying to meet each of our needs. How does the system work best at the same time of me getting mine? This is not easy. Vanderbilt points out that this is not a new issue. He writes:

Blaise Pascal, the renowned seventeenth-century French scientist and philosopher, had perhaps the only foolproof remedy for traffic: Stay home. “I have discovered that all the unhappiness of men arises from one single fact,” he wrote. “That they cannot stay quietly in their own chamber.”

Traffic

As Vanderbilt shows, driving is a provocatively revealing prism for examining how our minds work and the ways in which we interact with one another. Ultimately, Traffic is about more than driving: it is about human nature.

With this in mind we turn our mind to Chanukah and more specifically when and where we light the candles. In terms of where? We put them in a way so they can be seen from our windows. In terms of when we learn in the Gemara:

Its observance is from sunset ad sh’tichle regel min a shuk– until there is no wayfarer in the marketplace. Does that not mean that if it goes out [within that period] it must be relit?-No: if one has not yet lit, he must light it; or, in respect of the statutory period.

Shabbat 21a

We take take this to mean that we are trying publicize the miracle of Chanukah. To this ends we put them in the public view at the time when people are passing by our homes.

With Vanderbilt’s insight on Traffic in mind we might come to a deeper understanding of this. We light the candles at the time and in the place where the candles will be seen by and you can see the traffic of people passing by our homes. The way we negotiate traffic is akin to how we might think about reconciliation of civil strife and disagreement. How does the system of roads work best for everyone at the same time of helping me get where I want to go? This is a profound tension in a society between the needs of individuals, small groups, and the majority. Coming to a solution to meet everyone’s needs and desires is never easy. Traffic and Chanukah are about more than driving or miracles: they both give us insight into human nature. We are not just our imaginations of our best selves at home with our families, we are also the same people who are going about along on the road of life. May the light of Chanukah light our path so we can all get along without getting stuck in traffic.

Most of us have had this experience: browsing through countless options online, unable to commit to making a choice—and losing so much time skimming reviews and considering trailers that it’s too late to watch anything at all. In his book Dedicated Pete Davis argues that this is the defining characteristic of the moment: keeping our options open. We are stuck in “Infinite Browsing Mode”—swiping through endless dating profiles without committing to a single partner, jumping from place to place searching for the next big thing, and refusing to make any decision that might close us off from an even better choice we imagine is just around the corner. This culture of restlessness and indecision, Davis argues, is causing tension in the lives of young people today: We want to keep our options open, and yet we yearn for the purpose, community, and depth that can only come from making deep commitments.

In Dedicated, Davis examines this quagmire, as well as the counterculture of committers who have made it to the other side. He shares what we can learn from the “long-haul heroes” who courageously commit themselves to particular places, professions, and causes—who relinquish the false freedom of an open future in exchange for the deep fulfillment of true dedication. Weaving together examples from history, personal stories, and applied psychology, Davis’s “insightful without being preachy…guide to commitment should be on everyone’s reading list”

While there are many elements of his book that are interesting to me personally and professionally, I am writing about it today in that this notion of being dedicated is central to the holiday of Chanukah. At the most basic level we commemorate the  Hashmonaim defeating the Greeks and reclaiming the Temple. According to the Rabbis after these Maccabees beat their enemy and rededicated the Temple they found one cruse of pure oil for the Menorah. This oil was enough to last for one day, but it lasted for eight days, which was enough time for them to produce more pure oil. To the Maccabees this miracle was proof that God approved and sanctioned their military efforts. It seems that at its core Chanukah is a victory of their and now our dedication to a common cause.

But if we explore it further would we say that Chanukah was between the Greeks and Jews or between the Hellenized Jews and religious zealots? Many believe that this was truly a civil war. How might the celebration of Chanukah help us rethink reconciliation post civil war?

In our own context we must all acknowledge that there are elements of our lives in which we are dedicated long-haul heroes like the Maccabees and others that we are infinite Brows like the Hellenized Jews. How do we make peace with ourselves, our communities, and our civilization?

I believe there is incredible depth to his observation about this generation as it pertains to one generations fear that the new generation is “anti-Zionist”. Or a younger generation’s anger that we have lost our moral compass. The two generations have pitted themselves against each other seeing themselves as the true Maccabees dedicated to the truth and the others generation missing the point. In Davis’s critique of the Infinite Browsing Mode he discussed three fears: 1) fear of regret 2) fear of association 3) fear of missing out. If we do not deals with these fears we will never get anywhere. This year for Chanukah I rededicate myself to understanding these fears.

Like many others I am surprised by how not surprised I was by the abhorrent events that transpired at the Capitol on January 6th. We all knew that Trump was never going to abdicate his throne easily. He orchestrated a seditious mob to use their white privilege to stop electoral process. They were not successful in having a coup, but they got much further that most of us could ever imagine. While they were defiling the hallowed halls of democracy it seemed that the experiment of this republic had come to an end. The assault on our government was not just just due to these terrorist or a “wannabe tin-pot dictator scared of losing power” (Thank you Senator Tammy Duckworth), but also the inept or complicit law enforcement.

Amidst chaos we strive to make sense of our reality. Sadly we as Jews have a long history of dealing with hatred in its many forms. I found myself this mourning stirred by Rambam’s unique language describing the historical events that lead to the institution of the holiday of Chanukah. There we read:

…they entered the Temple and broke through it, defiling the things that were pure. The people of Israel were sorely distressed by their enemies, who oppressed them ruthlessly until the God of our ancestors took pity, saved and rescued them from the hands of the tyrants. The Hasmonean great priests won victories, defeating the Syrian Greeks and saving Israel from their power. They set up a king from among the priests and Israel’s kingdom was restored for a period of more than two centuries, until the destruction of the second Temple. (Laws of Chanukah 3:1)

While I have to dilution that the Capitol is pure, the images still ring true. What is most telling is the in response to throwing off tyranny, they victorious priest run to have a king.

In a 2012 appearance in New Hampshire  former Supreme Court Justice David Souter made some striking and prescient remarks about the dangers of “civic ignorance”. This video has been circulating and worth seeing:

I was most struck when he said:

I don’t worry about our losing republican government in the United States because I’m afraid of a foreign invasion. I don’t worry about it because I think there is going to be a coup by the military as has happened in some of other places. What I worry about is that when problems are not addressed, people will not know who is responsible. And when the problems get bad enough, as they might do, for example, with another serious terrorist attack, as they might do with another financial meltdown, some one person will come forward and say, ‘Give me total power and I will solve this problem.’… That is how the Roman republic fell. Augustus became emperor, not because he arrested the Roman Senate. He became emperor because he promised that he would solve problems that were not being solved.

We still do not know who was responsible for what transpired on January 6th. It was a total break down. In cleaning up, people need to held accountable. It is clear that our media is part of the reason that there are so many people who are ignorant of civics and distrustful of facts. Democracy is fragile and we are in peril. This is not a risk from the outside, but the inside. Like Augustus, with little regard for democratic norms and political institutions, others will come like Donald Trump seeking power, assuring the public that they will solve our problems. Exploiting the distrust of the media, fears and civic ignorance we have paved the way for another despot to come.

As the Hasmoneans had to do after the Greeks, we have a lot of work to do to clean up what has been defiled. But if there is anything else that can be learned for Democracy from Chanukah, it is the Rabbinic movement of the the Menorah in the Temple to the Chanukiah in the home. While the Capitol represents our democracy, it is not the limit of that ideal. As Churchill wisely said:

Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.… (House of Commons, 11 November 1947)

For our democracy to survive civics and decency needs to thrive in our homes. The power of democracy cannot come from without, but it needs to come from within. It comes from every citizen taking responsibility for themselves, their families, their communities, and the collective. The light from our homes keeps tyranny at bay.