c. 2000 Religion News Service

(Rabbi Rudin is the senior interreligious affairs adviser at the American Jewish Committee)

(UNDATED) Hanukkah, the eight-day Jewish Festival of Lights, begins at sundown Dec. 21, just four days before Christmas. Because both holidays are celebrated in December, Hanukkah has sometimes been incorrectly called the “Jewish Christmas.” Nothing could be further from the truth.

Each holiday has its own unique integrity and special religious meaning. Christmas is a major festival commemorating the birth of Jesus the Jew in the ancient land of Israel while Hanukkah is the historical account of how Judah Maccabee and his small band of freedom fighters recaptured the city of Jerusalem and its Holy Temple from the tyrannical Greco-Syrian empire in 165 B.C., nearly two centuries before Jesus was born.

Hanukkah is sometimes described as a “minor” Jewish holiday because the books of the Maccabees, the ancient source of the Hanukkah story, are not a part of the Hebrew Bible although they are included in the Roman Catholic version of Scripture.

Unlike the majestic autumn High Holidays of Rosh Hashanah (the New Year) and Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement), nonbiblical Hanukkah has no special synagogue services attached to it.

Nor does poor old Hanukkah even rate a festive holiday dinner like Pesach (Passover) and its highly symbolic Seder meal. The overpowering moment when God revealed the Ten Commandments to Moses on Mount Sinai is annually commemorated in the springtime holiday of Shavuot (Weeks or Pentecost), and the royal court intrigues of ancient Persia merit a special reading of the Megillah (the Book of Esther) in the synagogue on Purim, another biblically based holiday.

The Hanukkah religious ritual only requires Jews to recite some special blessings when lighting festival candles in the eight-branched Menorah (candelabrum). One candle is kindled on the holiday’s first evening, a lit taper is added every night culminating with a full Menorah on the eighth or last night. There are holiday songs extolling the victorious Jewish freedom fighters who dedicated _ the literal meaning of the word Hanukkah _ the Holy Temple once again to God’s sacred service.

For reasons still unclear to me, delicious but highly fattening potato pancakes are eaten during Hanukkah and holiday gifts are exchanged among friends and family, especially children.

However, this seemingly minor level of observance does not minimize the transcendent importance of Hanukkah for both Jews and Christians. The Greco-Syrian Emperor of that era, Antiochus IV, imposed a brutal religious and cultural uniformity on his restless subjects, including the Jews of Israel.

Ritual circumcision and the teaching of Torah were banned, and Antiochus even attempted to replace Judaism with pagan idol worship. Naturally, Antiochus’ repugnant policies sparked a ferocious Jewish rebellion.

After three years of fighting in the land of Israel, victory was achieved with the liberation of Jerusalem and Hanukkah is the yearly commemoration of that important historic event. But if Antiochus had been successful in his quest for “religious cleansing,” Judaism could have atrophied and perhaps disappeared from the stage of history.

Had that happened, the Jewish milieu into which Jesus was born and Christianity developed might have been extinct but for the efforts of Hanukkah’s Macabbean heroes. They successfully fought long ago for what we today call religious liberty and freedom.

Sadly, much of the authentic Hanukkah message was either unknown or forgotten by earlier generations of Christians and even by many Jews in America.

My own childhood experience growing up in a Virginia town dominated by an evangelical Protestant ethos is indelibly etched in my memory. Many of my Christian classmates and teachers simply could not fathom why Christmas had no religious meaning for me. And some of them had difficulty understanding why my family and I insisted on celebrating Hanukkah, a holiday that could not compare with Christmas’ overwhelming presence in American society.

Now, many years later, the extraordinary religious pluralism so much a part of our nation is increasingly clear. This month Hanukkah and Christmas are joined by Kwanzaa, a recently created African-American festival, along with the monthlong Islamic Ramadan period of fasting and prayer. Our Hindu and Buddhist populations are growing, and there is renewed interest in American Indian religions.

Although Judah Maccabee, Hanukkah’s hero, could not know or even imagine a country like ours, I like to believe he would be pleased by much of religious life in today’s America. Unlike Antiochus’ ancient empire, our Constitution’s First Amendment provides freedom of religion for all Americans, and I can happily attest that the United States and its people are far more accommodating of diverse religions than they were during my childhood.

DEA END RUDIN