Happy Chanukah. We celebrate Christmas in our home. That being said, I want to wish my Jewish friends a Happy Chanukah. Most of them are more than willing to wish me a Merry Christmas. I am not quite sure why it is such a big deal.
Celebrating Each Other's Beliefs
The other day, I read in my local paper that Radio Shack was advertising a sales event in conjunction with a Muslim Holiday. Many people were upset with them and were calling for a boycott. I do not really understand this way of thinking.
The desire and right to celebrate Chanukah, or any another religious holiday, does not take away from my desire and right to celebrate Christmas. I feel that there are many truths in the world and I feel at liberty to embrace every truth. Consequently, I don't feel at all shackled by superstition, bigotry or ignorance. This does not mean that I understand all truth, but it does mean that I am willing to search for it without limitation. I never have heard of a person being ignorant for believing too much, but it seems to me that there are quite a few who are ignorant because they believe too little.
Finding The Way
I love the story of Chanukah. It is called the festival of lights. because it celebrates the triumph of light over darkness, purity over adulteration, and spirituality over materiality. More than twenty-one centuries ago, the Holy Land was ruled by the Syrian-Greeks, who sought to forcefully Hellenize the people of Israel. Against all odds, a small band of faithful Jews defeated one of the mightiest armies on earth.
When they sought to light the Temple's menorah (i.e turn on the power), they found only a single cruse of olive oil (a one day supply) that had escaped contamination by the Greeks; miraculously, the one-day supply burned for eight days, until new oil could be prepared under conditions of ritual purity. Chanukah commemorates this amazing event.
On Chanukah, faithful Jews recite the Hallel and the Al HaNissim, which are prayers to offer praise and thanksgiving to God for "delivering the strong into the hands of the weak, the many into the hands of the few and the wicked into the hands of the righteous."
Standing For Something
This is a great story from the history of he world that helps all of us remember the power of God. It helps us remember how He treats those who are faithful to His teachings. It helps us remember that even when it is not popular to stand up for what is truth, and even when there are fewer that stand for truth than there are that stand against it, the Lord can and will deliver His people if they are faithful.
Standing for truth does not really mean silencing those who stand for something else. One of the greatest truths is that each of us possess agency, or the ability to choose what we want to be and how we want to live our lives. I truly believe that our right to choose is really the only right we have and the only right that can never be taken away from us. You and I can choose how we want to live our life, but we cannot choose the consequences that come from our choices. The consequences will always follow. Our only option is to choose how we will respond to those consequences.
I realize that for every truth for which I stand, there is somebody else on the other side opposing my stance by standing for what they believe is truth. This is why I say that my only real right is my right to believe what I want. I believe those that oppose my viewpoint enjoy the same right. I will stand for that right until I die.
Happy Chanukah!
To all those who celebrate Chanukah, I wish you the happiest time with your family and friends. It is my wish that you will remember your heritage and the wonder of that miraculous event when a day's worth of oil lasted eight days and nights. May you always look to the source of that great event.
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