One thing I have always appreciated about the Torah and the accounts of Jewish history is that, like so many other good systems of mythology, it shows humanity in all of its facets: we have been cruel and capricious as often as we have been noble and brave. The “moral of the story” is the story itself.
The story of Chanukah is no exception, and for this week we’ve asked people to reflect on what lessons this Festival of Light can teach all of us in the age of the Climate Emergency and Ecological Degradation. That our responses were a mixed bag underscores the point that Jewish teachings are not fairy tales but complicated lessons.
Here, in no particular order, are what I think we can take away from the holiday.
• Customs mean something to a culture. The Maccabees aren’t the only people who are going to take it very badly when sacred rituals are forbidden. Let’s keep that in mind as we contemplate our peers in the Native Nations of this continent and the others, and ask ourselves whether our mining operations justify compromising someone else’s land rights and resources.
• Circular firing squads are a bad idea. There were some “Hellenistic” Jews who chose to comply with the Seleucid proclamations, and they were killed by the Maccabees because of it. That begs the question of what they—we?--were fighting for. Customs mean something, but life means more. Persuasion might have been more effective than the sword, even if it would have meant a temporary compromise. Let’s remember who our real enemy is in the fight against climate change and global warming—that would be fossil fuel companies, in case you had forgotten—and save our fire for them.
• What is the definition of pollution? What are the ramifications? There was, in fact, more oil in the temple—but the seals had been broken. It still could have been used, but it had, in some measure, been “polluted”. We eschewed that oil even though it meant hardship for eight nights—and we’ve been bragging about it ever since. What about people who regularly have to make do with polluted water, soil, and food, in this country and around the world? Where is their miracle? Why haven’t they been delivered yet? (Aren’t we called to be the deliverance?)
• The miracle of Chanukah is conservation. I don’t believe in magic, but even the best court magicians of this age would have had trouble extending a resource for eight nights. That is, unless they had the agreement of the community to do so. I don’t know what actually happened during that week, but the only explanation that makes sense is that those people in the temple agreed among themselves that they were going to conserve—use less than they usually did—so their precious resource had a chance of lasting long enough. THAT is the agreement we all need to come to, right now.
• We need to rethink a celebration of abundance in an age of abundance. In a culture that—in the aggregate—uses as much energy as it wants every day, perhaps it’s no longer appropriate to celebrate a week of doing just that. Just as people are beginning to practice a Reverse Tashlikh—removing pollution from the water, rather than using the water to cleanse us of our sins—Chanukah should become a week during which we use as little oil as possible! If that’s too big a lift, then perhaps we can observe one day a month in which we consciously cut back on our energy consumption so that we “earn out” these eight days.
• Chanukah is a time for togetherness and community. My daughter reminds me that we celebrate the holiday during the winter, and it is during the winter that we need to combat isolation and deprivation. We do that through community, and it is only through community that we can arrive at solutions to the Climate Emergency.
Happy Chanukah!
Originally published by The Jewish Climate Action Network of Massachusetts
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