WHY HANUKKAH? AND HOW!

While speaking to a group of community leaders, I used a metaphor I had relied on in several other occasions. I talked about a sacred task that Jews perform daily. Each person provides a link between the past and the future in our chain of tradition. I used the word “shalshelet,” which means “chain” and described the chain extending back to Sinai.

This obviously troubled one young woman, who said, “I am the first person in my family in this chain. I converted to Judaism. I am just a charm on the bracelet.”

What followed was an intense discussion about all of us standing at Sinai, about the privileges and pleasures of Jewish life and our responsibility for the next generation regardless of when we became part of the chain. One of the other participants said, “I just decided to do something about being Jewish. My parents in the Soviet Union didn’t teach me anything."

I learned a lesson from this experience. We are living in a time when many non-Orthodox Jews are “Jews by choice--” deciding for themselves what kind of Jews they want to be and how to connect with the Jewish community. Once making that choice, they link themselves with all that has happened to Jews living before them, with what is happening to Jews today, and with all that will happen in the future.

Each of us inherits the richness of the experiences and learning of past generations in our own way. Some have precious family memories on which to build, some acquire the memories of am Yisrael, the people of Israel, through learning, some begin by experiencing Judaism through art, music or Birthright Israel. And all of us who identify as Jews will, at some moment in our adult journey, be in a position to pass Judaism on to others--children, students, friends, colleagues.

This past Shabbat my rabbi delivered a beautiful sermon on why we light Hanukkah candles. After talking about the historical victory of the Maccabees and the Talmudic version of celebrating the rededication of the Temple and the miracle of the oil that lasted eight days, he spoke of the joy and responsibility of taking our memories--what we learned from our parents and grandparents and passing them on to the next generation. He quoted Deuteronomy 32,7: “Remember the days of old, Consider the years of ages past; Ask your father, he will inform you, Your elders, they will tell you.”

And I said a quiet prayer-—that when elders and fathers, do not tell us these things, those who choose to live as Jews, to claim the riches of past generations, have the determination, the support, and the resources to do so. That, in turn, will strengthen the next generation.