The Hanukkah bush is still burning

“Does Hanukkah commemorate events profound and holy?
A king who came to save the world?”

“No. Oil that burned quite slowly.”

--Stephen Colbert & Jon Stewart singing “Can I interest you in Hanukkah?”


Fig. 1 My sister, hungry for Hanukkah

You gotta hand it to Christians. They really have a lot of pizazz in their holiday celebrations. Whatever it means to you, you can’t deny the jocularity of the Christmas season. Pageantry, singing, sparkling lights, tinsel, brightly colored presents and party costumes and dresses--it’s no wonder the English language has developed the expression “Gay as Christmas.”

The Jews, on the other hand, are comparatively “meh” about the old “sensible alternative to Christmas,” Hanukkah. That’s not to say they haven’t tried. I mean, eight days of presents certainly trumps one day, but it’s often described as an exercise in delayed satisfaction instead of a week of gift-giving bonanzas. The food is great, though! What’s more deliciously American than oil-soaked potatoes and jelly donuts? I’m surprised they don’t use that in their marketing campaign more often.

Fig. 2 Jon tries to convince Stephen that Hanukkah is cool

For me, celebrating Hanukkah has meant profoundly understanding every nuance in a finely-crafted jokes Jewish comedians make about it. The subtle but illustrative dropping of Yiddish terminology and references to the Maccabean battles of old have proven extremely hilarious in the right context. And I get stares from people who are obviously not Jewish “it-getters.”

Two years ago, I went menorah shopping in preparation of my upcoming Hanukkah festivities. Did you know that you could spend as much on a menorah as you do on a Christmas tree? They last longer though, and many become heirlooms, which certainly sticks with the Hanukkah theme of conservation. Can you imagine having the same artificial Christmas tree in your family for generations? Didn’t think so.

Menorahs are nowhere near as messy, though instead of kvetching about pine needles and preventing the dog from drinking the tree water, I had a festive time scraping melted candle wax off my mantel. A handy tip: to get the wax off the menorah itself, put it in the freezer for an hour, then chip off the frozen wax. Much easier on the lower back than hauling the tree into the attic.

Fig. 3 The Jewish equivalent of an artificial Christmas tree

The first time I insisted on giving Hanukkah a try, my family already had years of trained experience making latkes. My mom, the multi-talented cook who always loves trying new recipes from all walks of life, taught us the joys of shredding potatoes and squeezing out their copious amounts of water to make the pancakes stay in one piece in the pan. They are, by far, one of the greatest contributions to culinary art ever. Smothered with sour cream and chives (or applesauce, if you’re traditionally-minded) with a side of Hebrew Nationals and some carrot coins… oh baby. It gives you the energy for days worth of dreidel spinning.

We also challenged ourselves to giving eight gifts to each other every evening after lighting the candles. We were already bogged down with buying Christmas gifts, so they usually amounted to very small tokens involving inside jokes and edible treats. My dad, the creative one, came up with an unexpectedly complex plot to crush us with his gift-giving and storytelling prowess. At the time, I’m not sure he fully appreciated what he had gotten himself into, but I’m glad he did it.

Each night, sitting on the sofa in the living room, he revealed a small chapter of a Hanukkah story he had conjured, and each night he gave us something related to the story, much like how Kindergarten teachers use props to read children’s books to their students. It was a story about a young man with a magical “Gelt Horse” and a magical basket that filled up with coins every night so he could save enough money to marry a young lady. Dad gave us each a small plastic toy pony with a Star of David Sharpied onto its rump, then a small basket, then an increasing amount of golden Sacagawea dollars appeared in the baskets. They doubled every night. You can imagine that we ended up with a handsome sum when we ran out of candles.

Fig. 4 The purebred Gelt Horse

Best lesson in saving money EVER.

Thank you, Dad, for making your little girl’s first Hanukkah a memorable one.

As for the real reason people celebrate Hanukkah, its details are thought provoking in their outward mediocrity. Judah Maccabee led the Jewish revolt against the tyrannical Antiochus in Judea around 164 BCE. When the Maccabees took back control of the temple, they found only one day’s worth of the consecrated oil needed for daily ceremonies, but during the eight days it took to make more oil, the oil they had never burned out. The story was considered too recent and inconsequential at the time of compiling the Jewish testament, so it didn’t make the final edit. Hanukkah as a commemoration ranks as a minor holiday compared to Pesach (Passover) or Yom Kippur.

So why has it risen to the rank of the most popularly known of Jewish holidays (in America, at least)? The tradition of gift-giving and the focus on childhood activities may have been installed to give the holiday more chutzpah and a means of Jewish immigrants to assimilate into American culture during the country’s nation-building era. But as Jon Stewart tends to say regarding his own interfaith family’s holiday observations, “Christmas blows the doors off of Hanukkah.”

Fig. 5 Even our dog Harmon got into the spirit

Most fascinating to me, though, is how each traditional image we associate with Hanukkah still steadfastly embodies reference to the Maccabbean story. The dreidel, something so innocuous and seemingly random, has the Hebrew letters Nun, Hay, Gimel, Shin, which stands for the Hebrew phrase: “Nes Gadol Haya Sham” (A Great Miracle Happened There”), referring to the miracle of the eight-day oil. The nine-armed menorah (as opposed to the ancient traditional seven-armed menorah) is actually called a Hanukkiah (related to the Hebrew word for “to dedicate”), denoting its use as a lamp for “dedicating” the new temple that Judah had captured from Antiochus.

Hanukkah, as a minor holiday, is simply not built to be the kind of all-encompassing epic celebration of anything as world changing as a messiah coming to Earth, which is part of the reason why it’s got flyweight muscle in the pop culture match between it and that heavyweight champion, Christmas. Hanukkah basically had the unfortunate luck of occurring adjacent to Christmastime and is compared to Jesus’ birthday by virtue of proximity, which is totally fakakta.

Fig. 6 If Martha Stewart were Jewish...

Hanukkah was designed for something else entirely. It’s a small holiday that has, in the grand history of things, made the others still possible. Hanukkah commemorates the little miracles that make all the difference. Little miracles like oil-fried latkes with sour cream. Mmmm.

How to win the cosmic war on Christmas

"... the only way to win a cosmic war is to refuse to fight in one."
--Reza Aslan


Fig. 1 Season's Greetings, Earthlings

At Thanksgiving dinner this year, my uncle made a curious observation about my aunt's shopping behavior. She, my little cousin and my grandma have made it a tradition to wake up at 3 am every Black Friday and rush off to a major mall to take advantage of the bajillions of holiday doorbuster deals that surface every year right after Thanksgiving. I thought it was a harmless tradition, giving those three some time together doing what a large percentage of folks do this time of year. Nothing special. But my uncle mentioned that my aunt would buy one or two of that year's "hot" and "hard-to-find" item for the sole purpose of bragging rights, then return it a few days later. She did it to prove that she had the shopping skillz to grab a certain DVD or toy before anyone else, then get a refund after the stampede of shoppers was over.

I said to my aunt, "You know there are desperate people who would probably commit a hate crime against you for doing that."

She said, "I know!" and laughed.

Fig. 2 The Cathedral of Shopping: The Mall of America

Earlier, while waiting for the turkey to be sliced, I was in my cousin's room, assisting her with decorating some black t-shirts with fabric paint and glitter. She had three of them, each with their names on the back and "Black Friday 09" plastered across the front. They claimed that they all wore the same thing so it was easier for them to find each other if they got lost in the "running of the crazed consumers." I thought it was fairly practical at the time, but in light of my uncle's comments, I saw this Black Friday activity for what it truly was: a sport. They had uniforms and a healthy sense of competition. Well, maybe not so healthy. Shopping for Christmas has become a full-contact sport requiring a certain level of cynicism and defiance with a full-throttle ego boost that accompanies success.

I love my aunt, cousins and grandma dearly, and I'm certainly not judging them for commiting a mild offense against other early bird wacko types who place way too much value on obtaining half a dozen Zhu Zhu robotic hamsters, but seriously... is this the real problem with Christmas?

Fig. 3 Worship the almighty Flying Christmas Presents

The mainstream media outlets (and Stephen Colbert) have been reporting on the so-called "War on Christmas" for years. They focus mainly on Wal-Mart greeters' usage of "Happy Holidays" over "Merry Christmas" and overly PC people shoe-horning in holiday wishes that include Chanukah, Kwanzaa, Eid, Festivus, etc. into their holiday office parties and gift-giving activites. Because God forbid we respect all the less-than-overcommercialized sacred festivals of other religious traditions celebrated by citizens of this country. This hyped-up paranoia about Christmas supposedly getting usurped by other holidays is patently absurd, of course, since the real threat to Christmas is the deep-seated materialism that surrounds it. The true meaning of Christmas, in my opinion, is not at war with outside aggresors, but from within.

Yes, this argument has been raised as well, and by the very same people who bring up the anti-PC argument. I only invoke the argument because as a Buddhist convert, I've had to recently reinterpret my reasons for my continued observance of many holidays, as well as summon a mission statement regarding my observance of Hanukkah, Diwali, Passover, Samhain, Holi, Yom Kippur, etc. in an effort to further my multipraying quest.

Fig. 4 Jon can't believe dreidels can't compete with Santa Claus

I could have woken up one day and played the "I'm not Christian" card and declared that I didn't have to participate in anything that wasn't related to my new spiritual path. Hey, it would save me a shitload of cash and headaches every year, wouldn't it? I could have sat back and amused myself by anthropoligically analyzing all the fun out of these gauntlets people perrenially embark upon in order to please their money gods. It would have been too easy to just excise myself from the holiday fray and meditate on the futility of materialism.

The year I converted myself, that first year I had to experience Christmas without the churchgoing obligations or the latent guilt of not really believing the nativity story and how to reconcile that with the obsession over Santa Claus and elves and fruitcake and inflatable lawn decorations and credit card debt, I was free. I was free to understand.

I understood for the first time how other religions effected Christmas. And despite what I've heard from a particular cynic who shall remain anonymous, it's not a bad thing that Christianity has been touched by religions that came before it. Jesus wasn't born in December, but more likely around the time Jews celebrate Sukkot in the fall. Or perhaps in the spring. Christians today celebrate in winter because that's when pagans celebrate Yule and Saturnalia and other winter festivals, and Emperor Constantine cleverly moved the date to make it easier for pagan converts such as himself. Santa Claus is derived from the Turkish Saint Nicholas and the popular back story of his life is drawn from Germanic folk traditions. Dragging an evergreen tree into your house and lighting it up to remind you that life persists through the bitter winter? How totally pagan of you!


Fig. 5 Jesus wishes he were born on Christmas

Christmas is not "diluted" by these non-Christian influences, but enhanced. It has been enriched by the numerous converts through its history, converts who brought their own flavors to the big melting pot of Christmas. Gift-giving, baking, decorating, visiting with family, and parties have basically become secular activities in December, and this captures the distinctly American influence on Christmas: sharing it with everyone, no matter the race or creed. With this in mind, it's difficult to put stock in the paranoia, the superficial culture war borne out of fear and ethnocentricism. The problem the warriors for Christmas have is with themselves, and unable to appreciate or recognize the beauty of the Christmas collage, they lapse into self-loathing without even knowing it.

Fig. 6 Who's to say the Festivus Pole doesn't enhance Christmas?

I now fully understand what Christmastime means to me: family gatherings, seeing far-flung friends, creating homemade gifts, lighting my menorah, baking Martha Stewart cookies with my sister, watching holiday classics like National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, Lord of the Rings, and Doctor Zhivago, playing A Colbert Christmas music on an endless loop, enjoying the laughably mild winters of Florida, but still freezing my ass off to see the Geminid meteor shower on a clear cold night.

If Christmas to you means a false sense of "purity" over a rich medley, or if it means casting aside all other holidays in an effort to "preserve" a homogeneous past that never existed, then you're participating in a cosmic war that cannot be won by anyone involved.

I choose not to participate in the cosmic war. I choose to participate in Christmas. It's the more Buddhist thing to do. It's the more American thing to do. It's the human thing to do.

Fig. 7 Totally Kosher.

Jesus Is Just Alright With Me

“And though I am a committed Christian, I believe that everyone has the right to their own religion, be you Hindu, Jewish or Muslim. I believe there are infinite paths to accepting Jesus Christ as your personal savior.” 
--Stephen Colbert

Fig. 1 Jesus: the best first round draft pick for running back

Somehow, in one of my random best-friends-only college era gatherings, someone came up with the placeholder moniker “Jebus Crisp” for use as a mild curse, and it stuck pretty permanently in my mind (this is me not taking the Lord’s name in vain). Oddly enough, several years after that memorable occasion, Homer Simpson yelled “I can’t be a missionary! I don’t believe in Jebus!” Proof positive of that collective human mind field Deepak Chopra’s so hot about.

Sometime after my Buddhist revelation, someone once asked me what I think about Jesus.

"Jesus is cool," I thought. "He's wise and good and genuine. I have no beef with Jesus."

I also know I prefer Willem Dafoe Jesus over James Caviezel Jesus. Or "Imma only make a cameo in Ben Hur" Jesus. That's just lazy.

Fig. 2 The Last Temptation of Scorsese

I love Jesus more now than I ever did as a Christian. Maybe that’s my fault, since I know plenty of people can love Jesus and be Christians at the same time. It’s probably meant to be that way, actually. Some people’s boats float better in different liquids.

Still, I’m all for listening to hippie types. He told off the authorities and chilled out with prostitutes and gave outdoor “God is love” sit-ins on grassy hills. Jesus had the long hair, threadbare clothes, was always wearing Birkenstocks and bumming food off of people while fighting with his father. “Dad, I’m gonna die for these people whether you like it or not!” I believe is what he said while he was dragging the cross through those thirteen stations.

Jesus is the ultimate treehugger. Don’t tell Greenpeace about that one time he cursed a fig tree for not bearing fruit and it shriveled into a barren twig.

“I curse you for not bearing me any fruit!” *poof*

His apostles all trade looks, then one asks, “Dude, what did you do that for?”

*cough* “Well, umm… Anything is possible when you believe in God!”

Fig. 3 Jesus caused the first Fig Newton shortage in history

Even Buddhists squash ants in forgetful moments, so no one is about to fault the Savior of a third of this planet’s population for having a black thumb. The rest of his hand could heal water of its non-wineness, which, understandably got him invited to a lot of parties.

Fast forward a couple thousand years and he’s still on the top of the A-list, but he’s one of those people who has so many friends from so many walks of life that some of them can’t be in the same denomination together.

This makes for sometimes awkward housewarming shindigs. The Baptists roll their eyes at the Catholics for paying too much attention to the Virgin Mary. Fundamentalists sneer at the Episcopalians for bringing that gay guy into the clergy. Methodists stare at the token Jehovah’s Witness who stands in a corner and tells himself that everyone else is just jealous because he doesn’t have to go into debt every December buying Christmas presents. But even the Witness is surprised when a Mormon shows up and most everybody is pretty sure no one sent him an invite.

No matter what the party, some people tend to forget that Jesus sends everyone an invite.

Fig. 4 Jesus loves viniculture

In Acts 10:34-35, Peter says “I see very clearly that the Jews are not God’s only favorites! In every nation he has those who worship him and do good deeds and are acceptable to him.” I also recall some stuff about Jesus having sheep that are not of his fold, and that they will hear his voice (John 10:14-16.) Jesus knew God spoke to people outside the Euphrates River Valley. It wouldn’t make sense not to somehow clue in the rest of your creation, after all. Talk about lazy.

This is the Jesus I love. The Jesus who informs a Christianity of the red letters, not the accusatory finger. The Jesus of the healing hand, not the fist and the sword. Buddy Jesus from Kevin Smith’s Dogma. The smiling, thumbs-up Jesus who walks and talks with you.

Fig. 5 Jesus loves you, man!

Jesus, like all spiritual figures, is a Rorschach test. In my eyes, the inkblot represents a man of revolutionary compassion who reaches out to the impoverished, condemned and criminalized people of the world, then lifts them up with all the strength they already possessed within themselves. The strength of God. The strength of the Universe. The strength of human kind.