D'var Torah
Rabbi Barry A. Kenter
Hamvaser – Kislev
5763
I-dolatry
One of the most familiar of the midrashim of our Tradition, tells of the young Abram breaking the idols in his father’s workshop. Coming to an understanding of the Oneness and Uniqueness of God, Abraham in this story emerges quite literally as the first iconoclast, the first to break with the powerful givens of society. His belief in the singularity of God enabled him to smash the idols the society of his birth saw as incarnations of the power of gods and goddesses, each with a field of expertise, competence or control over sun, moon, stars, planets, humans, and the like. We, Abraham’s heirs, came to view idolatry as foreign worship, avodah zarah.
Since the Renaissance, Western society and civilization have been based on the model of individual salvation, the inviolability of the individual, the quest for self, and the absolute primacy of rights. For a much longer period of time, Judaism has been predicated on the primacy of obligations based on shared values and the common weal, the well-being, prosperity, and happiness of the group. Judaism, with rare exceptions, asks us to set aside the personal for the benefit of the whole, working in harmony to achieve common goals, as the music of the community is scored to meld different voices in the creation of a symphony greater than the sum of its individual parts.
Hanukkah is a festival or dedication and rededication, a period during which the Temple in Jerusalem was defiled with the setting up of an idol as an object of worship. Worship by Jews before the altar resulted in the revolt of the Maccabees and the beginning of a three-year civil war, culminating in communal ceremonies of rededication. As a community, we celebrate not the military victory, but the victory of the spirit encapsulated in the phrase, “Not by strength and not by power, but by My spirit saws the Lord of Hosts” (Zechariah 4:6). It is this victory we remember and seek to emulate on Hanukkah. At precisely the darkest time of the year, as we light candles and sing God’s praise that we strive to rededicate ourselves anew to promise and possibility, to hope and not to despair. We transcend the darkness.
Arthur Waskow expresses it best when he writes, “There is no use pretending that the sun is always bright; there is no use pretending that the moon is always full. It is only by recognizing the season of darkness that we know it is time to light the candles, to sow a seed of light that can sprout and spring forth later in the year. … Seen this way, Hanukkah can becomes a resource to help us experience our moments of darkness whenever they occur throughout the year---and strike new sparks” (Seasons of Our Joy, 101).