Sorry to add to all the “Happy Holidays vs Merry Christmas” Threads (Here’s one!Here’s another one!), but I’m coming from a different angle.
I took a semester long Judaism class in college, and the Rabbi taught that Hannukah really is a minor Holiday, and probably wouldn’t be made such a big deal if it weren’t pitted against Christmas where Jews live side by side with Christians. The teacher actually had very strong feelings against Jews buying each other elaborate Hannukah presents.
(Anyone who wishes to express disagreement with the Rabbi who taught the class is welcome to use this Thread to express such disagreement.)
This is when I really became resolute in my use of the greeting “Happy Holidays” during the December holiday season.
For Jews to wish each other a Happy Hannukah is perfectly appropriate, but as a non-Jew I kinda feel weird saying “Happy Hanukah” in response to a “Merry Christmas” wish from someone I know is Jewish.
A little bit I guess it gives me a sense of “putting on airs” but it also kinda seems ignorant to treat Hannukah with the same weight as Christmas since as a religious observance they don’t each share the same weight in their respective religions. Kinda like (WARNING: Horrible Analogy to follow- inaccurate in many ways, but it was the best I could come up with!!! Again- WARNING: This analogy is really bad!!!) if a Catholic wishes you a happy Labor Day and you respond “And a Happy Feast of the Assumption to you!” (I told you it was bad! Those days are off by two weeks! And I’ve only got religion on one side of the equation and not the other. That analogy sucks!)
Also, I personally (and I know this is true of many non-Jews) don’t usually have the year’s Hannukah dates in mind. Years when Hannukah comes early I’m sure that many non-Jews while striving to be PC keep wishing Jewish friends “Happy Hannukah” long after Hannukah has ended.
But mostly:
Hannukah is a religious holiday, and a holiday of a religion that I don’t observe.
Christmas, for me, is not a religious holiday (although I recognize that it has religious origins).
I celebrate Christmas, so it’s nice to be wished a “Merry Christmas” but Christmas for me is not religious so I’ll accept Christmas wishes from anybody. But since Hannukah is religious, for me to wish someone a “Happy Hannukah” feels like me inserting myself somewhere uninvited.
I can be swayed on this issue, but as it stands I generally avoid wishing people a “Happy Hannukah” and am grateful for the “Happy Holidays” option.
Jews have lots of borrowed holiday customs, and pretty much always have.
The custom of reclining at the Passover Seder is borrowed from Roman dining practices. I seem to remember reading somewhere that getting rid of chametz (leavened products) is also borrowed from an earlier religious or cultural festival.
Rosh Hashanah as New Year in autumn is borrowed from other ancient calendars used in the Middle East.
I’ve read somewhere that the custom of giving gifts on Purim is borrowed from a Muslim festival.
We’ve been borrowing others’ customs and festivals and making them our own for a long time. Why stop now?
Besides, Hanukkah is just a fun holiday. It’s not even a very religious holiday for me, certainly not in the way that Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, or Passover are. There aren’t nearly as many religious observances around Hanukkah as there are around those holidays. The only religious part is lighting menorahs, and that’s over in half an hour if you stick around to make sure the cats don’t get to the candles while they’re lit. And lighting menorahs is fun. There’s much more involved in the religious side of observing Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, or (especially) Passover.
Why not just reply with a “thank you” ? You don’t have to respond with balanced, tit-for-tat, “religiously correct” greetings. Nobody who greets you with “merry Christmas” is expressing a religious belief–it’s just their way of saying “have a nice day” during the month of December.
If you know the person will be celebrating Christmas, (either in his church, or just as a secular day like Thanksgiving), then say merry christmas , and ask how he’ll be spending the day with his family.
But if you know the person will not be celebrating Christmas at all, then just smile, say “thanks, and you have a good day too”.
And don’t get all hung up about it.
My understanding has always been that Hanukkah is largely an American Jewish holiday to help their kids through the overwhelming presence of Christmas. For non-orthodox Jewish kids going through Public School, Xmas can leave them feeling very left out. Chanukah gives the little Jewish lads and lasses a nice winter holiday in this very commercial time of year.
Visiting both Hong Kong and Japan at Christmas convinced me that Christmas has become the celebration of capitalism. Besides even Christmas should be considered a minor holiday compared to Easter the High Holiday for Christians.
Christmas was the answer of the Catholic Church for the old Winter Solstice celebrations through Northern Europe.
My wife is Jewish but non-practicing. I was baptized in RCC but reject it and I am agnostic. I love Christmas and we celebrate both Holidays in our house and our kids end up with presents spread out and both the Menorah and the Christmas tree. We just put the tree up this weekend.
So if you don’t feel bad about the Pagan Xmas tree and the Druids mistletoe, you definitely should be comfortable saying Happy Chanukah.
Hannukah is almost more of a Jewish secular holiday. I never remember any special Hannukah services. I know a miracle is involved, but it always seemed more like a Jewish fourth of July.
As for greetings, the sticky point seems in receiving, not giving a greeting. While someone who repeatedly wished me Merry Christmas after being told I don’t celebrate might be impolite, I have not trouble wishing someone who does celebrate Merry Christmas, though I don’t.
Hanukkah is a Jewish religious holiday, but pretty close to the bottom on any ranking of holidays by religious importance.
It got its current significance from the American emphasis on Xmas. Jewish parents didn’t want their kids wishing in December that they weren’t Jews because of all the toys they saw the Christian kids getting. So the custom of Hanukkah gelt morphed into Hanukkah presents, and Jewish organizations began touting Hanukkah to the Christian world as a holiday equivalent to Xmas.
That said, it is not a secular holiday on the order of 4th of July. It does celebrate a military victory, but it was considered to be a miraculous one, as the Greek forces outnumbered the Jews by a tremendous margin. In addition, the fact that it was a fight not so much for secular independence, but for freedom of religious expression, gave it even more religious overtones. In the synagogue services, Hallel (recitation of Psalms 113-118), a special addition to the Amidah (“standing”) prayer and Torah reading are part of the morning service on Hanukkah, and candles are lit in the morning and at night in the synagogue as well as in the home.
You’re right. The only celebration of Hanukkah in the synagogue is a paragraph added to the Amidah, or standard daily prayer. My synagogue isn’t having a service for Hanukkah, other than the normal Friday night and Saturday morning services, and Monday and Thursday morning minyans that fall during Hanukkah. I don’t think that’s atypical.
You should also know that the first mention of the miracle of Hanukkah (enough oil to light the Temple menorah for one night lasting for eight) is first mentioned in rabbinic literature something like 600 years after the victory of the Maccabees. There’s a theory that the rabbis later came up with that because the Maccabees didn’t turn out so well as rulers, but people wanted to celebrate Hanukkah anyway, so the rabbis came up with an acceptable reason.
I’m rather pleased when someone knows that I’m Jewish and says “Happy Hanukkah” to me. I wouldn’t say it to anyone else, though, unless I knew they were Jewish.
I suppose you could say the military victory was a miracle in the loose sense, as I don’t remember any direct divine intervention. The oil, however, was a clear miracle, with somewhat more obvious divine intervention.
Wouldn’t it be fair to say that the religious and secular aspects of Israel were so comingled as to make a political and religious revolt indistinguishable. The rebellion began, IIRC, from religious causes, but even recently we’ve seen political uprisings inspired by religious motivations. It is slightly more religious than Israel Independence Day, though in 1,000 years who knows?
Is the Torah portion read for Hanukkah a special one, (which?) or the portion expected from its time of the year?
I don’t remember my shul (admittedly liberal Conservative, half way to atheist to some ) ever inviting Hebrew School students to a Hanukkah service. I actually went to a lot more than I had to, for instance I went to the service for the firstborn just before Pesach - not highly attended by students.
True. Some Rabbis say that the oil miracle was the indication that the military victory was miraculous as well. From all appearances, it was merely an upset victory.
I don’t think so. The revolt would not have existed without the religious repression. The Jews happily (somewhat, at least) lived under Persian and Greek domination for two centuries. It wasn’t until Antiochus Epiphanes began pushing Greek culture and suppressing the Jewish religion that the people revolted. It was the Temple Priests who ran the revolt, not the previously ruling aristocracy. And the first thing the revolutionaries did upon recapturing the Temple Mount was to restore the religious service.
Of course, by driving out the Greeks, some form of government was needed to replace them. But that was a side effect. The whole fight was religious in nature.
It’s a special one, taken from Numbers Chapter 7. The expected reading this time of year is from Genesis, betweem Chapters 37 and 44.
Any particular bit of Numbers 7? Seeing as how it’s pretty much a listing of offerings made by the people. (And now I have this idea of setting Numbers 7 to the tune of 12 Days of Christmas.)
Of course the point of this minor holiday is that a few were willing to kill and die in order to maintain their identity in the face of an overwhelming other, the Syrian Hellenites. The irony of elevating that into a gift giving extravaganza so that Jewish kids don’t have to feel different than the overwhelming Christian majority is lost on most.
The story of the oil miracle was probably added hundreds of years later to merge it with the traditional winter solstice celebrations.
BTW, in power the Macabees were brutal and petty bastards, executing their enemies after forcing them to witness the murder of their wives and children first, and having a drinking feast at the time. And the Romans came in at the request of Macabean brothers who felt that the Romans could adjudicate their own battles. Yeah, they settled it just fine.
To be fair, such behaviour was pretty much the norm for the time and place. The Hasmonaim may not have been much better than their fellow Ancient Despots, but they probably weren’t any worse. It’s besides the point - people in this part of the world, at the very least, would much rather be opressed by one of their own than be ruled by foreigners. That’s one lesson the U.S. is learning in Iraq… bat that’s not for this thread.
Anyway, Hanukkah is a pretty popular holiday here in Israel, perhaps the third biggest after Passover and Rosh Hashana/Yom Kippur. A lot of it come from the 8-day school vacation, from the fact that it has the best food (Donuts! Latkes!) and best songs (Handel!), and from the general spectacle of all the lights and candles. But it also ties in to the whole Zionist ethos; after all, between the Maccabees and 1947, Jewish armies won precious few wars. We take or moments of national pride where we can find them.
Wives and kids?
I’m sorry but I rise on behalf of my illustrious forebear, cause we visigoths did nothing of the sort.and we’re sort of contemporaneous.
Of course, WE were the last true Gnostic Christians (organized, anyway)
First day of Hanukkah: Beginning of Chapter through offering brought on first day.
Second day of Hanukkah: Offerings of second and third days
Third day of Hanukkah: Offerings of third and fourth days
Fourth day of Hanukkah: Offerings of fourth and fifth days
Fifth day of Hanukkah: Offerings of fifth and sixth days
Sixth day of Hanukkah: Offerings of sixth and seventh days
Seventh day of Hanukkah: Offerings of seventh and eighth days
Eighth day of Hanukkah: From offering of eighth day through end of chapter, plus the menorah portion (through verse 4) at the beginning of Numbers chapter 8.
DSeid:
Too true, too true. Somepeople don’t even see irony in the concept of a “Hanukkah bush.”
Let’s not confuse the Maccabees - Mattisyahu and his five sons (Judah was the most famous) with the Hasmonean dynasty. It was the later Hasmonean kings…under considerable Saducee influence - which made those awful moves you mention.
Well, your distinction does confuse me I guess. The Macabees were Hasmoneans. Hasmonean was the Greek name for the family lineage and the short-lived dynasty that Simon created. Judah was soon killed in counter-insurgencies as was Jonathan after him. Simon finally won the somewhat more lasting victory and it was his grandson who hosted that infamous execution-drinking party. And if I understand correctly, by then they were already pretty Hellenized.
Let me them be more clear: the Maccabees were the first Hasmoneans. Not all Hasmoneans were Maccabees, only Mattisyahu and his five sons.
The nasty, Hellenized ones were Hasmoneans, and indeed not too many generations after the Maccabees, but we should not tarnish the memory of the pious Maccabees by attaching their title to the later Hasmoneans.
) ever inviting Hebrew School students to a Hanukkah service. I actually went to a lot more than I had to, for instance I went to the service for the firstborn just before Pesach - not highly attended by students.