Happy Chanukah from Delaware Liberal
Have a happy Chanukah, one and all! During Chanukah, we remember how the Jews (led by the Maccabees) won their independence from King Antiochus IV of the Selucid Empire (a Hellenistic successor to Alexander the Great’s empire, stretching from Turkey to Pakistan), who outlawed their religious practices, sacked Jerusalem, and defiled their temple. Before the Maccabees’ revolt, Jews were forced to either hide in the countryside or asimilate and pay tribute to Zeus. When I see a menorah in a public display alongside the traditional Christmas displays, it reminds me that I live in a nation of fundamental freedoms where I don’t have to asimilate or pay tribute to the dominant religion. When Bill O’Reilly talks about the War On Christmas, what he’s really doing is waging war against Chanukah. In Billo’s mind, we Jews do not deserve recognition or inclusion – we should asimilate and participate in celebrating the birth of Jesus. So if your vision of America is exclusively Christian, then go ahead, wish me a very pointed “Merry Christmas” while I’m in the checkout line – go ahead and remind me that my people are not welcome in your store. And if you instead choose to wish me “Happy Holidays” at your place of business, then I thank you for sharing your holiday cheer with me. Christmas can be a very oppressive time for non-Christians.
We also celebrate the miracle of the oil. After the Maccabees recaptured the Temple, cleansed it, and reconsecrated it, they were only left with a single day’s worth of olive oil to keep the Temple’s eternal flame lit. Miraculously, the oil lasted for eight full days, enough time to prepare a new batch of olive oil. Imagine if you needed to drive out to Los Angeles, starting with a full tank of gasoline, but there was no gasoline anywhere in America to refill it; and you just kept on driving, and driving, and driving until your car finally sputtered out within walking distance of your destination. That would be a miracle, unless of course you were driving some kind of advanced solar-electric hybrid. Or imagine if the world’s oil supply lasted for 240 years instead of 30; unless we started drastically changing our consumption habits today, it would take a miracle for the supply of oil to outlive today’s children.
So my Chanukah message to you is, “be the miracle you wish to see in the world.” Don’t just pray that our supply of oil will last long enough to find efficient alternatives; do everything you can to conserve. Walk. Ride a bike. Take public transportation. Carpool. Move closer to the place where you work. Trade your gas-guzzler for a hybrid, a compact, a motorcycle/scooter or an electric. Own one car instead of two. Get your car a tune-up. Change the oil regularly. Use efficient air filters and change them regularly. Get your fuel injector cleaned. Use low-resistance tires, and keep them properly inflated. Remove racks when you’re not using them and anything else that increases the amount of weight your car is hauling. Avoid idling. Plan your trips out to make them as short and efficient as possible; using a GPS may help. Drive at a consistent speed (use cruise control if the road isn’t wet) and stay under 60mph. Park in the shade. Don’t tailgate. After a full stop, accelerte gradually. When driving under 40mph on a hot day, open the windows rather than use AC – but use AC instead when driving faster than that, because the open windows would create too much wind resistance. And support politicians who vote for energy efficiency and energy alternatives. Our future depends on it.
Tags: Chanukah, Holidays, Oil, War on Christmas
I totally don’t get those “war on Christmas” types. Are they personally insulted if you don’t say “merry Christmas?”
Happy Chanukah to everyone!
Thanks for the post.
Happy Chanukah!
Here is to working in 2009 to keep America a place where nobody needs to asimilate or pay tribute to the dominant religion. (Unless and until it is the one true religion Scientology.)
Happy Chanukah to you xstryker, and all the DL readers and contributors. Light is a wonderful thing to celebrate and thanks for shining light on all the shennanigans that go on in the Small Wonder. Chanukah is a meaningful holiday around here.
Happy Chanukak from this Christian who went to a Jewish college!!
A little dreidel music please Nemski?
That’s the one thing about Chanukah – there really aren’t that many good songs.
Given that I completely agree with this
So if your vision of America is exclusively Christian, then go ahead, wish me a very pointed “Merry Christmas” while I’m in the checkout line – go ahead and remind me that my people are not welcome in your store.
Then my question is to wonder what you think of the President-elect inviting a man to give the invocation at his inauguration who believes that all Jews who don’t accept Jesus and convert are going to fry in hell?
MJ, I completely agree with that statement as a Jewish musician. But there’s a reason for it. Chanukah is an unimportant holiday. On the religious significance scale, it’s around the same level as St. Patrick’s Day. Chanukah songs are for children really, anyway, and I don’t like children’s music either. Our best music comes from songs that are singable year-round, not for a holiday that is unimportant and insignificant.
Anyway, Mr. XStryker asked me to contribute as well. So, gather round kiddies, I am going to tell you all a story about a 3-year-old Mrs. X, back when she was Little Miss C. Little Miss C was the only Jewish kid in her preschool class. Her teacher did not think before she spoke, and told all the kiddies that “Santa Claus comes to the houses of *all* good little boys and girls”. Little Miss C was immediately heartbroken because she knew that Santa was not coming to her house. Being an unusually clever little girl, she thought that this meant that a) she was not a good girl, b) the reason she was not a good girl was that she was Jewish, and c) that all Jewish people were bad, because Santa would not be coming to their houses. Mr. and Mrs. C did not know what to do. They had to help their daughter understand that she was a good girl, but how could they tell her the truth and ruin everyone else’s holiday?
The moral of this story is that people should think before they speak, because their words could have consequences beyond their expectations.
“…from this Christian who went to a Jewish college”
Joanne went to Tulane?
I’ll guess Brandeis. 😉
Steve – I’m going to take a cue from Melissa Etheridge and keep an open heart. This is the season of hope, change, and reaching across the boundary lines. So I’ll say maybe – *maybe* Rick Warren can reach an audience of people who need to hear a message about poverty, health care, and the environment. I’m going to save snap judgments and second-guessing for now and wait and see if Obama and his surrogates from both sides of the aisle can actually move the course of public opinion. There are a lot of tough choices ahead.
Rick Warren is no Jerry Falwell. And maybe if Rick Warren became more prominent by this, the haters will become less so. Maybe.