chanuka: excerpts, reflections, words, dreams, & possibilities. 11.28.2021
on memory
“our holidays aren't simply commemorative. they punctuate time with moments of communal celebration & contemplation. they infuse time with lessons & teachings that are anchors to guide, heal, & teach us. this holiday- and with it, our collective memory- touches upon vulnerability, oppression, endurance & struggle, civil strife & radicalism, cultural identity & religious liberty, miracles & sacredness. chanukah comes from the root word, 'dedication.' as we light the candles, we dedicate ourselves to fighting oppression, to honour our jewish identity. the light of the candles is our commitment to a hopefulness that inspires action. when we light each candle, we face the darkness in our lives and world, and as the night darkens, we bring to it beacons of light and optimism."
LIGHT: a Chanukah reader created by Rabbi Bluth and Kohenet Naomi Azriel with Living Jewishly
on miracles
"we light the candles on the window sill, for this holiday which illuminates the precipice. a holiday on the edges. a time to bring light to what has been made dark or invisible. a time to recall stories of past, & envision futures. a time when we add more light to the world. chanukah begins in the month of kislev, known as the dreamers month. what are your dreams this month? what do you conjure up in your sleep, & what world are you dreaming into being with your waking lives?" "jewish tradition imagines that the different 'elements' have different weights & that fire is the lightest element, the closest to heaven. it soars upward by its nature, the rabbis say, yearning to return to the sky. [...] by lighting lights at chanukah, we become messengers of radiance, helping ourselves and others rise up like sparks from a flame."
Rabbi Jill Hammer
on traditions
"[we] light the blessed candles. we watch as the smoke curls up to the sky. we whisper about the gray trails. we tell stories about the smoke reaching the souls of the recently departed, building a ladder to connect the world of the living and world of the dead. we pray that angels and blessings might travel along this corridor to find home among the inhabitants of both realms. on our lips are the aramaic words of the mourner's kaddish. the same syllables & sounds that i recite today. with my jewish practice, i share customs with people now turned ghosts. through our common motions and songs, i can see their lives more clearly and learn from their wisdom. this fantasy may be all that i will ever know og my great-grandmother's world. but it has taught me to believe in judaism's power to free me."
Ami Weintraub, "How to Scream, How to Sing” in "There is Nothing so Whole as a Broken Heart: Mending the World as Jewish Anarchists”
on healing
"judaism contains tools for surviving violence and trauma. yet so many of us are scared to acknowledge the medicine embedded in our tradition. doing so makes us feel vulnerable. it makes us admit that we have pain we have never talked about. acknowledging judaism's ability to mend trauma forces us to admit that we are not the smiling, well-adjusted, middle-class folks that society has told us to be. that we do have a playbook for this, because it has happened before. we are from somewhere before the united states, before so many other places. the harm done to me on other lands does not know the definition of borders. it follows me. i try so hard, but i cannot forget how those places hurt us so deeply. we are hurting so deeply. our home, this current one, is hurting us so deeply yet again."
Ami Weintraub, "How to Scream, How to Sing” in "There is Nothing so Whole as a Broken Heart: Mending the World as Jewish Anarchists”
"who forces silence over our wounds? aren't they healthier left open and oozing? who is scared of the pulsing, unhealed flesh, rotting in my body? if we felt our wounds, we might awaken to the cruelty of what was and is being done to us. we might have become dangerous, wanting retribution of revenge, OR WE MIGHT STOP YOU FROM TELLING US HOW WE SHOULD FEEL OR BEHAVE. i want us to feel worthy enough to fight for ourselves, to care enough for our bodies that we believe we too deserve true liberation. i want to turn on the world that has been built from our submission. i want to love our tradition enough to let it make us feel whole. if we were allowed to apply our own salves to our traumas, we might finally be able to remember them all."
Ami Weintraub, "How to Scream, How to Sing” in "There is Nothing so Whole as a Broken Heart: Mending the World as Jewish Anarchists”
