Chanukah has always asked the question – are you, as a Jew, willing to raise your head above the parapet? Right back in the earliest days, the heart of the Maccabean revolt was the refusal to shrug and fall in line when the surrounding society said, “Don’t be Jewish.” The Maccabees found this intolerable. And so, here we are.
Two hundred years later, the Rabbis articulated rules for the placement of the Chanukiyah. Candles, they taught, should be placed, "outside the house, or in the window overlooking the public space". People needed to see that we were here, proud of who we are and what we stand for, and proud to be different. They added, “In times of danger, it’s enough to light on your table.” Sometimes discretion is nobler than valour, but this extension of the neck has always been a Shikul, something to weigh up. As Jews, especially as Jews of the Diaspora we have long been used to marking carefully ways in which we fall in line with the expectations of our surrounding society, or raise our heads above the parapet and prove ourselves as different – at this Christmasy time of year most especially. And now, here we are, with horror along the southern border of Israel, destruction in Gaza and tension on the streets of London.
There is something remarkable in the Chabad-led programme to put up public Chanukiyot … everywhere. I have cycled past three this morning. My Chabad colleagues lead the way in refusing to back down; wearing the same clothes, and the same outward commitments to our faith, come what may.
This Chanukah is both something tragically new and something that has re-raised the very essence of this festival to the surface. The essence of Chanukah has never been a cute story about everlasting oil. It’s always been that it takes a certain kind of bravery – and in the language of Rabbi Steven Bayar – the neck of a giraffe to make a difference in the world. Not a foolhardy stupidity – “in times of danger, light your Chanukiyah on the table and that’s enough,” – but a refusal to back down. Rudyard Kipling, no great friend of Jews, had it right. “If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you … or being hated, don’t give way to hating.”
And maybe, this is the real lesson of a flame. Candles, even ones powered by miraculous flasks of oil, need protection from the elements. They can’t be assumed to survive the wafts of societal pressure. A flame, and the heat, warmth, delight and inspiration we can derive from a flame, demands our effort. It has always been so.
Happy Chanukah.
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