Not a Jewish Christmas, Not a UU Holiday
I was first introduced to the Jewish Festival of Lights in Unitarian Universalist Sunday School. We made tiny menorahs out of modeling clay and birthday cake candles, and took home a mimeographed sheet of readings to accompany lighting of the tiny Hanukkah candles. Throughout my early years of congregational ministry I preached annually on Hanukkah themes, chose Hanukkah stories and music for worship, and lit menorahs in my home and in my churches. One of my own Hanukkah sermons was even picked up and published by a denominational publication. Doing all this, I believed I was acting with integrity, embracing and embodying one of our many sources, and perhaps I was.
But eventually, the same sense of unease that led me to discontinue participation in the once popular Unitarian Universalist tradition of the so-called ‘Thanksgiving Seder’ almost immediately upon my entry into parish ministry, that same discomfort began calling me to rein in my Hanukkah activities. It’s complicated, this discomfort. It grows mostly from trying to achieve a delicate balance.
One of our core values, and the characteristic by which we are perhaps best known outside of Unitarian Universalism, is our embrace of the many and various paths to wisdom and truth. If you turn to our UUA Statement of Purpose and Principles near the front of our gray hymnal, you’ll find the sources of our living tradition about half way down the page. Among them is Jewish and Christian teachings which call us to respond to God‘s love by loving our neighbors as ourselves. It’s right there in black-and-white for all to see. And it makes sense, really that it is there. It’s almost a no-brainer, you could say, for our denominational and theological roots are firmly entrenched in the Judeo Christian Tradition. And that historical fact won’t change with the upcoming revision to the language of Article Two of the UUA by-laws.
But, also, with good reason, it is the one source we seem most likely to ignore, almost like ostriches with our head in the sand. So many Unitarian Universalists have such negative prior life experiences with Christianity. We’ve joined Unitarian Universalist congregations in order to shake the dust of those experiences from our sandals, and we don’t like to acknowledge, or even admit that there is wisdom, truth, beauty and goodness to be found in Christianity–just as there is in any of the sources we claim. As a whole, in some congregations more than others, we avoid Christian scripture and Christian language and Christian rituals. Christmas, we like, but the fact that we like Christmas is incongruent with our general disavowal of Christianity and that makes us or at least some of us decidedly uneasy. So in response to that incongruence and dis-ease, we can tend to go overboard on Hanukkah. As if to say, “It’s ok that we’re doing Christmas because, look, we’re doing Hanukkah, too.”
Now, Hanukkah is a fine festival. It commemorates the Maccabee rebels victory over the Syrians in 165 BCE, and the subsequent rededication of the temple in Jerusalem. One small amphora of oil was found, amidst the devastation. Holding oil enough to burn for just one night in the menorah, nevertheless it lasted long enough for the flames to burn for eight nights. Thus the phrase most familiar associated with Hanukkah: A Great Miracle Happened Here. That’s the story in broad strokes. The one many non-Jews know.
What I find fascinating about the account of the Maccabees, however, is that the Syrians not only had might and power on their side, but their culture was also tremendously attractive, too. Some Jews converted willingly. Contemporary Jewish storytellers and comedians still remark on the desirability of bacon and other tempting innovations available to those willing to forsake their religious tradition. Resisting temptation, however, and surviving coercion, the Maccabees kept their faith and maintained their identity, as Jews have time and again throughout their history. So when Hanukkah lights shine the world over for eight nights, they are more than a mere remembrance of a long ago miracle; they are a symbol of Jewish triumph over assimilation.
Some catchy music, some tasty treats (fried treats in honor of that oil), a gambling game, always bewitching candlelight, and even a small gift or two or eight for the children. What’s not to like about Hanukkah? But it is not a big religious or cultural deal. It’s not a particularly holy time of the year for Jews. The High Holy Days of autumn, Rosh Hashanah, and Yom Kippur, and Passover in the spring, are the most sacred festivals of the year. Hanukkah is not a Jewish equivalent of Christmas. As one Jew observed recently, “it's pretty low in the canon, and elevated only because it's next to the baby Jesus on the calendar.”
Therein lies the first problem with throwing Hanukkah into the holiday mix, in an attempt to counterbalance the Christian-ness of Christmas with a holiday from another tradition – the two holidays are not of equal weights, theologically, or culturally. So, as always happens with the inclusion of a token, the perceived supremacy of the dominant element is highlighted and intensified rather than diluted.
There is a second, more significant, more complicated challenge, to be considered, when adding Hanukkah to a Unitarian Universalist liturgical calendar, if not done so very carefully and thoughtfully. This second challenge involves striking a different kind of balance: on the one hand offering a depth and breadth of worship experiences that are reflective of the range of styles and theology beloved by and comfortable for all within our congregation and those who might wish to join us in our free and welcoming faith, and on the other hand, striving to hold fast to a respectful, vigilant refusal to misappropriate the words, music, and rituals of other religions and cultures. David and I have this discussion at least twice a month as we plan our music for worship. A nearly life-long Unitarian Universalist minister and a Jewish music director who has served as many years in Christian and Unitarian Universalist churches as in Jewish synagogues.
When our current hymnal, Singing the Living Tradition, was in the works more than thirty years ago, the hymnbook commission, heeding the rather crude complaint about ‘too much stuff from dead white guys’, deliberately included tunes and lyrics from many ages, cultures, countries, and religions. The more recent supplement, Singing the Journey, resulted from a desire to widen our musical range beyond even that of the gray hymnal. Both have met with mixed reviews. Sadness at the disappearance of beloved tunes and lyrics, (don’t get me or David started on what they did to the Christmas hymns!). Delight at new and interesting tunes, new and moving lyrics. Frustration at the difficulty of learning, unfamiliar, and sometimes downright difficult rhythms and melodies. And then there is the one objection that strikes fear in the heart of hymnbook commissions, and ministers, and worship leaders, that a song or a chant, or other piece of music, has been used, however, unintentionally, in a manner that is disrespectful of, or even damaging to the group, culture or faith, from which it was either borrowed or stolen, depending upon your perspective.
We want to be generous and inclusive and respectful and understanding and healing. But we sometimes respond quickly from the heart, without taking the time to respond with our heads, to look three or four steps, down the road, or around the bend, to follow the implications of our decisions both backward and forward in time to really understand where they began, and where they might lead.
The following is a brief excerpt from UU world.org written by Tom Stites about events at the 2006 General Assembly in St. Louis Missouri:
"Since 1998, the general assembly opening ceremonies have included a greeting from Native American representative, representing the tribes, whose lands have been taken to make way for the host city. The greeting was intended as a gesture of respect and acknowledgment of multiculturalism. But [in 2006] tribal representatives offered a lesson instead of a welcome
"The Osage people, who once inhabited 200 million acres that included St. Louis, were long ago removed to a reservation in Oklahoma, and none could be found in the St. Louis area. Linda, Friedman, chair of the General Assembly planning committee, told the crowd at the opening ceremony that when the Osage members in Kansas City were invited, they responded, 'why should we drive four hours to come to St. Louis to speak to your assembly for two minutes so you can feel good about yourselves? We have our own issues in our own communities that we need to deal with. We are not going to carry your water for you. This is your work, you need to do it.'”
I was in St. Louis in 2006, at that opening ceremony, and can tell you what happened – thunderous applause from the assembled delegates, followed by a GA centered on exploring right relationships.
General Assemblies, and many other large UU gatherings, since that time have included the presence and participation of right relationship teams. These are groups of lay persons and clergy, whose job it is to be available and visible, to listen to concerns regarding right relationship, and to report those concerns to the larger body at daily intervals throughout the gathering. That’s it. Listen and report. Any response or redress or apology or correction lies at the discretion and in the hands (and hearts) of the gathering planners, leaders, and all participants – who, it is hoped, act swiftly and decisively, when necessary, and slowly, thoughtfully, prayerfully, when necessary, with measures both both profound and subtle. Listening and reporting are the first and not insignificant steps. The step without which most of us would never know something was amiss for others among us. This approach to right relationship calls for courage and discernment on the part of those bringing issues to the attention of the right relationship team, tremendous rock, solid, non-anxious presence on the part of the right relationship team itself to listen and report, but take no action, and courage and humility on the part of the event planners, leaders and participants to listen deeply, and non-defensively to the daily reports, allowing them to enter heart and mind and soul so that actions toward restoring right relationship can be undertaken.
I suppose it could be said that it is fear, shortsighted, and self-interested fear of a repeat of the 2006 planning committee’s experience of rebuke and challenge that leads me to be cautious of including Hanukkah in a congregational worship setting. But I hope it is something deeper, something more loving, than simple fear. I hope it has more to do with my understanding that while Hanukkah is a fine festival with important themes and lessons and attractive rituals, it is neither a Jewish Christmas nor a Unitarian Universalist holiday. And we treat it as one or the other at the peril of damaging our integrity and losing the respect of those among us who might be Jewish.
In 2009 I spent a week in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada with about 400 ministers from across Canada and the US. One evening, we were treated to a concert of folk music. The first act was two young Inuit women who offered a delightful demonstration of Inuit throat singing. They also showed us a couple of dances and told us about their costumes, and they taught us a throat song.
Inuit throat singing is kind of a game, a contest women have traditionally played to amuse themselves when men are hunting. Two women stand face-to-face, just inches apart from one another, and sing in an imitation of a natural sound – a goose, the wind, the river – until one of them laughs. Then the song ends and the one who didn’t laugh wins. It is amazing and hilarious. You can find videos on the internet.
After singing several songs, these women divided our gathering into two groups and led us in a song. Once we grew confident in the simple repetitive sounds, as a body, without plan or direction, we stood and faced one another – half the room facing the other half of the room across the center aisle – and continued singing, until we all laughed. Our teachers told us they’ve never seen a group do that before. What energy and filled that room, despite the late hour and the long day of learning and discussion that had preceded the concert!
And the next morning, as each morning, we heard the report from the right relations team about missteps, concerns, and wounds, and need for healing that had been brought forth over the past twenty-four hours. It was enough to make one’s head spin if not ache, this joyous invitation into another culture side-by-side with an accounting of the ways we failed to honor and respect one another within our own unified yet diverse body. Yet, both were holy. Our sense of play and adventure and curiosity is holy. Our belief that traditions, wisdom, songs, words and rituals from many sources can teach us and nourish us is holy. Our calling one another to account for wrongdoing and carelessness and harm is holy. Our willingness to listen is holy. Our willingness to change is perhaps most holy still.
Long before that St. Louis General Assembly, I was uncomfortable with the greetings from native people, for the exact reasons made so painfully public that year. And I’ve been frustrated, almost to the point of inaction, when confronted with simultaneous calls to multiculturalism and warnings about cultural misappropriation. And I’m glad we are grappling with this delicate balance. And, perhaps, I may have stumbled onto the key to it all – at least for me.
Here it is: Unitarian Universalists desperately, sincerely want to get it right; we never will. And that unresolveable tension is OK. It is the attempt, over and over and over again, that matters.
Like the fish who would not fall for the fox’s lure to live on dry land, like the Jews who at the season celebrate their refusal to assimilate and their continued existence as a people, we must also live in the river of our faith. We must not seek false safety or exotic temptation on foreign shores. The river of our faith, the rushing gurgling, ever changing river of our faith is rich with bends and eddies and rapids. The river of our faith is awash in tradition, and fed by streams of fresh ideas from many sources. The rhythm of our faith sustains us through time and space with the knowledge that neither is revelation sealed, nor is humanity preordained to a particular destiny. The river of our living faith moves us along our lives, buoyed by the knowledge that blessing results from engagement and struggle and discernment, taking a stand and backing down, listening, reporting, and praying, apology and forgiveness, trying to get it right and failing and trying again. And doing it all as often as possible, with the joy of 400 weary ministers, raising their voices in song–Inuit throat song. May it be so for each of us, and for the Unitarian Universalist Church of Savannah, and for our beloved faith. Amen.