This is a continuation of the theme of light in Trumpian darkness I began last time.
The word Hanukkah means dedication. The season of Hanukkah is the celebration of the rededication of the Second Temple in Jerusalem after the successful 2nd century Jewish revolt against the Seleucid Greek empire, led by Syrian King Antiochus IV Epiphanes.
Jews had endured living without political freedom since the Babylonians had destroyed the Temple in 586 BCE and taken Jewish leaders into exile.
When Cyrus the Persian rose up and defeated the Babylonians, he allowed the exiled Jews to return to Jerusalem, rebuild the Temple, and practice their faith freely and openly.
When the Syrians took power in the region, Antiochus changed all that. In 168 he outlawed most Jewish practices, including the observance of the Sabbath, desecrated the Jerusalem Temple by placing altars to the Greek gods in it, and then ordered the Temple to be renamed for Zeus, king of the gods on Mt. Olympus.
That proved too much for an old priest named Mattathias Maccabeus. He and his son, Judas, led a revolt against Antiochus with a small band of Jews that did the impossible and defeated the Syrian army in two decisive battles, paving the way for the establishment of the Maccabean (Hasmonean, in Hebrew) dynasty in a politically independent Judea that lasted some 150 years.
During the re-consecration service of the Temple there was not enough oil to light the eight candles of the Menorah, but miraculously the one candle for which there was oil continued to burn until more oil was secured for the entire Menorah.
That dedication and re-consecration of the Temple is now called Hanukkah, or Festival of Lights, itself a reminder that light burns in the darkness and cannot be put out.
Ironically, this year the eight-day observance of Hanukkah begins on Christmas Day. Its story brings added encouragement to all Americans, Jewish, Christian, and everyone else, that the current darkness we are entering under Donald Trump will not have the last word.
The Maccabees were victorious when the odds were overwhelmingly against them. It is a story that has repeated itself throughout history, even here in America where a motley Colonial army defeated the mighty British empire no one actually believed was possible.
Life has its twists and turns, allowing bad to gain victories that feel forever, but are only temporary.
The Christmas story says Herod Antipas forced Mary, Joseph, and the baby Jesus to flee to Egypt, but they eventually returned to their home and made the ministry of Jesus possible.
Antiochus humiliated the Jews and stripped them of all freedoms, but they rose up and defeated his seemingly invincible army.
Darkness always appears stronger than light, but light is resilient, strong, stands undaunted, and proves its power to endure when it shines brighter than the dark of the darkness.
It’s much harder work to perpetuate darkness than it is for light to shine brightly. Darkness has to contend with truth, honesty, integrity, kindness, faith, joy, hope.
Light, on the other hand, thrives on these qualities, which highlights them even more, and each time it does the light’s intensity grows and its reach expands.
The biggest obstacle to light is fear, the fear that it is too weak to contend with darkness, that it will be overwhelmed and eventually eliminated.
That’s when different points of light can help one another. Just as the Hanukkah story says the one candle continued to burn when oil was running out until the others were able to be lit, so any point of light that struggles to stay bright is helped by those points of light around it.
When President George H.W. Bush accepted the Republican Party’s nomination in 1988, he drew on the metaphor of light when he pledged he would “keep America moving forward, always forward—for a better America, for an endless enduring dream and a thousand points of light.”
Historian Arthur Clarke first used the phrase “a thousand points of light” in his short story, “Rescue Party,” in 1946. Bush’s speech writer, Peggy Noonan, picked up on the phrase and Bush used it throughout his presidency as he tried to tap into the best of the American spirit of generosity and volunteerism.
We are a long way from those days when Republicans brought light to the nation. Today the Party has gone over to the side of darkness, focused on everything ugly and mean and destructive to our way of life.
But the American spirit still generates light and Republican darkness will not succeed in quenching it, no matter how outrageous Trump becomes, and no matter how blindly foolish and uninformed some Americans are in supporting him.
So let the lights of Hanukkah and Christmas burn brightly in the current Trumpian darkness, and beyond both seasons we can trust that morning in America will dawn again.
Merry Christmas, everyone. Happy Hanukkah. Enjoy the holidays and holy days that are upon us.
Celebrating their true meaning this year can help us hold on to hope at this most critical moment in our history as a nation.
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