Hanukkah

By Rabbi Arthur Waskow *

On Shabbat Hanukkah, we read the passage from the Prophet Zechariah that envisions the future Great Menorah, taking its sacred place in a rebuilt Holy Temple after the Babylonian Captivity. (We read the same Haftarah for Shabbat Behaalotekha.)

Zechariah, in visionary, prophetic style, goes beyond the Torah's description of the original Menorah (literally, a Light-bearer). That Menorah was planned as part of the portable Shrine, the Mishkan, in the Wilderness.

First Zechariah describes the Menorah of the future that he sees: "All of gold, with a bowl on its top, seven lamps, and seven pipes leading to the seven lamps." It sounds like the original bearer of the sacred Light. But then he adds a new detail: "By it are two olive trees, one on the right of the bowl and one on the left." (4: 2-3)

By Rabbis Arthur Waskow & Jeff Sultar*

There are three levels of wisdom through which Hanukkah invites us to address the planetary dangers of the global climate crisis – what some of us call "global scorching" because "warming" seems so pleasant, so comforting.

We can encode these teachings into actions we take to heal the earth, each of the eight days.

1. The Talmud's legend about using one day’s oil to meet eight days' needs: a reminder that if we have the courage to change our life-styles to conserve energy, it will sustain us.

2. The vision of Zechariah (whose prophetic passages we read on Shabbat Hanukkah) that the Temple Menorah was itself a living being, uniting the world of "nature" and "humanity" – for it was not only fashioned in the shape of a Tree of Light, as Torah teaches, but was flanked by two olive trees that fed olive oil directly into it.

By Rabbi Jeff Sultar & The Shalom Center's Green Menorah Covenant Campaign
(215) 438-2983 Greenmenorah@shalomctr.org

During Hanukkah, we celebrate the use of one day’s worth of oil to meet 8 days’ needs. Hanukkah can be seen, then, as the festival that has the most to teach and inspire us about energy use.

And it couldn’t come at a better time:

• We are living in the beginning stages of a global climate crisis caused by human activity.
• Senators Joseph Lieberman and John Warner are right now putting forth a bill, the “America’s Climate Security Act,” which is the first piece of legislation with the realistic potential to begin addressing the global climate crisis, though it also needs to be strengthened.

Dear Friends, The smoke of burning fossil fuels is darkening our planet, creating the climate crisis of global scorching. From that darkness we can grow the light of a broader and deeper world community.
We can all join in healing the earth by changing what we do in our own households, our own congregations, and through social action, our whole society.
Please join us in the Green Menorah Covenant and use the Donate button to help us with the (tax-deductible) money that it takes. With blessings of light and joy -- Arthur

Dear Friends and Co-workers,

The Shalom Center held a successful kick-off strategy meeting on May 25 to begin the Beyond Oil grass-roots organizing campaign.

Russ Agdern's report on the meeting is below. Out of that meeting, The Shalom Center is exploring going forward with a campaign in the following basic framework.

THIS IS A DRAFT. WE WELCOME YOUR THOUGHTS AND SUGGESTIONS.

1) The Goal: By 2020, cut US oil consumption by seven-eighths and replace oil as an energy source by conservation and by use of non-fossil, non-CO2-producing, non- nuclear sources of renewable, sustainable energy.

By Rabbi Arthur Waskow *

Hanukkah has within it four teachings far deeper than we usually know, teachings to address one of the great dangers of our day: the Oiloholic addiction of American society.

FIRST, there is the teaching of Hanukkah about OIL itself.

According to the rabbinic tale, after the Maccabees rose up against the Hellenistic empire of Antiochus, they came to rededicate the Holy Temple that had become a place of imposed idolatry.

They needed to rekindle the holy Menorah, the candlestick of eternal Light. But there was only enough consecrated olive oil to burn for a single day, and it would take eight days to press and consecrate more oil.

Rabbi Arthur Waskow, 11/24/2004

Dear Friends,

The spiritual and political meaning of Hanukkah is so profound that although its teachings come in a uniquely Jewish form and metaphor, I would welcome everyone who is committed to peace, justice, and the healing of the earth to try the spiritual discipline of the candle-lighting described below.

Hanukkah begins the night of Tuesday, December 7, with the lighting of one candle that is considered not to count - it is lit in order to light the other candles - and then by the lighting of one single candle for the first night, as there will be two on the second night, and on so on up to eight.

Rabbi Arthur Waskow, 11/24/2004

These meditations for each night of Hanukkah are intended to stir our hearts and renew our strength. They are intended to connect inward healing contemplation with outward healing action.

Each night, before lighting the shammas (the ninth candle with which all the other eight will be lit), sit quietly in the dark. Then light the shammas, focus especially on the spot of darkness that is at the heart of the candle-flame, and say:

In darkness, be light!
And in your light preserve
a spark of darkness,
a spark of the Mystery
from which light grows.

Then light the shammas, and before saying the blessings over the 1st candle on the first night, the 2d and 1st on the second night, the 3d and 2d and 1st, etc, say the following (one each evening, as shown):