Hanukkah (Second Edition)

Ron Wolfson

Description

Create a meaningful and happy Hanukkah in your home—with story, celebration, food and song.

This newly-designed, easy-to-use edition of a classic spiritual sourcebook offers updated information, more family ideas, and new resources for every aspect of your holiday celebration.

Information on every aspect of Hanukkah is covered, including:

• The story of Hanukkah
• Celebrating—for families of every constellation
• Songs and prayers in English, Hebrew, and Yiddish (with clear transliterations)
• Recipes for traditional and modern Hanukkah foods
• “December Dilemmas”—coping with other traditions’ celebrations
• Firsthand explanations and ideas from real-life families around America

Hands-on advice and practical suggestions invite families into Hanukkah’s spirituality and joys, from the making of luscious latkes and Hanukkah crafts to the stories of the heroism and the miracle that are remembered every year with the lighting of the hanukkiyah.

Preface by Rabbi Harold M. Schulweis Foreword Using This Text PART I: The Art of Hanukkah 1. What Is Hanukkah? 2. The Ever-Evolving Story of Hanukkah 3. The Hanukkah Ritual 4. Hadlakat Neirot: Candlelighting 5. Haneirot Hallalu 6. Maoz Tzur 7. Al Hanissim 8. The Hanukkah Gallery The Meal Games Gifts Decorations Songs PART II: The December Dilemmas The New Reality Hilkhot Christmas The True Story of Christmas Who's Celebrating? The Unique Challenges for Intermarried and Interfaith Families Religious Holidays in the Public Domain Confusion in the Marketplace Pseudo-Christmas and Family Gatherings Jews-by-Choice and Christmas Kosher Turkey for Christmas Dinner? Solving the December Dilemmas Afterword Selected Bibliography About the Federation of Jewish Men's Clubs About Jewish Lights

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie
• Judaism
• Hanukkah
• Religion

Informations

• Publié par: Turner Publishing Company
• Date de parution: 02 mai 2013
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781580237499
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

The Art of Jewish Living
H ANUKKAH
2nd Edition
The Family Guide to Spiritual Celebration
Ron Wolfson
Edited by
Joel Lurie Grishaver
A project of the Federation of Jewish Men s Clubs and the University of Judaism
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CONTENTS
Preface by Rabbi Harold M. Schulweis
Foreword
Using This Text
PART I: The Art of H anukkah
1. What Is H anukkah?
2. The Ever-Evolving Story of H anukkah
3. The H anukkah Ritual
4. Hadlakat Neirot: Candlelighting
5. Haneirot Hallalu
6. Maoz Tzur
7. Al Hanissim
8. The H anukkah Gallery
The Meal
Games
Gifts
Decorations
Songs
PART II: The December Dilemmas
The New Reality
Hilkhot Christmas
The True Story of Christmas
Who s Celebrating?
The Unique Challenges for Intermarried and Interfaith Families
Religious Holidays in the Public Domain
Confusion in the Marketplace
Pseudo-Christmas and Family Gatherings
Jews-by-Choice and Christmas
Kosher Turkey for Christmas Dinner?
Solving the December Dilemmas
Afterword
Selected Bibliography
About the Federation of Jewish Men s Clubs
About the Author
Copyright
Also Available
About Jewish Lights
Sign Up for E-mail Updates
Send Us Your Feedback
PREFACE
Dr. Ron Wolfson is an extraordinary family educator. As exemplified in his book, he knows that his target is not the registered student body of a school, but the intergenerational mishpo h ah . His venue is not the school classroom with its chalk and blackboard, but the home with its kitchen, dining and living rooms. The tables, chairs and art of the home are not the clipboards, bulletin boards and texts of the classroom. A home is not a classroom and its celebrations are not structured lesson plans.
While the family teaches and learns, parents are not instructors nor children students in the manner that school faculty and students are. The smells of our homes are not those of our school corridors; the paintings on our walls are not school posters. At home our children do not raise their hands to ask a question or sit in rows. The school practices and rehearses celebrations, but the home lives them.
All of this calls for a different way of transmitting Jewish information, values and attitudes. Family education calls for the empowerment of the family, which in our time has lost many of its talents.
Ron Wolfson s book understands the family and its multiple needs. It is written out of the situations and experiences of living families who come from all kinds of backgrounds. It is written by, for and of the Jewish family and enjoys a fine ear for its conversations, doubts and yearnings. A glance at the table of contents, from storytelling and recipes to theology, offers evidence of the author s comprehensive grasp of the family. The book is helpful to the family that strives to induct its members into the spirituality and joys of Jewishness and Judaism.
The Hebrew word nes is commonly translated as miracle. In its original Jewish meaning, nes means sign, from which the term significant is derived. Wolfson s H anukkah book is a significant text in the neglected art of Jewish family education.
Harold M. Schulweis
FOREWORD
I will never forget the Maccabees of Omaha. As a boy, when I looked into the candles, I saw myself dressed in high rubber boots with too many buckles, armed with wet woolen mittens clipped onto my jacket, and protected by a muffler covering my face like a mask. There I was, strong, proud, Jewish and ready to fight the wars of ice and snow to free the holy Temple. Somewhere, far in the background, Bing Crosby and Mel Torme were singing. In those blinks of an eye, Judah and I stood side by side, packing the slushballs tightly till they were solid ice. We whipped our ice balls, stormed the ice walls of the Syrian-Greek fortress, ambushed Syrian-Greek patrols in the alley-and in all ways were brave and courageous.
It was a time when H anukkah really worked. It was family and lights, parties and presents, food and freedom, history and celebration. In those days, H anukkah was easy and offered direct access to Jewish pride. Today, when my children light our H anukkah lights in southern California and their glow reflects onto the green lawn, I still look through the flames into frosted windows, steamed over by the heat, masking the Nebraska snowscape. I had a wonderful Jewish boyhood. Despite the snow, my H anukkah memories are all warm and positive. Those really were good times. Still, when Thanksgiving is over and the winter holiday season approaches, I am haunted by the ghost of Christmas past.
Deep-Fried H anukkah
My earliest Jewish memories are of celebrating H anukkah during the cold evenings of a midwestern winter. Our fireplace mantle became the center of life for eight days. On it, my parents placed a small green H anukkah menorah-in those days h anukkiyah was something only Hebrew school teachers said. Next to it was the ubiquitous box of brightly colored candles. Above it was tacked a blue and silver banner that spelled Happy Chanukah, each of the letters hinged to allow for folding. On the floor there was a stack of presents. To be more precise, the presents for that particular night.
My parents subscribed to the one for each night theory of H anukkah gift-giving. The other presents were stashed away somewhere in the house. Each year my brothers and I surreptitiously searched for these hidden treasures both before and during the holiday.
The first and last nights of H anukkah were always the best. They were the nights for big presents. The parental theory was, I guess, to start the week off with a bang and then keep the enthusiasm from dying. When I was five, the big present was a cowboy outfit, complete with a ten-gallon hat, fringed leather vest, chaps, plastic spurs and best of all, a pair of sixguns, complete with spangled holsters. Boy, did I love that outfit!
Of course, presents were not distributed until after the candlelighting ritual took place. We knew to begin the holiday by lighting the shamash , the servant candle, and then the first night s candle, adding one for each night for the next seven nights. The biggest decision was which colors to use. The candles came in an array of bright colors and each of us boys had our favorites. Mine was blue. The greatest challenge was to get the small candles to stand up straight in the holders of the menorah. Usually, we melted a little wax off the bottom of the candle to make it stick. Finally, we would light the wicks and join in the blessings, after which we mumbled the Hebrew words to Maoz Tzur - Rock of Ages. The instant the last note was sung, the sounds of ripping wrapping paper filled the air.
The first night of H anukkah also meant potato latkes. These H anukkah pancakes, deep-fried in oil, were just about the best thing this side of french fries. What a project making latkes was! First the potatoes had to be peeled, then soaked in water. And in those days before food processors, the raw potatoes were cut into little cubes and, with great risk to the knuckles, handgrated on a silver-colored device that reduced the potato to a mushy consistency that looked positively awful. Flour and grated onions were added. A proper-sized dollop of the mixture was carefully lowered into a pan filled with crackling oil so we wouldn t be burned too badly by the spattering liquid. A quick frying of the pancake and then it was removed to a paper towel to soak up the excess grease. Of course, with three boys and a dad, my mother spent most of the first H anukkah dinner churning out those latkes. Depending on whether the meal was fleishig or milchig (meat or dairy), we ate them with applesauce or sour cream. As with the gribenes of Passover, what these latkes did to my arteries, I do not want to know.
From dinner, we returned to our presents for general playing and roughhousing. Sometimes, we would play dreidle, the gambling game that employs the four-sided top. We would wager tiny gold-wrapped chocolate coins, H anukkah gelt, from our gold net bags. Bedtime would come soon, and we would fall asleep dreaming of tomorrow s candles and presents.
The Ghost of Christmas Past
December in Omaha was the height of the Christmas season. There was not a place you could go that didn t announce the fact that Christmas was coming. From the daily countdown in the newspaper of shopping days til Christmas to the incessant commercials on television, the holiday was everywhere. Our block became a virtual wonderland of sparkling lights outlining homes and trees, the stores and malls featured Christmas displays and merchandise; even our public school was adorned with a huge Christmas tree in the front entrance. The strains of the haunting Christmas music-from Silent Night to The Little Drummer Boy -filled the air. There was no escape.
To a little Jewish child, December was the first test of one s identity, the first realization that you were not like almost everybody else. How do you cope? What do you say to the clerk who wishes you a Merry Christmas ? How do you play Jesus in the annual school Christmas pageant? What can you possibly do to stop yourself from humming I m Dreaming of a White Christmas ?
My mother thought she had the answer. She would outdo Christmas. This explains