Hanukkah message: Our work to increase the light of freedom never ends

Monday is, technically, the final day of Hanukkah, but for those who celebrate, the holiday really ended Sunday night as we lit all eight of our candles with a ninth, the shamash, or helper candle.

Even in the Jewish community, few know that the holiday’s visual crescendo, nine candles blazing to commemorate the legendary miracle of a single day’s oil lasting for eight nights, reflects a long-ago argument between two giants of Jewish thought: Rabbis Shammai and Hillel. It’s an argument that has much to teach us in today’s America.

Disagreements and tensions that go to the heart of how a people sees itself and its place in the world aren’t new and can likely be found in any country or religion. My faith tradition is shaped by centuries of arguments among a long line of our greatest teachers, all of them devoted to their people and its future.

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In every culture and time, seemingly small things carry enormous weight. Shammai believed that the full number of candles should be deployed on the first night of Hanukkah, an echo of ancient sacrificial practices on which the holiday was based, leaving just one candle plus the shamash on the final night’s celebration.

Hillel insisted that we must add to the number of lights each night, building from two small flames to that final bright blaze.

A small thing, surely! But ultimately, Hillel’s reasoning was adopted – because it looks forward, not back. “We should increase in sanctity,” he wrote, “and never diminish.”

Hillel understood that ancient practice, however honored, wasn’t the right choice to inspire a new generation in a new context. 

America embraces rich diversity of religions

In my position as president of Interfaith Alliance, I’ve adopted Hillel’s outlook on religious freedom. When the American Founders included religious freedom in the First Amendment, they likely wouldn’t have been able to imagine the rich diversity of religious life that would come to exist here more than 200 years later.

The context of American religious life has expanded and evolved tremendously over the centuries, the blaze of free thought and free belief only increasing, to further illuminate the darkness.

Each faith that has established itself in our nation has added its own flame to the candelabrum – and the expanding number of communities for whom freedom of conscience exists outside traditional religious frameworks adds to the historically unprecedented affirmation of pluralism.

There are those in this country who take an approach of diminishment, however, believing that the “true” intent of our Founders was that our one nation should be led by just one religion. Other religions might be tolerated, but never affirmed, and in times of turbulence, must be doused and rejected in favor of that one, dominant light.

Most often I hear this from Christian nationalists, but such triumphalism exists among adherents of many belief systems.

Here, of course, is the irony: Our First Amendment also protects the freedom to hold those narrow attitudes. However, its protection doesn’t extend to efforts to impose those attitudes on any who don’t share them.

Increase in freedom, never diminish

Interfaith Alliance defends diversity, but not its oppressive expression. We should increase in freedom, “and never diminish.”

It’s the nature of deep religious conviction to imagine it as a prescription for the world rather than a personal perspective on life. Some folks with large megaphones are insistent on their message.

But the only thing universal about deeply held convictions is that we all have them. And with few exceptions, often reserved for the narcissistic of every bent, they all point in the same direction: a just and compassionate society that maximizes freedom and minimizes the diminishment of others.

It’s popular to frame Hanukkah as a holiday of religious freedom. It’s not. 

Hanukkah actually celebrates the victory of militant Jewish zealots, devoted to Jewish rectitude, over oppressive intruders who were eager to impose their own worldview on others. The eight days of oil is a legend; we’re taught that the zealots needed that many days to cleanse our Temple from the contamination of outsiders.

Even 2,000 years ago, though, the architects of Jewish life recognized that suppression of others doesn’t make for a better world. The Jewish people have never put the dry facts of that military struggle at the center of our Hanukkah celebrations, eschewing them for the much quieter triumph of light over darkness.

When those rabbis of old debated how best to bring light into a darkened world, they made a point of preserving and honoring diversity and dissent. By doing so, they increased enlightenment, never diminished it. That’s our mission today, too.

Rabbi Jack Moline is president of Interfaith Alliance, which is dedicated to protecting the integrity of religion and democracy in America.