Not another Hanukkah story
Also, news from HanukkahLand: Hans the Xmas Viking redoes your lawn.
IN WHICH:
The Talmud asks more questions than it answers (classic Talmud).
December birthdays are celebrated.
Hans the Xmas Viking™ is tolerated.
Karaoke brings joy to the people.
1.
Hanukkah is not about survival or light in the darkness. Like all things religious, it’s about purity.
The story we’re told about Hanukkah is that the Greeks ransacked the temple and when the Jews finally got it back, they wanted to light a dish of oil on fire as a symbol for hope. Although the Greeks had only left enough oil for one day, the oil lasted for eight.
That story leaves out one detail. The story from the Talmud reads:
When the Greeks entered the Sanctuary they defiled all the oils that were in the Sanctuary by touching them. And when the Hasmonean monarchy overcame them and emerged victorious over them, they searched and found only one cruse of oil that was placed with the seal of the High Priest, undisturbed by the Greeks. And there was sufficient oil there to light the candelabrum for only one day.
And yadda yadda yadda, it lasted for eight days.
Hard to ignore the implication that there was enough oil, it just wasn’t the right oil. The other oil had been defiled by the hands of the Greeks in ways you do not want to imagine, but knowing what I know about pagan orgies, I’m curious.
We can be so persnickety sometimes.
There is another Hanukkah story in the Talmud I will tell you directly.
2.
I have a December birthday, meaning my parents never wanted to try too hard. They’re not really party people anyway. One particularly depressing year, I remember my dad asking me what I wanted to do for my birthday. I had no great ideas. “Why don’t we just invite some of your friends over for pizza?” I was hard pressed to think about what friends I would want to invite over to a night at my father’s duplex eating Dominos.
In the end, I invited seven people and two came. We tried to play Pin the Tail on the Donkey, but it lasted 15 minutes before even the donkey gave up. I spent the night with a headache. The Dominos was late.
3.
Hans the Xmas Viking™ is a much-maligned character in HanukkahLand. Starting the week of Thanksgiving, you’ll start seeing signs across town advertising his services.
HANS THE XMAS VIKING
I WILL DECORATE YOUR HOUSE.
BE THE ENVY OF EVERYONE IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD.
YOU WILL HAVE XMAS GLORY.
NO FEE, ONLY CHEER
No one knows where the signs come from, no one knows where Hans comes from. Obviously, a town close by where people care about Christmas. All anyone knows is that you may be liable to wake up one morning in December, come downstairs, and see that the entire front of your house is covered in Christmas decorations.
Under your door, a slip of red paper with white writing will be slipped:
YOU’RE WELCOME! MERRY XMAS. - HANS
4.
“I don’t like this Hans guy,” says Hersh Hyman, the guy who’s helping me build HanukkahLand. “He’s too Grinchy and the Seuss estate is merciless. You saw what they did to Mike Myers’s career.”
“He’s a reverse Grinch,” I argue.
“We’ll see,” he says, and without saying much else I can tell he knows that Hans the Xmas Viking can never be stopped.
5.
In another Hanukkah story from the Talmud, Adam gets to the end of the year and sees the days getting shorter. Because he’s a Jew, he assumes it’s his fault. “Woe is me; perhaps because I sinned the world is becoming dark around me and will ultimately return to the primordial state of chaos and disorder. And this is the death that was sentenced upon me from Heaven, as it is written: ‘And to dust shall you return’.”
Hard to ignore the implication that Adam has knowledge of the primordial state of chaos and disorder. Either way, it reminds me of the days between Christmas and New Year’s. What are we supposed to do? Like Adam, we know we’re alive, but this stasis, this uncertainty, this purposelessness, it feels like death.
When Adam sees the days getting longer again, he pulls an oopsie. He observes, “this is the order of the world” and spends the next eight days in celebration.
6.
For my birthday this year I created a new ritual: I spent an obscene amount of money on a private karaoke room and invited almost everyone I knew. More than seven came. We had so much fun we didn’t even need Dominos.
Colin, who lives in Copenhagen, asked me how it feels in New York after the CEO got shot. I think this is the best explanation. Unlike Adam, who “spent all night fasting and crying,” we know the sun is going to rise again, at least until there is a new world order. So we sing, dammit.
7.
Johnny Hanukkah woke up one morning to his small lawn covered in Christmas decorations. There was a forest of glowing candy canes and a blowup Santa Claus staring down a blowup Grinch. A minion with a Santa hat wiggled animatronically to a minionized version of “Rockin Around the Christmas Tree.”
Johnny Hanukkah didn’t like the decorations, but he didn’t feel moved to do anything either. And besides, who would you even call? The Viking Busters?
This is part 4 of an eight-part series called HanukkahLand. To catch up: