Reading – a combination of Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg’s 2022 and 2023 Hanukah reflections, which end with this reflection
Hanukah isn’t just about what happened in the past, on the calendar. It’s about who we are capable of being. It’s about the bravery, will and determination to reject tyranny. It’s about the survival of the Jewish tradition, the protection of what is most holy to us. If so, perhaps we can remember what lives in our Holy of Holies now, 2000 years since we’ve had the physical space: We are all, our Torah teaches, created in the divine image. All of us. Every last one of us. Not a single one of us disposable, not a single person replaceable, no “collateral damage.”
Maybe this year, this Hanukah, we can rededicate all that has been defiled to this essential truths. Maybe this year, the radical act of bravery and valor can include undoing some of the Maccabees’ binary thinking, remembering that we must know who we are—but that when we hold ourselves in too brittle a way, we splinter—and/or hurt others.
Maybe this year, instead of making the same kinds of mistakes, we can learn from Hasmonean history and create a possibility for a world in which we can both hold ourselves, and also make space for others.
And I reckon that that is the miracle we most desperately need right now.
Sermon – Gather in Storms
That we would learn from our past, that we would choose a different course, that we would dedicate ourselves to the idea that no person is disposable. That would be a miracle, mostly because we can see no evidence that such a thing is possible from here, no reasonable person would believe it. It would be a miracle.
The news out of Gaza, the land so close to where the historical and rabbinical record of Hanukkah is set, hurts so deeply, the only moral reaction is horror, and a call for the violence to stop. This is not a political statement, it is a human, and religious one. Because like the Jewish tradition, like Islam, and Christianity, we Unitarian Universalists also hold most holy this idea that every life has inherent worth, that we are all beloved.
That the world’s major religions all hold this affirmation as central might make it seem obvious that killing one another en masse, would be immoral, even, evil; it might make war itself the greatest sin. If these are your holiest teachings, it might even seem obvious that, as my Mennonite teacher Dr. Vincent Harding wore as a button every day of his life, war is terrorism.
It’s one of the greatest debates in religious history, the justification of violence – when if ever, it is moral, and when it is not. Christian scholars have spent pages and pages and hours and hours defining the doctrine of a Just War, a definition that now guides military action and international law, at least theoretically. The repeated statement that Israel has a right to defend itself is appealing to the idea of a Just War. As is the appeal to proportionality, and the impact on civilians, especially children, of which about 8,000 have died in Gaza in the last 10 weeks.
Hanukkah ended Friday, and no miracle is in sight.
So what do we do with this story, now? This gap between the miracle we are promised, or the light (beyond just the sun) we are told returns in solstice, or in the hope of love born anew in the Christmas story – what do we do with the gap between this good news we supposedly celebrate this time of year – and the truth of our lives today – when there is no Christmas Truce even being proposed, and when so many people are tender, and worried, and unsure how to say the truth without ending up in a fight.
One perfect example of exactly this worry came to us earlier year, in the middle of the second season of what I consider the best tv show of the year, The Bear (which you can find on Hulu).
It’s Christmas Eve, and the Berzatto family is gathering for dinner: the extended family – random cousins and family friends, Uncles and in-laws – no children, although one of the characters is pregnant, and throwing up off and on – just one part of the gathering’s chaos.
The night is loud – people are talking over each other, with pointed put downs only family members can pull off, and the whole thing is punctuated by kitchen alarms (the old kind – that make the very loud RING) going off regularly and randomly.
At the center of it all is mom, cooking a traditional Italian dish that no one knows for sure what it means, except it means a lot. It’s a complicated dish, requiring careful timing, coordination, and calm – and in place of all of these, mom has instead multiple glasses of wine. Over the night, she grows increasingly inebriated, and agitated; at one point she even threatens suicide – like, while cooking dinner. Is it a serious threat? It sounds like it, but also it’s quickly moved on from, so…no?
There’s a history here, maybe this exact scene or something like it has repeated over the years, – it’s clear. There’s history and habits everywhere. Each person has their role, and even when they want to stop, to change – they can’t. The youngest daughter, Natalie, for example, has a habit of asking her mom, are you ok? Even though everyone, including Natalie, knows this just triggers her mom more. But she can’t stop.
The family sits down to dinner, finally – maybe they have survived, when Natalie asks one last time: Mom, are you ok?
Mom totally loses it. She leaves the table, the whole family erupts into a brawl, which is only interrupted when mom drives her car through the front of the house.
Scenes like this are why friendsgivings were invented – family gatherings become too painful, hold too much history. Grievances and conflicts long left unaddressed, trauma left unhealed, all of these simmer right below the surface until like in The Bear, they don’t just boil over, they explode…and then we just don’t gather anymore.
Priya Parker – in her book The Art of Gathering, reflects that we often prioritize peace in our gatherings, or at least, the appearance of peace. A sense of harmony and being free from any agitation or conflict.
This can be exactly the right choice in some gatherings. Especially for people who are either post-trauma or still actively experiencing trauma. American Jews and Muslims, recent immigrants, trans people, people of color, abuse victims, veterans, and anyone who lived through a global pandemic are all currently experiencing, or very recently coming to terms with, trauma. So, you know, everyone.
Everyone is tender, and worried, and have various capacities to deal productively with this trauma.
Like the Maccabees, not all of us have paused for EMDR. Which, in case you don’t know, is a form of therapy to address and heal trauma.
And so we often find ourselves avoiding anything heated, or divisive or that could lead to disaster – mom driving the family car through the side of the house is one potential outcome, but many of us have our own, sometimes less, and maybe more extreme examples.
NPR’s Life Kit this week ran a story on 4 scenarios that can ignite a family fight, and strategies to minimize them – it’s worth checking out if you’re heading into a family or work gathering in the coming weeks.
One potential fight they describe is when a family member brings up a controversial topic – which could be anything from transgender youth to Taylor Swift to why your cousin isn’t married yet….controversy is so easy to come by these days.
I don’t know if this is because things are actually at a higher stakes – I only know things feel higher stakes. The impact of disagreement comes at us harder, like an attack, and we move more easily into defensive, or even our own attacking posture.
We have political divides, racial divides, generational divides, religious divides – but as Haidt says, “Babel is not a story about tribalism; it’s a story about the fragmentation of everything. It’s about the shattering of all that had seemed solid, the scattering of people who had been a community. It’s a metaphor for what is happening not only between red and blue, but within the left and within the right, as well as within universities, companies, professional associations, museums, and even families.”
Babel is a story about language, and not being able to hear one another, especially across our differences; differences become problems to overcome, rather than opportunities to learn from. We live in an age of hyper-communication, but we are losing the ability to hear one another, and to be heard.
For these reasons, Priya Parker wonders about the base assumption that harmony in our gatherings is always the highest good, or that an agitation-free environment is always the most welcoming one.
As Sarah Schulman describes in her book Conflict is not Abuse, we often “conflate discomfort with threat,” and “mistake internal anxiety for exterior danger, and in turn escalate rather than resolve” what might otherwise be very low-level conflicts. We need more practice in speaking to one another across our differences, and dealing more directly with our disagreements. Which means our gatherings must not always be about our common ground, sometimes we must instead intentionally pursue our divides.
Afterall, a lot of the time, the peace we are working so hard to maintain is a false peace; what we are actually working so hard for is to avoid and sidestep anything of real substance. We are so afraid of offending anyone, we say nothing that really matters. Our gatherings are empty, or boring, and often, sad. Here are people who we say we love, who love us, who are our family, or our friends – and we must work to avoid anything real.
One of my favorite parts of seminary was the fact that we had many different faiths and beliefs present –but often my liberal Christian friends would promise me: don’t worry, when we gather, I won’t talk about Jesus.
I was like – why, isn’t he the whole reason you’re here? If you don’t talk about Jesus, how will I ever really get to know you? Do you not want me to know you?
They didn’t want to offend me – which I appreciate – but I was there to learn! And the best learning of all was when people I respected, and cared about, would tell me why they loved Jesus. And then, when they would ask me about Unitarian Universalism….and then, when our Heathen classmate shared about Heathenry, and our Jewish classmate shared about Judaism….
Importantly, there was no attempt to convert each other in this sharing. There was no attempt to say who was right, or wrong, or even if we agree or disagree. It was a practice focused on empathy, and understanding. It was listening with a sincere desire to know one another, and to marvel at our differences. Sharing our differences became a chance for deeper connection and intimacy, rather than a source of division.
In this spirit, Parker rejects the longstanding social rule that makes politics, religion, and sex all taboo topics in social and work gatherings. These are all topics that can often be uncomfortable to talk about, of course – but there are ways to make our gatherings safe places to be uncomfortable, together.
To start, we can ask the people gathering what they would need to speak about certain topics safely? And what they’d need from the group to be willing to take the risk of telling the truth?
These questions help to create what in our faith we call a covenant, the promises we make to one another about how we will be together in a community connected not by a list of shared beliefs, but by how we agree to treat one another. Covenants need not only be a church thing – you can use this good and healthy idea wherever you are attempting to practice being human, with others.
Sometimes our answers to the question – what would you need to feel safe – tell us that there is nothing that would bring us to safety. And that’s important information too.
Power is real – in families, in society; and many conversations are never going to lead to healing and growth, but more likely contribute to harm, and so please don’t mistake this as a message encouraging you to empathically listen to your transphobic racist Q-Anon affirming relative share their most deeply held beliefs over the holidays. I mean, not unless there’s something there that’s calling to you – in which case, you are in charge of your own boundaries – and please, report back.
Partly the problem with just diving into disagreements like this scenario implies, is that our best hope for productive conflict – or what Parker calls good controversy – is to engage with some intention rather than simply just rushing in. In addition to the covenant, the conversation itself needs a degree of structure, even facilitation – someone who has been charged to step in if the covenant is breached and to offer a care-filled re-direct.
Parker also encourages the use of ritual – as Sean and Elaine explored with you last week. Maybe something as simple as a stone passed to indicate who is talking, or maybe a candle is lit as each new topic begins.
Finally, she encourages playfulness – her favorite controversial gatherings included what she calls cage matches – don’t worry, it’s just verbal wrestling matches, but they still have rounds and knockouts and judges and team names.
To intentionally invite our differences, and to cultivate empathy across our differences, is to risk being changed by another. It’s scary, and vulnerable, but it is a risk we take when we realize the status quo isn’t working anymore, that it isn’t good enough – that the risk of changing, and for something new to be born, is worth it.
As Parker says, engaging conflict is often messy in the beginning, and even in the middle, but “good controversy is often ultimately cleansing, and clarifying, and can be an antidote to the world’s BS.”
Behind the violence we see now in Palestine and Israel, there are thousands of years, and millions of stories of families, individuals, tribes who experienced trauma, and then kept on going. Millions of gatherings without sufficient time or space for empathy or understanding or truth telling, they passed this pain down generation to generation unhealed, and the cycle remains unbroken.
Tragedy begets tragedy.
We who have families and complicated stories and trauma inherited and experienced can understand at least to some degree how violence like this, over time, could become a viable response, a stand-in for empathy that repeatedly fails, and for communication that never finds its way across the rubble of Babel.
And in this, we can also understand the story of Hanukkah, and Christmas, and of love re-born, and light returning, even though they seem so far from real life then, or now.
Like most stories passed down, stories turned into ritual and religion and national myths – behind the too-perfect promise, there is almost always something messier, something with painful echoes still playing out today. Trauma that was never resolved, complicity that was never acknowledged, land that was already occupied.
And we can understand the desire to turn away from the pain, to prioritize harmony and good feelings over the messier, more dangerous truth.
We know what it is to live in the storms while longing for the chaos to end, and for winds to still.
And yet what the complexity of these stories remind us is that peace – real peace – is not about refusing to wrestle with the mess, or face the disagreements, and hoping it will all just go away. Real peace is not some final static end we can proclaim, or some future moment we pray Gaza, or congress, or your family, or your own heart will reach, and stay put ever after.
Peace is a practice, as John Paul Lederach writes, a continuously evolving way of being in relationship that requires we face – not turn away from – “the inevitable ebb and flow of human conflict.”
Peace is not, it turns out, all that peaceful.
Which is why in these still darkening days, in the midst of this still blazing storm, we must try to do better.
Personally, it’s why last week, I decided to change my focus for today – I have been feeling so caught unable to say anything in response to the violence in Gaza and Israel. To say anything is always going to fall short – it’s going to disappoint someone, hurt someone, miss the mark. I don’t pretend to understand what is happening, let alone what should happen. But also, avoiding saying anything of substance is worse. It is a false peace.
Speaking today, with you, does not mean I said everything right, let alone final. It just opens up a conversation where we can learn together, where we can acknowledge our heart break, together.
We must practice telling the truth to one another, even when it is uncomfortable, even when our words are imperfect, or worse; we must practice making room for human beings to grow, and to change, to apologize, to do better.
It is not too late for us to be the ones who do better.
It is not too late for us to be the miracle we long to see.
Another Possibility 