Jewish World Review Dec. 7 1999 / 28 Kislev, 5760

Competing With
the Red and Green


By Erica Meyer Rauzin

http://www.jewishworldreview.com -- LAST YEAR ABOUT THIS TIME, I saw a newspaper which carried a comic strip I had never seen before. The strip was called "Rhymes With Orange" and it was written by Hilary B. Price. The strip contained this poem:

Everything in reds and greens!
Trees and wreaths and jellybeans
Santa Clauses, candy canes,
Gracing storefront windowpanes...


But then there are the hapless few,
For whom these colors just won't do.
It would, in fact, be quite a horror
To have them there by the menorah.

Oh where to find the white and blue
Among the reddish-greenish hue?


Walk through the store and to the back
Past tinsel, bows and bric-a-brac...
And there you'll see off by itself,
The tiny, token Hanukah shelf.

I think that is pretty profound for a comic strip.

In so many public places, the seasonal reds and greens completely dominate December displays. EconophoneThis is indicative of the pervasive commercialization of Christmas, as well as showing the tangential nature Chanukah has in the eyes of the general population. I do not envy the commercial exploitation of Christmas and I don't wish to share it. However, I do feel wistful about the sidelining of Chanukah because I fear it influences our perceptions about our own holiday.

Chanukah is not a mini-Christmas, a substitute Christmas, a fall back celebration. It has nothing at all to do with Christmas except December, and gifts. Chanukah has everything to do with Jewish survival (including the survival that allowed the birth of Christianity a couple of centuries after the historic event Chanukah commemorates) and Jewish faith.

The Jews who survived that conflict with Syria had the faith to light the lamp in the temple without knowing it would burn for eight days. They focused on what mattered to them, not on the priorities of the enticing popular civilization that surrounded them and tried to conquer them. They were rewarded with the short term miracle of light and the long term miracle of survival. That is what we celebrate.

Given that, maybe it isn't so bad to be shunted to the back shelf. I'm not sure that the giant menorah next to the giant tree is to be preferred over the tiny menorah behind the giant tree. I don't want to see Chanukah gussied up (any more than many observant Christians are comfortable with the tinsel and ballyhoo aspect of Christmas).

Trakdata I'd rather see all of us, Jews and the general public, respect Chanukah as a separate religious festival, with its own message and meaning. But even if the general public doesn't have that perspective, and never will, we must. As in ancient Syria, our enemies aren't only the armies that would exterminate us (though those are very real, even today). Our enemies include the dazzle and attraction of other ways of life. The Macabbees didn't just resist the Syrian army, they resisted the Syrian lifestyle. And so must we resist the red and green.

This "Rhymes with Orange" comic strip also showed two tiny characters, apparently a customer and a store clerk, talking to each other in the margin. The customer says, "Got anything with the Macabees?" To which the clerk replies, "Which elves are they?"

This whimsical bit of humor holds a telling message, even a warning. How diminishing it would be to turn Judah Macabee into an elf and to turn Chanukah into a commemoration of fairy tales and frantic shopping. We are better off with our candles glowing with legend and legacy in our own homes than we would be if they were the sales stars of the department store.

This Chanukah, we’re going try to truly cherish the strength of our own lights -- internal and external -- and to let them burn full measure for us, brighter in our hearts than all the glitter in the marketplace.



JWR contributor Erica Meyer Rauzin writes about the contemporary Jewish condition. Send your comments by clicking here.

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©1999 Erica Meyer Rauzin