Rabbi Daniel Siegel

The Wonders of Hanukkah

Is it Maccabiah or Maccabiyah, Hanukkiah or Hanukkiyah?

Should one stay faithful to the tradition of the original Hebrew or connect, via anglicisation, to the dominant culture?

Should the Maccabiah (or tryouts for the same) be held on Shabbat, as we take an active part in the larger community in which we live (Jewish and/or non-Jewish)? Or, do we honour the Maccabim, who sought to defend Judaism in the face of “assimilation”, by conducting the Maccabiyah on days other than Shabbat.

Is the dreidel, which originated from a game called teetotum, especially popular at Christmas time, foreign to this Jewish holiday or has it been Judaisised by changing the gambling terms of nicht, ganz, halb and stell ein, to neis, gadol, hayah, sham-“A great miracle happened there”.

Were the Maccabim, whose role the ancient rabbis sought to underplay (downplay?), seeking to maintain an insular Judaism or to navigate the waters so as to celebrate a particularistic tradition within the larger world whose siren call was beckoning?

Three years ago the Maccabiah was held in Berlin’s Olmpiastadion, the site of the 1936 Nazi Olympics. One journalist wrote” One of the greatest achievements of the Maccabiah was.. Friday’s feast (which) set a Guinness world record as the largest Shabbat dinner, with 2,322 participants”.

Maccabiah or Maccabiyah (or both)?

Still, another journalist asked “whether it was at all proper to set religion as a qualification criteria for a sports event..why is there a need for a Jewish Olympics nowadays”? Would the Maccabees see this as “our” having finally arrived or would they not want to lend their name to a one “label” fits all event (or not countenance their name being removed so as to be an all-inclusive event)?

Are there limits to acculturation, should we wish to avoid assimilation?

Our dynamic tradition has always been one of bending and (consequently) not breaking. The word Hanukkah means “dedication”. But, to what, and how…

Just wondering, on this holiday of miracles.