Christmas, Hanukkah, and the Audacity of Hope

Why Christmas Matters This Year

Christmas matters this year. This is an odd statement coming from a practicing Jew, so I’ll say Hanukkah matters as well.

Most years I don’t think about Christmas but for the nicety of holiday revelers and the extra time off. But the joy is missing. I work downtown, and normally holiday crowds are cheerful. This year, there are no crowds and people don’t look happy. Even loaded with gifts, bought at ridiculously low prices, shoppers seem more worried and less joyful as if they know that this buying spree may be the last form of lightness before even darker times. The time off is not comforting either. The days off and easy work schedule seem less like a relief than a harbinger of slow business to come. The world actually seems darker – not just spiritually, but physically as well. The night looks blank.


And so this is Christmas in 2008? With the normal joy gone, why does the holiday seem more poignant? Because the essential message about an improbable rebirth in a time of darkness is a message needed more than ever. At the darkest time of the year, the most lifeless, the salvation of humanity appears. It appears in the form of someone helpless (a baby) born to people not only of humble means but homeless who are on the run for evading taxes. The rebirth comes not through the power of armies or the uprising of the proletariat but through a message of peace – a command not only to love thy neighbor but thy enemy. Clearly this is not a salvation of armies but of the mind and spirit.

Hanukkah is a rebirth story of different kind, although the message is not so obvious. I was studying Hanukkah with Rabbi Jonathan Jaffe last week in the Mission over tocas. We were discussing why Hanukkah mattered at all. It is the only major historical holiday for which there is no biblical book or reference (the book of Maccabees upon which the story is based does not appear in the Hebrew scriptures). The story itself is not simple tale of joy with its bloody description of civil war between Jews and guerilla warfare against the Greeks. The time of year is not considered sacred and there is no prohibition against work. (Greenberg “The Jewish Way”). Yet, the holiday’s customs are much discussed in the Talmud, which also includes many stories not found in the book of Macabees. The Talmudic telling of Hanukkah focuses less on the celebration of a military victory but on rebirth of a nation and a people in a time of darkness. The rebirth, unlike Christmas, is practical, social, and political. It is complicated and wrought by men not God. (There are no miracles or even a mention of God’s activities in the book of Macabbees and the 8 days of oil was first discussed 500 years later).

With there different emphases, Christmas (spiritual) and Hanukkah (practical) provide a complete model for rebirth in times of darkness. Both have another aspect in common; the rebirth that these holidays seek is not the restoration of the natural order but radical change in the natural order. We know that the Christmas holiday was based on a various pagan, winter solstice holidays. The pagan sun god Mithra’s birthday was 12/25 as and the Roman holiday Saturnalia began a week before 12/25 and featured gift giving and wreaths to name but two examples. The purpose of these holidays was to reassure people that the natural order would continue – light and plants would return in the spring. This purpose is similar to the other winter holiday on the Jewish calendar, Tu BiSh'vat. Celebrated in January when the first signs of almond sprouts appear in Jerusalem, the holiday puts Jews on notice that nature will once again bring fourth the bounty to which we are accustomed.

Christmas and Hanukah implore us to reach not for a rebirth that that is expected but onis e that impossible. A poor man from a homeless family on the run from the taxman is not a paradigm hero (let alone savior). And a small band of guerrilla warriors simply do not successfully rebel against the world’s premier power of the time (the Greeks). There is no empirical reason to believe such things are possible. But these holidays provide us stories that remind us that we can transcend the ordinary and expected; that the way things are now or the way things are naturally is not the way they have they have to be or should be.

The stories are finally about the audacity of hope. Which brings me back, as so many things do for me this year, to Barrack Obama. His improbably victory (did anyone ever think a mixed race black man would be president in our lifetime) reminds us that the impossible can happen. As importantly we don’t have to settle for what were told “has to be.”

My wife Angela recently told me that this Christmas seems very small. She’s right. In good times, the “rebirth in darkness stories” are easy to ignore. Not now. As odd as it is for this Jew to admit it, we need Christmas this year.

Ron Howard’s Happy Lie: Nixon/Frost Movie Review

Ron Howard’s Nixon/Frost has much to recommend it. Creating a compelling drama that propels the watcher forward without the resorting to standards tricks such as action or romance certainly speaks well for the director. Howard also draws nuanced depictions of his two protagonists, refusing to make them into stock characters. The movie also does a nice job with its theme about how the power of television to crystallize a moment both illustrates and simplifies history.

Yet when dealing with real life events, especially those so relevant to the present, I think Howard owes audiences something more – he’s owes them honestly. I’m not talking about the slavish re-creation of facts, but the depiction of events and characters rings true in the overall sense if not in the details. Howard fails.

Howard portrays Nixon as a modern tragic figure – more sinned against than sin-ed. Nixon is brilliant, shrewd, and driven in Howard’s world. Yes, he’s a little crazy and yes he goes over the line – but who wouldn’t after spending your life being told by Ivory Tower elitists that you’re not good enough. Nixon’s “regret” that he let the American people down comes off as sincere.

This portraying is misleading and dangerous. Nixon was paranoid and ruthlessly persecuted enemies real and perceived. He would say and do anything to keep in power. Nixon’s cynical “southern strategy,” using racism to get democratic votes, set up the wedge politics that have lead to years of political stagnation. He spied on Americans, invaded countries in the express contradiction to federal law. This total abrogation of the public trust began a deep cynicism by the American people that continues to this day and has allowed Republics to rule so badly but stay in power. These are among the many malfeasances ignored by the movie.

The movie is dishonest but also dangerous. Nixon’s abuses of power should remind us that the current President has recreated the imperial presidency. Bush, while not paranoid, punished his enemies. Bush showed similar disdain for the law believing, like Nixon, that what the president does is the law. Howard’s psychological excuses of Nixon tend to provide an excuse the current president’s wrongdoing.

What is more disconcerting is that Howard’s deception is unnecessary. Nixon is a complicated enough tat he can be portrayed without being a stock villain. An honest portrayal would have in no way diminished Howard’s mediation on the TV’s ability to exemplify and simplify. It seems that Howard needed to graft a more positive spin on the story. Why? Could it just be for ratings? Or does Howard need to impose his optimism on the story? If so, he should pick other subjects that lend themselves to his theme without distorting the facts.

I don’t believe artists owe the public a particular story or a particular point of view. But when they do tell a story, they should do so honestly. And when they use recent facts they have a responsibility not to mislead the public.