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8 Dicembre 2012 11:02
Gli studenti nelle scuole ebraiche e scuole ebraiche imparano che Hanukkah è la celebrazione del trionfo militare improbabile dei Maccabei e la miracolosa Menorah del Beit Hamikdash (Sacro Tempio) per otto giorni, ma le origini di Hanukkah al Festival di Nayrot non sono di solito mai menzionate durante le discussioni in aula o un pasto di Latkes.
Nayrot (luce) era un’antica festa invernale che celebra la luce del giorno in aumento promesso dal solstizio d’inverno ed è stata osservata in un modo simile a Hanukkah.
Nayrot aveva una qualità simile e si è verificato intorno allo stesso tempo come la festa greco-siriana festeggia il compleanno del Dio sole Kronos-Helios, che è stato osservato da ebrei e non ebrei in Israele e nei territori occupati dai Greci.
Le famiglie accendevano otto fiamme su un animale nella loro casa ogni notte del festival di otto giorni. Alcuni aggiungevano una fiamma ogni notte, mentre altri riducevano il numero delle fiamme accese.
Accendere tale fuochi è stato fatto per simulare cicli naturali della terra e crede di convincere la natura ad allungare la luce del giorno. L’associazione di luce con la vita e il simbolismo delle tenebre con la morte, faceva di Nayrot un senso di ringiovanimento e di ottimismo.
Nayrot era di otto giorni a specchio della lunghezza della Pasqua ebraica e la festa delle capanne, e delle altre feste associate a cambiamenti stagionali. Anche se le autorità religiose Talmudiche hanno cercato di nascondere le origini di Hanukkah come un festival folk, lo spirito e la prassi di Nayrot vivono ancora.
Il movimento sionista “Hovevi Zion” di fine Ottocento ha adottato Hanukkah come la loro festa principale. Essi hanno visto la storia di Hanukkah come metafora della lotta sionista di fortificare l'identità ebraica.
Oggi nella città di Haifa utilizza Hanukkah come un catalizzatore per promuovere la solidarietà interreligiosa attraverso il loro festival annuale “Festa delle Feste” ovvero festeggiare Hanukkah, Natale e il Ramadan.
La trasformazione della Hanukkah da una festa popolare che celebra il fuoco ad una festa che celebra i miracoli divini, vittorie militari e identità ebraica è l’ultimo esempio della fluidità della tradizione ebraica e l’effetto dell’impatto culturale che continuerà ad essere un segno distintivo della storia ebraica in continua evoluzione.....
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The Secret History of Hanukkah
By Gabriel Weinstein
Students in Hebrew schools and Jewish day schools learn that Hanukkah is the celebration of the Maccabees’ improbable military triumph and the miraculous burning of the Beit Hamikdash’s (Holy Temple’s) Menorah for eight days, a holiday for crooning festive tunes and wagering intense games of dreidel. But Hanukkah’s origins in the Nayrot festival are usually never mentioned during classroom discussions or a meal over latkes.
Nayrot (light) was an ancient winter holiday celebrating the increased daylight promised by the winter solstice, and was observed in a way similar to Hanukkah. Nayrot had similar qualities and occurred around the same time as the Greek-Syrian holiday celebrating sun god Kronos-Helios’s birthday, which was observed by Jews and non-Jews in Israel and Greek occupied territories. Households kindled eight flames on a fireboard in their house each night of the eight-day festival. Some added a flame each night while others reduced the number of lit flames. Lighting fires was done to mimic the earth’s natural cycles and believed to persuade nature to elongate daylight. Light’s association with life and darkness’s symbolism of death imbued Nayrot with rejuvenation and optimism. Nayrot was eight days to mirror the length of Passover and Sukkot, the other holidays associated with seasonal changes.
Nayrot seemed primed to establish itself as the third major Jewish seasonal holiday. But religious authorities during the reign of King Hezekiah, whose reign occurred during a period known as the priestly era, scoffed at the idea of Nayrot becoming a major celebration endorsed by the Torah. Nayrot was rejected because it had no explicit divine connections, nor was it associated with the Exodus from Egypt. Nayrot was relegated as a folk festival until the Maccabees seized power and changed the holiday’s meaning to fulfill their personal ambitions.
When the Maccabees defeated the Greek ruler Antochius IV’s regime in 165 BCE they were eager to restore the defiled Beit HaMikdash. Some believe the Maccabees defeated the Greeks in October but waited until the winter to begin their restoration so it corresponded with Nayrot. Judah Maccabee, the military leader of the Maccabees, renamed Nayrot Hanukkah (dedication), and intended it to mark the rededication of the Beit HaMikdash to God. The transition wasn’t too difficult; both holidays celebrate similar human triumphs. According to Rabbi Sherwin T. Wine, founder of the Humanistic Judaism, Nayrot celebrated humans’ ability to produce fire. The ability to produce fire was a crucial step in the development of human self-confidence and essential to societal advancement, says Wine. Though Judah Maccabee most likely did not intend to perpetuate the values of Nayrot, Hanukkah’s emphasis on the Beit HaMikdash’s renewal and personal spiritual rejuvenation seamlessly mesh with the themes of the holiday.
The Book of Hasmoneans implies Hanukkah is celebrated for eight days because the Maccabees had forgotten to observe the eight days of Sukkot while immersed in battle. The Maccabees wanted Hanukkah to become a flagship holiday, but religious authorities cringed. They resented Hanukkah because they believed the Maccabees had unfairly assumed power over the Judean kingdom. When the Rabbinical establishment regained power under Roman rule, Hanukkah was deemed a minor holiday like its predecessor Nayrot.
Though Rabbinic authorities sought to expunge Nayrot and Hanukkah from the canon of Jewish holidays, aspects of the two festivals–some manufactured, others stemming from the original holiday celebrations–have become vital parts of the modern Hanukkah celebration. In the centuries following Hanukkah’s establishment, its religious aspects have been amplified. Many scholars believe rabbis created the idea of the Hanukkah miracle to draw attention away from Hanukkah’s glorification of the Maccabees’ military might. This was an expression of the rabbinical authorities’ frustration that the Maccabees asserted intellectual authority over divine dictums and claimed royal authority though they were not descendants of King David.
Although religious authorities sought to hide Hanukkah’s origins as a folk festival, the spirit and practices of Nayrot lives on. The “Hovevi Zion” Zionist movement of the late 1800’s adopted Hanukkah as their major holiday. They viewed the story of Hanukkah as a metaphor mirroring the Zionist struggle to fortify Jewish identity. Today the city of Haifa uses Hanukkah as a catalyst to promote interfaith solidarity through their annual “Holiday of Holidays” festival celebrating Hanukkah, Christmas and Ramadan. The transformation of Hanukkah from a folk holiday celebrating fire to a festival celebrating divine miracles, military victories and Jewish identity is the ultimate example of the fluidity of Jewish tradition and the effect of cultural impacts that will continue to be a hallmark of ever-evolving Jewish history.
http://momentmagazine.wordpress.com/2010/12/02/the-secret-history-of-hanukkah/
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Cosi come il popolo ebraico-talmudico è stato infettato con i nomi dei mesi babilonesi sono diventati più sensibili ad altre influenze babilonesi. Questo è simil
e al modo in cui che l’osservanza ebraico-talmudica di Channukah è stata influenzata dal Natale cristiano. Questa influenza ha cominciato con l’usanza apparentemente innocuo dei doni durante Channukah. Fino a quando gli ebrei-talmudici arrivarono in America questa usanza era sconosciuta ed è ancora una rarità in Israele dove Channukah non ha bisogno di competere con il Natale per i cuori e le menti della gioventù ebraica. Una volta preso il Channukah su questo aspetto relativamente banale di Natale è diventato maturo per influenze più significative. Oggi molti ebrei hanno stabilito l’usanza di allestire un “albero di Channukah” come alternativa ebraico-talmudica per l’albero di Natale. Questi ebrei non volevano adottare il Natale addirittura così giudaizato l’albero di Natale e incorporato nella Channukah. Questo esempio mostra come sia facile essere influenzato dalle pratiche di una religione straniera, soprattutto quando c’è qualche somiglianza per cominciare. Il fatto che Channukah cade spesso intorno allo stesso tempo del Natale , il fatto ha agevolato gli ebrei-talmudici incorporando elementi di Natale nella loro osservanza di Channukah.
Proprio come gli ebrei-talmudici sono stati influenzati dal Natale i rabbini antichi furono influenzati dalla pagana religione babilonese. Anche se molti ebrei ritornarono in Giudea quando l’esilio terminò ufficialmente nel 516 A.C., gli antenati dei rabbini rimasero in Babilonia dove il giudaismo rabbinico, ovvero il Talmudismo, gradualmente ha preso forma. Molti dei primi rabbini noti come Hillel nacquero e furono educati in Babilonia. Infatti in Babilonia è rimasto il cuore del giudaismo rabbinico fino alla caduta della Gaonate nel XI secolo d.C. Il Talmud babilonese abbonda con le influenze del paganesimo Babilonese, infatti, divinità pagane appaiono anche nel Talmud riciclato come demoni e angeli genuini.
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Yom Teruah
How the Day of Shouting Became Rosh Hashanah
by Nehemia Gordon
(...)
As the Jewish People became more comfortable with the Babylonian month names they became more susceptible to other Babylonian influences. This is similar to the way the American Jewish observance of Channukah has been influenced by Christmas. This influence began with the seemingly harmless custom of giving gifts on Channukah. Until the Jews arrived in America this custom was unknown and it is still a rarity in Israel where Channukah does not need to compete with Christmas for the hearts and minds of the Jewish youth. Once Channukah took on this relatively trivial aspect of Christmas it became ripe for more significant influences. Today many Jews have established the custom of setting up a “Channukah bush” as a Jewish alternative to the Christmas tree. These Jews did not want to adopt Christmas outright so they “Judaized” the Christmas tree and incorporated into Channukah. This example shows how easy it is to be influenced by the practices of a foreign religion, especially when there is some similarity to begin with. The fact that Channukah often falls out around the same time as Christmas made facilitated the American Jews in incorporating elements of Christmas into their observance of Channukah.
Just as the Jews of America have been influenced by Christmas the ancient Rabbis were influenced by the pagan Babylonian religion. Although many Jews returned to Judea when the Exile officially ended in 516 BCE, the forebears of the Rabbis remained behind in Babylonia where rabbinical Judaism gradually took shape. Many of the earliest known Rabbis such as Hillel I were born and educated in Babylonia. Indeed Babylonia remained the heartland of Rabbinical Judaism until the fall of the Gaonate in the 11th Century CE. The Babylonian Talmud abounds with the influences of Babylonian paganism. Indeed, pagan deities even appear in the Talmud recycled as genuine angels and demons.
(...)
8 Dicembre 2012 11:12
...ma per favore!
8 Dicembre 2012 11:19
[i]Gli studenti nelle scuole ebraiche e scuole ebraiche imparano...
Estiqaatsi
Topic starter
8 Dicembre 2012 11:25
Le origini della festa di Hanukkah
Dal rabbino SHERWIN WINE T.
Festa di Hanukkah ha iniziato con un altro nome. Prima il trionfo di Maccabean era chiamato Nayrot (luci). E ' stato il winter festival che celebra la rinascita della luce. Al solstizio d'inverno, tenebre cessa di espandersi, e il giorno comincia a crescere più a lungo. Poiché il buio è la morte e la luce è vita, l'inversione è un momento drammatico durante l'anno.
Come un festival di otto giorni, Nayrot conformati per le due altre feste stagionali, Sukkot e Pesakh. Gli incendi sono stati illuminati su ciascuno degli otto giorni di imitare il cambiamento e per incoraggiare la natura, dalla suggestione, per continuare il suo lavoro bene. In definitiva, gli incendi furono confinati in ogni famiglia per un Consiglio di otto luci. Otto giorni e le luci erano parte della vita ebraica a lunga prima che la leggenda dell'olio santo fece la sua comparsa.(...)
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The Origins of Hanukka
By RABBI SHERWIN T. WINE
Hanukka started out with another name. Before the Maccabean triumph it was called Nayrot (Lights). It was the winter festival that celebrated the rebirth of light. At the winter solstice, darkness ceases to expand, and the day begins to grow longer. Since darkness is death and light is life, the reversal is a dramatic moment in the year.
As an eight-day festival, Nayrot conformed to the two other seasonal holidays, Sukkot and Pesakh. Fires were lit on each of the eight days to imitate the change and to encourage nature, by suggestion, to continue its good work. Ultimately, the fires were confined in each household to a board of eight lights. The eight days and the lights were part of Jewish life long before the legend of the holy oil made its appearance.
Like many folk festivals, Nayrot never made its way into the priestly Torah. The priests were wary of sanctioning any practice that could not easily be identified with Yahveh and the Exodus experience. Nayrot flunked its entry test, leaving Judaism devoid of a decent winter festival.
With the conquest of Israel by the Greeks and the subsequent rebellion against Greek rule, the Maccabee family rose to power. Of priestly origin, the Maccabees became the military leaders of the rebel forces and pursued their own independent road to political power. Having defeated the Greeks and captured Jerusalem, Judah Maccabee decided to rededicate the temple shrine to Yahveh. He chose the folk festival of Nayrot as a perfect vehicle for the continuing commemoration of his victory. He renamed the holiday Hanukka (Dedication) and elevated it to official importance. But the Maccabees had a run-in with the rabbis because of their pretentious assumption of the royal title. When the rabbis came to rule under Roman guidance, they wrought their vengeance. Hanukka was demoted to minor status, since, as a popular folk festival, it could not be easily eliminated. The other Maccabean victory celebration, Nicanor’s Day, was replaced by Purim.
In later centuries, the rabbis sought to diminish the importance of the Maccabees by attributing the victory to Yahveh. The talmudic legend that focuses on holy oil lasting for eight days has a political purpose. It shifts the emphasis from the brilliant skill of the Maccabees (who are barely mentioned) to the magic tricks of Yahveh.
By the dawn of the secular age, Hanukka was one of several minor celebrations of the Jewish calendar. The possibility for a winter festival with grandeur had been stymied by political hostility.
However, secular emancipation in a Christian world provided a revival. The lure of Christmas, the Roman-Christian version of a winter solstice festival, was very strong. In its new secularized form, many Jews were finding it irresistible, especially since they had no decent dramatic winter holiday of their own.
In North America, in particular, the competition of Christmas rescued Hanukka. It was taken from its theological mothballs and elevated to a status that event he Maccabees never imagined. Suddenly, candles, dreidels, potato pancakes, and the story of a minor military victory were dressed up to compete with Christmas carols, Christmas trees, the birth of a god, and the excitement of a new year. The quick rise to fame was, to say the least, less than satisfactory. Nevertheless, for many North American Jews, Hanukka has become the holiday—especially if there are children.
Even if we dispose of the Talmudic legend about holy oil, the Hanukka story remains uncomfortable for secular and humanistic Jews. While the Maccabees did, indeed, arrange for national liberation from Greek tyranny, they were no more tolerant of dissent than their Greek enemies. The concept of personal freedom was as foreign to them as it was to any of their contemporary competitors. If Antiochus was unwilling to allow Torah Jews to practice their religion, the Maccabees were equally unwilling to allow the Hellenists the option of their preference. As we know from present events, national liberation, the removal of foreign rulers, does not guarantee personal freedom. It may simply replace a foreign dictatorship with a domestic one.
However, secular and humanistic Jews recognize that the roots of Hanukka precede the intolerant fanaticism of much of priestly and rabbinic Judaism. The old holiday of Nayrot, and its fascination with fire, has a strong connection to the story of human survival. It provides a better basis for a secular and humanistic celebration.
As the Feast of Lights, Hanukka is the preeminent holiday of fire. The kindling of fire is part of almost every festival. But, with Hanukka, it becomes the focus.
The taming of fire is the major human revolution that preceded agriculture. It enhanced human survival in dramatic ways. Wild animals could be held at bay. Cooked food made eating less time consuming and opened the daily routine to new activities. Heat made cold places accessible to our tropical bodies and allowed humans to inhabit the earth. Without fire, we would have been confined to the safe environment of central Africa.
As the guarantor of survival, fire became the symbol of life. In all early cultures, the “sacred” fire took on a special importance, especially before our ancestors learned how to make fire. “Captured” fire seemed to possess a supernatural power beyond the ability of human beings to manufacture and control. Maintaining the fire and never allowing it to be extinguished became the passion of communal activity. The extinction of the flame meant death. Shades of Eternal Lights, Menorahs, and Hanukka legends!
Although much of religion has preserved this early anxiety, the fear has been inappropriate for over eighty thousand years. The fire revolution took a major turn for the better when our human ancestors discovered how to make fire. No longer dependent on thievery from available flames, they changed fire-finding into fire-making. The evolution of metalworking, technology, and human self-confidence flows from that event.
The story of fire is the story of the discovery of human power. Man and women discovered that they did not have to be passive infants waiting for parental nature to give them the things they needed and wanted. Making fires was the first step in the harnessing of the energies of the universe for the enhancement of human dignity.
In Jewish history, this growing maturity and self-reliance is part of the Jewish experience. Waiting for Messiahs to rescue the people from foreign adversaries may be the official line. But the Maccabean resistance did not wait. Nor did the Zionists of the twentieth century.
If Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur are testimonies to the assumption of human responsibility for human life in the face of an absurd and indifferent universe, if Sukkot is the witness to the power of human ingenuity and creativity; then Hanukka is the cel
ebration of human power, the increasing power of people to use the world to enhance the quality of human life.
We do not have to wait for fortune’s gifts. Like the Maccabees, we can manufacture our own.
This essay is excerpted from Judaism Beyond God by Rabbi Sherwin T. Wine, a publication of the Society for Humanistic Judaism and the Milan Press (Farmington Hills, MI: 1995). It is reprinted with permission from the publisher (Society for Humanistic Judaism, 248.478.7610).
Rabbi Sherwin T. Wine was the intellectual framer of Humanistic Judaism and a founding co-chair of the International Institute for Secular Humanistic Judaism, as well as a prolific writer, speaker and public figure. In 1969, he founded the Society for Humanistic Judaism to connect and create Humanistic Jewish congregations. He served as rabbi of the first Humanistic congregation, the Birmingham Temple of Farmington Hills, Michigan, for more than forty years. In addition to innumerable periodical articles, including the lead article in almost every issue of the journal Humanistic Judaism, he was the author of "Judaism Beyond God," "Celebration: A Ceremonial Guide for Humanists and Humanistic Jews," and "Staying Sane in a Crazy World."
Rabbi Sherwin T. Wine was the founder of the denomination known as Humanistic Judaism and the first humanistic temple in North America, the Birmingham Temple, in the suburbs of Detroit, Michigan. He was also a founding co-chair of the International Institute for Secular Humanistic Judaism Rabbi Wine is the subject of the book "A Life of Courage" and the author of "Judaism Beyond God, Celebration, Staying Sane in a Crazy World," and hundreds of articles on humanism, ethics, and religion. In 2003, he was honored as Humanist of the Year by the American Humanist Association, joining an illustrious group of prior recipients that includes Stephen Jay Gould, Betty Friedan, Carl Sagan, Richard Dawkins, Barbara Ehrenreich, and Margaret Sanger.
8 Dicembre 2012 11:29
Le origini della festa di Hanukkah
Dal rabbino SHERWIN WINE T.Festa di Hanukkah ha iniziato con un altro nome. Prima il trionfo di Maccabean era chiamato Nayrot (luci). E ' stato il winter festival che celebra la rinascita della luce. Al solstizio d'inverno, tenebre cessa di espandersi, e il giorno comincia a crescere più a lungo. Poiché il buio è la morte e la luce è vita, l'inversione è un momento drammatico durante l'anno...
Si certo. Non è una festa che si trova anche tra i Celti, molti secoli prima, no.... L'hanno inventata loro, si. Ciai ragggione te 😆 😆 😆
8 Dicembre 2012 13:21
"...Estiqaatsi ..." ... esatto!