Hanukkah, Christmas and Thanksgiving: Their Connections

This year, the first day of Hanukkah coincided with Christmas day. There are a couple of superficial similarities between Hanukkah and Christmas. Both Hanukkah and Christmas are celebrated with lights, whether on the menorah or the Christmas tree. In addition, both involve exchange of gifts, even though Hanukkah gift-giving is not traditionally Jewish. Yet the religious significance of Hanukkah is vastly different from that of Christmas.

However, I maintain that there is a much stronger link between Hanukkah and Thanksgiving. First, the ideal of thanksgiving is bound up in our very name as a people. The word, “Jew,” comes from a Hebrew root, which means “to render thanks.”

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Second, both the Maccabees and the Pilgrims sought religious freedom. The Pilgrams came to our shores to escape the tyranny of the Church of England, which persecuted them. Similarly, the Maccabees defied the ruling Syrian-Greeks, who demanded they abandon Judaism and embrace the prevailing paganism.

However, both the Maccabees and the Pilgrims understood religious freedom in a pre-modern sense. It was freedom for the religious community, but not for individuals within that community.

The notion of personal autonomy was alien to the nature of both groups. In fact, by today’s standards, the Maccabees and the Pilgrims would be considered religious fanatics.
Thanks to the thinkers of the Enlightenment and the founders of our country, you and I can now embrace any religion or no religion at all.

We acknowledge the contributions of the Maccabees and the Pilgrims for setting into motion the first stage of religious freedom. However, we have built on those foundations. Today, we are blessed with a system which ideally protects us, as individuals, from religious coercion. As this system is currently being threatened by some government leaders, we must be vigilant in guarding this inalienable right. Warm Hanukkah wishes.

Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi Samuel M. Stahl
Emeritus, Temple Beth-El