Welcome to the Harbor Unitarian Universalist Congregation

I want to share with you a story from the book, Jewish Holidays and Festivals. I do not know if it is true. The collectors make no such claim. If not, it contains some mythic truths that speak to my heart.

When George Washington was at Valley Forge in the terrible winter of 1777, his soldiers suffered from deep cold, hunger and the despair that strikes when dark seems to envelop the world and danger is near. Among them was a young Jew from Poland. Some of the soldiers cursed Washington, but the young Jew remembered the insults and persecution his family had suffered in Poland. He thought Washington and his cause was right.

When the young man left his family to travel to the New World across the sea, his father gave him a silver Menorah. He told him to always light the candles on the Menorah at Hanukkah, for "they will light your way to freedom." The young man obeyed.

So, when Hanukkah came during that cold winter, the young man lit the candles on his Menorah and chanted the traditional blessing. Suddenly he was overcome with memories of his family back in Poland, and he began weeping.

He felt a touch on his shoulder and turned to see the commander of the army, General George Washington, looking at him. "Why are you weeping, soldier? Is it because of the bitter cold?" asked the General.

"I am crying and praying for your victory, General. I am sure we will win, for we fight for freedom and justice," replied the soldier.

The General thanked him, and sat beside the young man in the snow. He asked him about the lamp, for he was unfamiliar with Menorahs. The young man explained its significance, and told the story of the Maccabees who fought for freedom. The General shook his hand and thanked him, then disappeared in the cold darkness.

The story does not end there however, for the soldier moved to New York City following the victory of Washington's rag-tag army, and his election to the presidency of the new United States. On Hanukkah, the young man again lit his Menorah and set it in the window, as is the custom. There was a knock at the door, and, much to his surprise, there stood the new president, George Washington.

Washington told the young man that the light of the Menorah had entered his heart that night at Valley Forge, and he thanked him again. The young man was so touched he gave him his father's silver Menorah, which Washington carried away to light his steps into the future.

There are two accounts in the apocrypha of the victory of the Jewish people led by Judah Maccabee and his brothers over the occupying Greeks. You heard the 1 Maccabees version this morning; there is also one in 2 Maccabees which is shorter. They both tell of the victory, the defaced temple, and the rebuilding of the altar. They both tell of lighting the lamps, filled with sacred oil, and burning them for eight days. Neither one says anything about a shortage of oil, or a subsequent miracle. That tradition developed later.

The purpose of rebuilding the altar, of rededicating the temple, of lighting the sacred lamps, was to give thanks to The Holy One of Israel for their victory. The Greeks, or Gentiles, had tried to force the Jews to comply with their forms of worship. They, as did most other societies in the known world, often conflated great men with gods. So conquerors, such as Alexander, or rulers demanded that inferior people bow down to them, as to gods.

The Jews resisted this strongly. There were always insurgents in the hills around Jerusalem. The struggle between monotheists and polytheists started early. It predates the struggle between different forms of monotheism that continues today.

Thus, after driving the Gentiles out of Jerusalem, the Jews knew the appropriate action was to give thanks to their God. However, the temple had been dese-crated and must be cleaned and rededicated before they could do so. They did this, then lit their lamps, filled them with the sacred oil, and chanted their thanks.

After battle they connected with the Holy, which they knew as Yahweh, through light and prayer. I believe this is a universal need. I believe that after great stress, humans have a need to connect with the holy. It may be after battle, but it may also be after other types of danger.

We have just completed celebrating our Thanksgiving Holiday. Most of us gath-ered with family and/or friends to share a feast. Most of us ate too much rich food. Some of us had more than one Thanksgiving feast as we traveled from one branch of the extended family to another. Some of us spent the hours fol-lowing our feasting sprawled on comfortable chairs or ensconced in soft beds digesting, just digesting, the abundant feast. A few of us may have preceded our feasting with a prayer that expressed our gratitude for our blessings, especially the groaning table.

Most of us know that Thanksgiving is based on the Pilgrim story--the group of Englishmen and women who came ashore in New England, rather than their stated goal, Virginia. They landed in December, in a cold strange land, with very little to support them in their new home. December is almost too late to harvest any food for the winter, let alone grow any. They had to live through the winter, plant in the spring, subsist on what little they could forage, and then harvest in late summer before they had any assurance they could survive.

One third of them did not. One third of the company that landed at Plymouth Rock did not live to see a harvest. Most of them died that first winter. Every family must have suffered loss. Those that lived were hungry all the time, sus-ceptible to disease, and weakened when it struck. And yet they never stopped praising God.

Let us think about that. This group of starving people gathered weekly for wor-ship, at which they praised God. They received some help from the natives, who shared some of their food, and taught them how to forage, then how to plant their crops. The legend of Squanto is factual.

However, they were isolated from other Europeans, cold and starving, and with few survival skills. What they did have was a vision--a holy vision, an over-whelming vision, of "The City on a Hill" that would be "A Light to All Nations." And they had a very strong faith in the God that inspired that vision.

They connected with the Holy, as they knew it. They connected regularly, for they were always at risk. And, when the harvest came in, and survival for the next winter seemed likely, they gave thanks in special services. Usually they fasted before and during the services, then feasted later. It is probably this feast that has evolved into our Thanksgiving.

Let us turn to another story from the Hebrew Bible to illustrate connecting to the Holy after great stress. The book of Exodus relates the story of Moses leading the Hebrews out of Egypt and into the wilderness, and to the border of Caanan, the land flowing with milk and honey, promised to his people by Yahweh.

Pharaoh pursued the people to the edge of the Reed Sea, where the threat of capture was great. You know the legend--that Yahweh, working through Moses, divided the Reed Sea so that the Hebrews could pass. However, the waters crashed over the heads of Pharaoh and his army, preventing their passage. Cecil B. deMille presented it most dramatically some years ago.

It is appropriate to give thanks following a miracle, and the Hebrews did so. There are two versions--the Moses version and the Miriam version. In the Moses version we are told that Moses and the people gave thanks and sang a song to the LORD. And a 15 verse song is presented in Exodus 15:1-15. Then, immediately following, we are told;

"When Pharaoh's horse, both chariots and cavalry, went into the sea, the LORD brought back the waters over them; but Israel had passed through the sea on dry ground. The prophetess Miriam, Aaron's sister, took up her tambourine, and all the women followed her, dancing to the sound of tam-bourines; and Miriam sang them this refrain: "Sing to the Lord, for he has risen up in triumph: horse and rider he has hurled into the sea."

Scholars name this as one of the oldest verses in Hebrew Scriptures, and it probably designates Miriam, sister of Aaron and Moses, as a leader of the exodus.

It is clear that she, rather than either of her brothers, was the one who reached out to connect to the Holy after the great risk they endured. Tambourines were women's instruments, which were picked up and played by the priestess and other women, both in worship and to celebrate victories. Biblical scholars agree that the canon as we know it was redacted (edited) many times. In the redaction process, women's roles were often reduced or eliminated. The redactors often added on another version of a story, rather than eliminating an older version. This is why we often have "doubles", the same story told in different ways.

So, the story of Miriam and her song is regarded as the older, thus more accu-rate, version. She, and the other women, knew that they needed to connect to the Holy there on the shores of the Reed Sea. The way with which they were familiar was to dance and sing, for they had no temple in which to pray or sac-rifice. Miriam led the people in giving thanks and connecting to the Holy after their safe delivery from Pharaoh's forces.

Let us move forward in time now, to a Hanukkah closer to our memories. Let us go to Holland in 1943. This is a story told by Doug Kor, and adapted by Shari Lewis.

It was 1943. It was winter. It was wartime and food was scarce. Many Dutch Jews had been hunted down and sent away by the Nazi soldiers. That's what happened to Isaac's parents, and it might have happened to him, but an old Christian couple had hidden Isaac away in their attic, though if the Nazi's found out, it might mean their own deaths.

Now this couple loved Christmas, and had saved tiny bits of candles and cans of food so they could celebrate their holiday with a small tree and a big meal.

They told Isaac about Christmas. He told them about Hanukkah, the Jew-ish celebration right before Christmastime, when Jews light candles for each of the eight days of the festival. The more Isaac remembered, the more he missed his family and the sadder he became. The old couple saw Isaac suffering and suffered with him.

"Let's do what we can," they agreed.

And on the first day of Hanukkah, to Isaac's delight, there were two candles shining brightly in his attic, and for each day thereafter, the couple lit an-other candle and opened another can of food that they had been saving for their own holiday.

There would be no gifts for Christmas for them this year, but their gift was the joy they saw reflected from the Hanukkah candles in Isaac's eyes.

This story not only demonstrates that people can reach across religious bound-aries to help others despite great danger, but it also illustrates how significant connection with the Holy is at such times. The old couple sacrificed their own celebration to help a young boy find comfort in the rituals of his own, different, faith. All were in grave danger, for if they were found, all would suffer. The old couple was able to connect with their God through the ritual the young boy practiced to connect with his God. Love triumphed over fear and the hate preached by the Nazis to make the connections possible.

The fact that we now live in the 21st Century does not change the need we have for such connections. We still need to renew our bonds to the Holy following tragedy.

Remember how this church, as well as many others, filled with people following September 11, 2001? People needed to connect with each other, and with the Holy, however they defined it. They needed to know that there was still some-thing stable in their lives. They needed to know that life still had meaning, that love still existed, that there was hope of a better future.

This nation found that it was no longer safe in its splendid isolation. It found that not everyone approved of and supported our actions in the world, and that some of them felt so strongly about it that they were willing to go to great lengths to demonstrate their disapproval. This nation learned that it, as well as the rest of the world, was vulnerable.

In many ways and many places we flooded into houses of worship. We mourned the loss of life, and the loss of our invulnerability. We, quietly, silently, gave thanks that we were still living. We connected with the Holy, as we understood it.

I speculate that one reason the scars from Vietnam have failed to heal is be-cause there was little or no connection to the Holy following that conflict. We gathered in churches to protest the war, or to argue about the war, or to support the troops. We agonized over actions of some of our soldiers that failed to live up to the ideals upon which this nation was founded. We allowed these soldiers to color the perception of all of our soldiers. We could not give thanks to God, for there was no victory, and there was no consensus that Vietnam was a just war.

We failed to connect with the Holy, and we failed to heal from the stresses of that conflict. Our veterans are still suffering from the lack of resolution. I fear we are facing another conundrum regarding the current war in Iraq. Let us resolve to support our returning veterans, whether we support the policies that brought us to this place in our history. Let us help the young men and women who return to connect with the Holy, so that they may heal from the wounds of war.

The story of the Maccabees does not end with their victory and the initiation of Hanukkah. They founded, much to the distress of many of the priests, a line of kings. They ruled the nation of Israel for several generations. Like many other ruling families, the line ran thin after its heroic founding. They ended up inviting in the Romans to protect them, thus setting up their nation's domination by that Empire. Their story, like much of ours, is ambiguous.

However, they also founded a Festival of Lights, which endures even today. The Festival illustrates the need to connect with the Holy after great stress. After great battles, light is needed.

Let us honor the light lit by the Maccabees, flawed heroes of freedom.

Shalom.
Blessed Be.
Saalat.
Amen.