Paul Golin, executive director of the Society for Humanistic Judaism, recently posted his eight reasons his family celebrates Hanukkah. Among them:
In the Book of Maccabees, God is not a participant. All accomplishments were people-powered, though the Maccabees were certainly religious people, zealots even. Today, rabbis in all denominations outside ultra-Orthodoxy are willing to admit that the Hanukkah “miracle”—one day’s worth of Temple oil lasting eight days—was tacked on centuries later to downplay the military accomplishments of the eventually corrupted Hasmonean Dynasty. As far as religious miracles go, Hanukkah is about as awe-inspiring as seeing Jesus’s face in your toast. The real miracle was that a backwater province defeated a regional superpower in a fight for their religious freedom. It’s more the Jewish Fourth of July than the Jewish Christmas.
I became involved in humanistic Judaism after meeting my wife, and she introduced me to the candle lighting and songs. So I agree with Paul’s reasons.
Rabbi Chalom wrote a post detailing who the Maccabees were, and how the roots of Hanukkah predate the Maccabee uprising.
Off to light another candle.
That’s brilliant! I didn’t know you were humanistic Jewish. For that matter, I’d never heard the term before; it’s not a new thing to me that many Jews are practicing for non-religious reasons, but I didn’t know about it being an official term. I’ll have to check that out.
Humanistic Judaism started in the late 1960s by Rabbi Sherwin Wine. https://sherwinwine.com. Keep in mind not all secular Jews consider themselves members of this branch of Judaism.