In the Torah we are taught about five festivals celebrated during the course of the Jewish year. We have the two holidays known nowadays as the “High Holidays” or “The Days of Awe,” Rosh Hashanah (known biblically as Yom HaZikaron – the Day of Remembrance or Yom Teruah – Day of sounding the shofar) and Yom Kippur. In addition, there are three pilgrimage festivals on which our ancestors ascended to Jerusalem to celebrate bringing special offerings to the Temple, Passover (Chag HaMatzot- the Feast of Matzah), Shavuot (Yom Habikkurim – The Day of the Firstfruits), and Sukkot (Chag HaAsif – the holiday of ingathering). These last three though originally agricultural in nature, are linked to the events of the Exodus by our sages: Passover to the departure from Egypt, Shavuot, to the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai, and Sukkot, to the wanderings through the desert under divine protection.
To these five holidays, we can add two more so-called “minor” holidays, since ordinary labor is permitted on them, namely Chanukah and Purim. Both commemorate events that occurred after the completion of the Torah. These two winter festivals have a number of similarities as well as significant differences. On both holidays we add the Al HaNissim passage, recognizing the miracles of this season to the blessing of thanksgiving, the second to the last blessing of the Amidah as well as to the second blessing in the Birkat HaMazon, the blessing after meals. The blessings for the Chanukah candles and for the reading of the Megillah on Purim are similar. The first blessing is the usual form of a blessing prior to the performance of a mitzvah, “asher kidshanu b’mitzvotav v’tzivanu” (who sanctified us by His commandments and commanded us). On Chanukah, we conclude “l’hadlik ner shel Chanukah,” to light the Chanukah lamp. On Purim it is simply “al mikra megillah,” concerning the reading of the Megillah. Both blessings are followed by the “she-asah Nissim lavoteinu” blessing, praising God who did miracles for our ancestors in those days and at this season. On the first night of Chanukah and both evening and morning of Purim, we add she-hecheyanu, thanking God for allowing us to reach this season once again. On Purim, the heroes of the story are Mordecai and Esther. On Chanukah we have Judah Maccabee and, as we saw a couple of weeks ago, an attempt is made to enlist the story of Judith in the saga of the holiday, even suggesting that Judith might have been the sister of Judah Maccabee.
By contrast, on Chanukah, we add the Hallel Psalms (Psalms 113 -117) each day to the morning service. They are not recited, however, on Purim. The rabbis suggest a variety of reasons for this difference and come down to the idea that the Megillah serves as Purim’s expression of thanks and praise to God in place of Hallel. Thus, there is no reason to add these Psalms to the service. They also point out that while on Chanukah, the Maccabees or Hasmoneans, took over the governing of Judea and threw off the rule of the enemy, on Purim, while the lives of the Jews were saved, they remained subject to the sovereignty of King Achashverosh. These holidays differ also in that Chanukah took place in the land of Israel, while Purim recalls a saving act performed outside of the Holy Land.
Aside from these liturgical traditions, there is a Chasidic interpretation which compares the dreidel, the Chanukah top to the gragger, the Purim noisemaker. The handle of the dreidel they note points upward and we grasp hold of it from above. This reminds us that the miracles of Chanukah were due to “iteruta d’l’maalah,” intervention from above, God intervened on behalf of the Maccabees and suspended the laws of nature, allowing a small band of fighters to defeat a mighty army and a small container of oil to burn on for eight days. The gragger is grasped from below, its handle points down and represents “iteruta d’l’tata,” the initiative for salvation coming from below, from Mordecai and Esther. Through their efforts they were able to defeat the enemy who sought their destruction by arousing the Heavenly King to defeat the earthly ruler.
However, for some people it seems, the big difference between the holidays, comes from the kitchen. There is on one hand, the humble latke, the potato pancake, which we look forward to on Chanukah. I wrote about it in my blog last week. On the other hand, we have the Hamentash, the sweet, triangular pastry with its varied fillings, most prominently mohn, poppyseed, which Is the distinctive food connected to the holiday of Purim. These two favorite foods have developed an ongoing rivalry in the past 75 years.
Going back to 1946, every year starting at the University of Chicago Hillel and spreading over the years to other universities and synagogues, one can find an annual debate over the relative merits of the Latke and the Hamentash. The debate was created by the then Hillel director at the University of Chicago, Rabbi Maurice Pekarsky, along with anthropologist Sol Tax and historian, Louis Gottshalk. The idea was to have a little holiday humor while at the same time poking fun at the seriousness of academic research. The idea was to enlist two prominent academicians or other intellectuals to prepare learned papers, utilizing the jargon and methodology of their discipline to argue in favor of the pre-eminence of either the Purim pastry or the Chanukah delicacy. Usually, to indicate the universality of this event, they would include a Jewish and non-Jewish professor, sometimes introducing them with bogus inflated biographies, and having them appear in academic robes or other costumes to present in all seriousness, the nonsense they had produced on the topic.
In 2006, Ruth Fredman Cernea published a volume based on the archives kept of past debates providing an insight into these holiday spoofs that had become a regular campus tradition for by then 60 years: The Great Latke Hamantash Debate. To give you some sense of the erudition of these scholars, past papers included titles such as “Euripides’ The Cooks of Troy: Hecuba’s Lament”, presented by philosopher Martha Nussbaum, wearing ancient Greek dress. Sociologist Daniel Levine showed up as a Samarai, and Law School Professor Richard Epstein, rejecting the dyadic argument, came to defend the Knish. Another title was “The Hamantash in Modernism and Post-Modernism: The Effects of Deconstruction of Fabulism on the Mediation of Reader, Audience, and the World: the Text, Context, and Metatext in Pedagogy and Neopedagogy: A Retrospective Aesthetic” presented by Professor Jean Peck. A little less lofty and much less wordy perhaps was a paper entitled “Which Has Done More to Save the Jewish People: The Latke or the Hamantash?” or yet another piece, “The First Annual International Conference on Peaceful Uses of the Latke and Hamantash.”
These gatherings, as might be guessed have brought out large crowds over the years and since scholars, both Jewish and non-Jewish, have participated, it has fostered interfaith fellowship as well. It has sometimes allowed students to see a different side of their professors who are willing to satirize their disciplines and inject a bit of humor into the often-sober presentations of their teachings in their classrooms and lecture halls. Cernea notes that as the years have passed, some of the more esoteric references to Yiddish terminology and Talmudic texts in these learned papers have diminished and more popular culture has appeared in some of these talks. She also notes that such parodies of scholarly papers in the past have been more often associated with Purim than Chanukah. There is a long tradition of “Purim Torah” presented at the Purim feast when wine and other adult beverages flow freely, in which Talmudic scholars over the ages, would poke fun at the often-convoluted argumentation of the rabbinic texts in satiric offerings, both musical and textual that they shared with their friends over dinner. However, the Latke vs Hamantash Debates, a relatively recent development, typically have been held at Chanukah time, providing a bit of light and some levity at a season of darkness, and a bit of a break in the midst of final exams.
Personally, my contention has always been that while we often deal with serious topics and bring our traditional teachings to bear on a wide range of important issues, Judaism is a tradition that is able to laugh at itself and is not afraid to joke about our customs and ceremonies and the foibles of our leaders both in the Bible and through history. Indeed, the second patriarch, Yitzchak bears a name meaning laughter. We, his descendants, continue that tradition, rejoicing in our festivals, enjoying the tastes of the holiday treats, and laughing at ourselves when we are tempted to take ourselves too seriously.
Chag Sameach! Enjoy the rest of the holiday.
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