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- 8 Hanukah Traditions + Bonus Goodies

RABBI DANYA RUTTENBERG | JAN 1, 2026, 9:30 AM EST

three rabbis and a minister walk into a Q&A

The ethics of AI? Staying safe & being a safe haven for others! Disability-adapting spiritual practice? How to tell a pork-loving spouse you're Jew-curious? Much more!

First of all, the January Zoom Salon

for House of Study members is here!

Jan 11, 2-3:30ET/11-12:30PT

We go to a place with other people (or sit on our couch, or stand in our living room, or whatever) and say words. What happens?? What... do they do? What are they supposed to do? Especially if God is not a vending machine and prayers are not a quarter? We'll look at a range of Jewish and other sources with a number of different ideas about this, and hash out the question for ourselves about what all this might be really about.

We're getting spicy with the lineup today! But as usual, I only bring you the A+iest brains there are. Your humble respondents today are:

- Rabbi Becky Silverstein, Principal at Horizon Philanthropy and Co-Founder of the Trans Halakha Project

- Rev. Bromleigh J. McCleneghan, author of Good Christian Sex, When Kids Ask Hard Questions vols 1 and 2, and Hopes and Fears

- Rabbi Megan Doherty, CEO of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association

- Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg (as usual)

Today as a New Year's present we're answering ALL THE Qs that came in this round!

When searching for religious community, how do you balance having standards with accepting that no community is perfect?

RBJM: Being a part of a religious community is, for me, about being in relationship with other people…. And so, I think the same sort of guidance applies as it does for dating or friendships… You want somewhere where you can belong, can be yourself, that feels good… and if they’re not checking all the boxes – yet -- can they get there?.... Do they treat each other (and you) well? There’s no such thing as soulmates (in my mind) so you’re not looking for the one, you’re looking for a community you can slowly build something with. What are your dealbreakers? Can you articulate them? Among your options, where might you be able to have an impact on the conversation that’s already there?

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I want to ask about how you reconcile the fact that we're humans with limited capacity with the fact that there is always more that needs doing to make the world a better place. How do you stop for a break without beating yourself up?

This article was downloaded from https://www.lifeisasacredtext.com/three-rabbis-and-a-minister-walk-into-a-q-a/ on Jan 8, 2026 at 7:21 AM EST.

RABBI DANYA RUTTENBERG | DEC 29, 2025, 9:30 AM EST

Good Things

a combo platter of things to read, hear, see and watch

This is Life as a Sacred Text 🌱, an everybody-celebrating, justice-centered voyage into ancient stories that can illuminate our own lives. It‘s run on a nonprofit, so it’s 100% NAZI FREE. More about the project here, and to subscribe, go here:

At the end of a calendar year–

Almost at the end of an epic 4 1/2 year voyage through the five books of Torah –

(We'll get through the end of the journey in January!) –

(And start on the very Shiny New chapter of Life is a Sacred Text in February!)

In the middle of innumerable Hard Things happening out there–

While the days are short and the nights are long over here in the Northern Hemisphere–

I thought you could use some good things. 🌼

Let's start with some radical amazement, care of the scientist educators still employed by the US government (seriously, a lot of cool stuff here, save to play around with later):

Universe - NASA Science

What is (or was) the big bang? Learn this and more with “Astro-Investigates,” the video series that explores and explains big astrophysics topics with the he…

NASA ScienceJeanette Kazmierczak

Literally: Here, have the Universe.

Next: Virginia Woolf began her memoir, A Sketch of the Past, in 1939, but never finished it. It's now published in a volume titled Moments of Being. Here's an excerpt that I love. It opens with two very early memories, and then she reflects,

“I feel that strong emotion must leave its trace; and it is only a question of how we can get ourselves again attached to it, so that we shall be able to live our lives through from the start. But the peculiarity of these two strong memories was that each was very simple. I am hardly aware of myself, but only of the sensation. I am only the container of the feeling of ecstasy, of the feeling of rapture.”

(When are we only containers, vessels, for something else? When should we be?)

Then, later in childhood–

Week after week passed at St. Ives and nothing made any dint upon me. Then, for no reason that I know about, there was a sudden violent shock; something happened so violently that I have remembered it all my life...The first: I was fighting with Thoby on the lawn. We were pommelling each other with our fists. Just as I raised my fist to hit him, I felt: why hurt another person? I dropped my hand instantly, and stood there, and let him beat me. ... The second instance was also in the garden at St. Ives. I was looking at the flower bed by the front door; “That is the whole”, I said. I was looking at a plant with a spread of leaves; and it seemed suddenly plain that the flower itself was a part of the earth; that a ring enclosed what was the flower; and that was the real flower; part earth; part flower.

and then, later, she muses,

From this I reach what I might call a philosophy; at any rate it is a constant idea of mine; that behind the cotton wool [of the mundane] is hidden a pattern; that we — I mean all human beings — are connected with this; that the whole world is a work of art; that we are parts of the work of art. Hamlet or a Beethoven quartet is the truth about this vast mass that we call the world. But there is no Shakespeare, there is no Beethoven... we are the words; we are the music; we are the thing itself.... It proves that one’s life is not confined to one’s body and what one says and does...

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... but rather, what, do you think?

How might you connect her insights about the flower and us being the music, the thing itself?

"I was looking at the flower bed by the front door; “That is the whole”, I said. I was looking at a plant with a spread of leaves; and it seemed suddenly plain that the flower itself was a part of the earth; that a ring enclosed what was the flower; and that was the real flower; part earth; part flower." (Pink and purple chrysanthemums in a garden.)

gentle, loving reminder that subscriptions to the House of Study

are only 20% off for 2 more days

get in on it NOW ❤️

This article was downloaded from https://www.lifeisasacredtext.com/this-instead-3/ on Jan 8, 2026 at 7:21 AM EST.

RABBI DANYA RUTTENBERG | DEC 26, 2025, 1:02 PM EST

animal farm

a few zoological midrashim about being a person

This is Life as a Sacred Text 🌱, an everybody-celebrating, justice-centered voyage into ancient stories that can illuminate our own lives. It‘s run on a nonprofit, so it’s 100% NAZI FREE. More about the project here, and to subscribe, go here:

Happy Friday! I hope you had a fabulous rest of your Hanukah, a merry and joyful Christmas, are having a blessed Kwanzaa, and/or are otherwise enjoying this season of rest and celebration.

I thought it might be fun for our last Thurz post of the year to do a few midrashim on the stages of life, through a zoomorphic (and astrological!) lens.

- What do you think of these?

- Do you think they're accurate?

- Any in particular? Any parts?

- What would you change?

- How might you rewrite any of them to be more reflective of life today?

They're all from Midrash Tanchuma, which was composed ca. 500-800 ce, in Talmudic Babylon, aka what's now Iraq. Let's do this thing?

1)

Then the seven stages in the life of a person begin:

In the first stage one is like royalty, for everyone inquires about their health and is eager to look at them. They hug and kiss them, since they are only one year old.

In the second stage they are like a swine that grovels in dunghills, for a child waddles in the dirt when they are two years old.

In the third stage they are like a goat who skips about in the pasture. They are a joy in the eyes of their parents. They skip about here and there, while laughing, and everyone takes delight in them.

In the fourth stage they act like a horse about to run in a race.

This article was downloaded from https://www.lifeisasacredtext.com/animal-farm/ on Jan 8, 2026 at 7:21 AM EST.

RABBI DANYA RUTTENBERG | DEC 18, 2025, 9:30 AM EST

Ask the Rabbis! (subscriber only)

It's time!

View this paid post here: Ask the Rabbis! (subscriber only).

This article was downloaded from https://www.lifeisasacredtext.com/ask-the-rabbis-2/ on Jan 8, 2026 at 7:21 AM EST.

RABBI DANYA RUTTENBERG | DEC 15, 2025, 10:08 AM EST

Moral Kindling

how the Maccabees -and we- ignite in the face of tyranny

This is Life as a Sacred Text 🌱, an everybody-celebrating, justice-centered voyage into ancient stories that can illuminate our own lives. It‘s run on a nonprofit, so it’s 100% NAZI FREE. More about the project here, and to subscribe, go here:

Trigger warning: Mentions of sexual abuse (not graphic.)

Today we're going to look at a midrash on Hanukah that has far too much resonance for us today, and ask:

What's the communal combustion point for injustice?

As you likely know, the Hanukah story centers around the Maccabees, a small band of rebels who somehow managed to take down a large, oppressive empire: the Selucid Greeks* under King Antiochus IV, ca. 2nd c. BCE.

Antiochus, it might be worth noting, was said to be a lavishly spending narcissist who installed unqualified cronies in high positions as well as a tyrant who was quick to anger. By early in his reign he'd curtailed civil liberties, restricted religious freedom and pillaged his subjects’ resources for his own profit. Huh.

We continue with what's known, simply, as Midrash Hanukah.**

Please join Hannah bat Matitsyahu–see where she takes us:

*Alexander the Great's empire was divided up by his generals after his death in 323 BCE. By the time of Antiochus IV, the Selucid Empire (named for Alexander's general Seleucus) spanned roughly from the eastern coast of the Mediterranean to Central Asia.

**This midrash appears in full in the 1915 midrashic compilation, Otzar HaMidrashim, but parts are quoted elsewhere nearly 1000 years earlier, like the commentaries of the 12th-13th c. Talmudist/Kabbalist Rabbi Eleazar of Worms. This translation is a mix of the Sefaria Community Translation and that of Anat Hochberg and Isaac Gantwerk Mayer, the latter available on the Open Siddur Project. And, of course, my own tweaks, as always. This is a condensed version of the original. I won't get into the weeds re: the sources of this midrash, the Book of Maccabees, etc. today.

The Selucids said, Let's renew decrees upon them until they forsake their God... They decreed: Any Jew who makes a latch or bolt on their door will be stabbed with a sword. (What was the reason for this [decree]? So that there should not be honor and privacy amongst the Jews, because any house that does not have a door has no honor or modesty. And any who wants to enter can enter whether day or night.) Since the Jews saw this, they got up and removed all doors of their houses.

The Greeks set up a surveillance state in order to wage psychological warfare, to remove the Jews' dignity and push them into obedience. The Jews do comply– presumably out of fear for the consequences, but nonetheless, they acquiesce right away.

They were unable to eat, drink or have sex, because of [the possibility of?] thieves, robbers, and pervy Greeks. They did not sleep day or night, and regarding them the verse is written: “You shall be in terror, night and day” (Deuteronomy 28:66).

It's been said that the more aware we are of being surveilled, the more we (even subconsciously) restrict our behavior, just as the midrash suggests.

As Joshua Franco at Amnesty International put it, “The fear and uncertainty generated by surveillance inhibit activity more than any action by the police.”

Because... the perpetual open doors of midrash aren't so distant from the ways in which our digital doors have been blown open by employers and schools, by ICE tapping search engine, email and other data– including, likely, political dissenters– by other government agencies monitoring our social media and more, or Meta giving law enforcement about half a million users' data in 2024.

Thieves, robbers and perverts indeed.

When the Greeks saw that Israel endured the decree and no one violated it in any way, they stood up and decreed another decree.

When the authoritarian state saw that they could get away with one thing, they pushed the envelope again and again. They (in this midrash) demanded Jews violate laws around keeping kosher and agriculture (to which the Jews responded by selling all their animals and going without). The Jews didn't submit, but they didn't complain. Empire saw that it could go further, so it did, decreeing that any woman who went to the ritual bath before sex would be killed. So the Jews stopped having sex. So the authoritarians kept pushing.

Not that the Jews were fine with any of this. But between fear and old frog in boiling water metaphor, it was likely hard for them to know what else to do.

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Each time the people responded with equanimity, the State upped the ante, eventually demanding droit du seigneur –the chance to assault Judean women before their wedding night.

When the Jews heard this, they refrained from betrothals. This situation continued until the marriage of the daughter of the High Priest Matityahu to the Hasmonean named Elazar.

Mattisyahu: The guy in the Book of Maccabees who kickstarts the revolt.

At the time of the wedding feast, all of the great Jewish men were gathered.... And when everyone was sitting down to eat, Ḥannah, the daughter of Matityahu [who was the bride], stood up and clapped her hands and tore off her royal garment and stood before all of the Jewish people, revealed [naked] before her father and her mother and her groom!

When her brothers saw this, they were embarrassed, and they stood to kill her. She said,

“Listen, my brothers and uncles! So what — I stand naked before you righteous men with no sexual transgression and you get all incensed?! And you’re not becoming incensed about sending me into the hands of a Greek man who will abuse me!?!?!

A young woman– possibly a teen girl or younger (given marriage back then)–

bares herself, unashamed,

and reminds the people who've helped normalize all this fascism,

who're feasting like everything's fine

that she is to be handed over to horrific men who will assault her.

Because those men have power. Because they can.

And that there's absolutely nothing normal, nothing OK about any of this.

She declares, with her whole self, that they must stop and look up.

(I don't need to spell out this already pretty explicit metaphor, do I?)

Hannah gives her testimony, speaks truth without embarrassment, and demands, as the great Gisèle Pelicot put it, that

"Shame must change sides."

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“Epiphany”, Karen Cusolito, 2007. Mild and salvage steel, lit on fire. (Steel sculpture of a female figure with shoulder-length hair, from the side, photo cropped mid-thigh; her arms are outstretched before her. There are flames running from her legs all the way up her torso and climbing up her arms.)

Rather, she cries, standing naked before the whole wedding,

"You’ve got something to learn from Shimon and Levi, the brothers of Dinah, who were just two men who became incensed/vengeful on behalf of their sister [after she was harmed] and ... God helped them and they were not destroyed. And YOU are five brothers... and you all, youth of the priesthood, are more than 200 men! Put your faith in the divine and God will help you.”

In other words:

Get up. Get out of freeze state. Find that anger again, let it help you do something. This horror against people who aren't you who are being harmed (against girls and women, if you want to be specific!) matters, and it should be enough to rouse you from your comfort and your feasts.

And, moreover, "Put faith in God," means not, "Sit around on your tush waiting for a magic sign," but, rather,

"Take action and trust that there's life on the other side of your terror."

We, the readers, might occupy various roles in this story (or various roles at various points) but it's undeniable that many parts of this may be... relatable.

Most of us– all of us, really, unless you live off the grid entirely, probably– haven't had doors on our houses in years.

That "terror, night and day"–day in and day out for years and years, as the Jews in this story experienced it, too, in their way –it all takes a toll. On the psyche, on the heart, on overall capacity. On the endocrine system, which gets fried from so much adrenaline and cortisol after so many rounds of ... everything.

We have to trust that if we show up, really show up – not just for the one march that one time, but routinely, as a discipline, like it really matters, because it does, for all of us – there is more of the story that can be written.

Some of us, some or all of the time, might also be those on the front lines of harm, feeling like all we're doing is screaming for others to get up from the feast and take action. When it's safe to (as it was for Hannah, in that moment), sometimes getting vulnerable (and angry! and being right!) might be a path. But staying safe is always the first priority. Always.

As it happens, Hannah lit a spark, and (according to the midrash) kickstarted the rebellion among everyone at the wedding– she's regarded as another Hanukah heroine, in addition to Judith.

(Image of a gigantic column of fire coming off of a long metal torch-like object.)(

Historically speaking, here's what happened, because this is useful, too: After an initial skirmish, the Maccabees ran for the hills and, were soon engaged in all-out warfare with the massive Seleucid army.

They were outnumbered and underarmed; many of the Maccabean soldiers didn’t even have swords and armor. But they knew the terrain better; they were light, quick and mobile, relied on ambush techniques and tactical skill. Slowly, painstakingly, they beat back the Seleucids and eventually gained their freedom.

Just like every whistle, costume and city council meeting against ICE; every student movement against university capitulation; every airport official, foundation and local government that pushes back against the administration's agenda, every act of communal solidarity, every legislative victory and sign of electoral energy changing have begun to do.

Never not gonna use this image, given any excuse. (Image of a protester in a frog costume staring down a bunch of Federal agents, ICE agents, and probably Portland Police.)

Things are moving. In fact, as Erica Chenoweth and their colleagues at Harvard's Nonviolent Action Lab recently concluded,

Protests in 2025 have reached a wider swath of the United States than at any other point on record. And the geographic reach of protest activity... has remained remarkably high throughout the year.

The miracle of Hanukkah is that, against all odds, idealists were brave enough to take on a repressive regime.

Their smart thinking and intimate knowledge of their own country was enough to outmaneuver a government bent on maintaining power through force.

And even if our next move probably isn't, "go hide in caves," we do already know a lot of the right things to do. We must listen to Hannah, to all the Hannahs. We must be, bravely, Hannah, when it's our turn, we must be her brothers who listen, we must be her father who leverages his position, we must be everyone at that wedding if and when it's our turn.

We can and must trust that when we take action, there will be more to the story for us, too.

Burn big, friends.

❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥

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HANUKAH'S GREATEST HITS:

We've talked about bravely facing the painful history of Hanukah from one historical / contemporary angle:

Bravely Facing Truth

On History, Heroes, and What’s Possible

Life is a Sacred TextRabbi Danya Ruttenberg

We've talked about integrating the history of the holiday so that we can get to a more adult relationship with that story, this holiday, and religion in general:

Hanukah and Adult Faith

Moving Past Two-Mindedness

Life is a Sacred TextRabbi Danya Ruttenberg

We've reveled in the story of Judith, her multi-use snack bag, and her sharp, borrowed sword:

Beware of Confident Women with Swords

A Tale of Beheadings and Cheese

Life is a Sacred TextRabbi Danya Ruttenberg

And seen how she's manifested in art and poetry over the centuries and across cultures, including in a riveting Bēowulf-era Old English epic:

Jude-Art

The Book of Judith, interpreted across the ages

Life is a Sacred TextRabbi Danya Ruttenberg

And we've traced the origin of the oil miracle story:

Oil Miracles and Textual Puzzles

Space to say true things, with ancient stories serving as mirrors and lights. Now living at LifeIsASacredText.com 🌱

Life is a Sacred TextRabbi Danya Ruttenberg

ALSO NOT UNRELATED:

THE GOOD TROUBLE CHECKLIST

keep all your shenanigans in one place

Life is a Sacred TextRabbi Danya Ruttenberg

On Organizing

time to level up / an early draft of a playbook

Life is a Sacred TextRabbi Danya Ruttenberg

Very Pedantic Translation Note: I used the slightly anachronistic "Jews" to translate "B'nei Yisrael"/children of Israe in today's midrash; if you want to get reaaally technical, "Jew" wasn't a concept until after exactly the revolt that we're discussing here, as Professor Shaye Cohen discusses in The Beginnings of Jewishness. Nonetheless, "Israelite" could be too easily confused with someone from the geographic region (and that's anachronistic; we're talking about religion/peoplehood), and re: "people of Israel" and variants, it can read clunky and every once in a while someone shows up who gets confused about the nation-state founded in 1948 after the ancient community of people and it's just not worth the hassle. "Jews" is easier for a wider audence and functionally communicates the same thing.

Support independent work committed to telling inconvenient truths

(and offering persnickety footnotes as needed):

This article was downloaded from https://www.lifeisasacredtext.com/moral-kindling/ on Jan 8, 2026 at 7:21 AM EST.

RABBI DANYA RUTTENBERG | DEC 11, 2025, 9:30 AM EST

8 Hanukah Traditions + Bonus Goodies

that you might not know about

This is Life as a Sacred Text 🌱, an everybody-celebrating, justice-centered voyage into ancient stories that can illuminate our own lives. It‘s run on a nonprofit, so it’s 100% NAZI FREE. More about the project here, and to subscribe, go here:

Almost-Hanukah sameach!! The first night of Hanukah begins Sunday night! And Advent blessings to all of you celebrating!

I thought it could be fun to share eight (okayyy: ten) groovy (and lesser-known) Hanukah traditions and treats; the Jewish people are expansive and global, and there are so many faces to everything we do.

1) There's a tradition of the Sephardic Jews (the descendants of those expelled from Spain in 1492) who settled in Aleppo to light an additional shamash (helper candle, the one that lights all the other ones) on Hanukah as a sign of gratitude.

(Lighting an additional shamash could be a practice of solidarity with refugees worldwide, honoring their search for shelter and peace.)

2) Here's a probably-new-to-you banger by Albert Rouimi, the Jewish Algerian musician who went by Blond Blond, a reference to his Albinism. Blond Blond was born in Algeria in 1919, spent some years back and forth between Algeria and Paris in the 30s and 40s (avoiding the Vichy years), and pioneered the Francarabe style, a mixture of French chansons and Arabic chaabi. As in other songs, he switches between languages and styles seamlessly. As I understand it, there are a lot of puns and wordplays here– maybe one of you can help?

Here's "El Bonco – Hannouka":

This article was downloaded from https://www.lifeisasacredtext.com/hanukah8/ on Jan 8, 2026 at 7:21 AM EST.

Table of Contents

Life is a Sacred Text: 2026 Jan 1

All articles

three rabbis and a minister walk into a Q&A

Good Things

animal farm

Ask the Rabbis! (subscriber only)

Moral Kindling

8 Hanukah Traditions + Bonus Goodies