Sermon Mikketz “Chanukah: from constraint to Perspective””
Written by Rabbi Nicola Feuchtwang — 27 December 2024
Sometimes the need to include the Hallel psalms in a Shabbat service during a festival can be a challenge. It’s not just that it adds a few minutes to the proceedings. When I have led services in smaller communities and I’m effectively the only singer, I get anxious that my voice may not last. But here, where we have the privilege of a choir, Hallel brings back a thousand memories of festivals in my childhood.
Hallel means thanks or praise, and here at Alyth we use mostly lively tunes which ‘ear-worm’ in my head for the rest of the day. Yet if we look at the words of these psalms, there is a striking range of moods: triumph, confidence, relief, joy, ‘schadenfreud’ (happiness over the misfortune of others), gratitude – and also acknowledgement of fear, depression, loss of hope, deep despair.
The so-called ’full’ festival Hallel comprises 6 psalms, numbers 113-118. On Rosh Chodesh and the middle days of Pesach, certain sections are omitted, yet during Chanukah we are supposed to do the whole lot, each day, including the ‘blue bits’ in our Siddur. Listening to L (our Bar-Mitzvah this morning) thinking about Joseph, one phrase from Hallel resonated strongly with me:
‘Min ha-meitsar….’ This is typically translated: ‘When I was closed in by troubles, God answered me and set me free’[1] or ‘God answered me with deliverance’. For today I would like to offer and alternative translation:
Min ha-meitsar karati Yah – I called on God from a narrow place;
Anani ba–merhav Yah – God’s response was merhav – space, breadth, perhaps perspective’.
And that was what led me to choose the study passage we read earlier.[2]
The study anthologies at the back of the Siddur (and indeed at the back of our new HHD machzorim) are replete not just with ancient wisdom, and more recent philosophy, but also with passages by our own Progressive rabbis – some material they had written for other purposes, and some composed especially during the process of editing the prayer books as they reflected on particular passages in the liturgy which either grabbed them positively, or which bothered them.
Rabbi Larry Tabick’s passage officially takes its theme from the phrase we probably know best from the very beginning of the service, the last few words of Ma Tovu: Aneini be-emet yish-echa – ‘for Your deliverance is sure’. That phrase occurs verbatim in at least 4 different psalms, but I think the sentiment is just as applicable to those phrases in Hallel, and to Joseph himself.
As L pointed out: We don’t always know what is ‘good’ for us.
- That trivial ailment which itself is of no consequence, but leads to the discovery of something more serious which needs treatment.
- The really difficult person, perhaps in a walking group or a classroom – whose presence leads us to bond with others as we work out together how best to deal with the situation…
- The times Joseph spent as a slave and a prisoner – which somehow transformed the spoiled, self-centred young man into a skilled manager, capable of making a positive difference to a vast nation, as well as his own family.
Not only that, but for all Joseph’s willingness to assume agency when that is needed, he is still quite modest about taking credit for his talents – saying to Pharaoh that his ability to interpret dreams is God-given, and later refraining from taking vengeance on his brothers.
L spoke about not knowing when the ‘years of plenty’, the good times, will end, and the imperative, or at least the responsibility, to plan ahead, to prepare, to have some sort of insurance policy.
Yet Jewish tradition also teaches that we have an obligation to enjoy and make the most of what is offered to us while we can. It is even said that in the heavenly court we will have to give account for every positive opportunity which we fail to take up.
I think that the story of Joseph can also teach us this converse. Of course we do not relish the difficult experiences in our own lives or the lives of those we love, but if only we can survive the ‘narrow places’, they may be able give us merhav, perspective, a better appreciation of what is good.
I spoke last night, about having made it past this year’s winter solstice. Tomorrow night, the 5th night of Chanukah, will officially be the darkest night of the year, before the new moon appears at Rosh Chodesh, and the days start to get longer and brighter. As we look to a new month, and a new secular year, let the lights of Chanukah, and the words of Hallel, help us – like Joseph – even during the narrow meitsar times to work for the merhav, the perspective.
Shabbat Shalom, and Chag Chanukah Sameach.
[1] Ps 118:5
[2] Passage by R.Larry Tabick, FoP 2008 p503