On commitment – Christian Today

Jewish academic and Hebrew scholar Irene Lancaster considers what commitment means in Judaism.

In my previous article for Christian Today I discussed the meaning of gratitude. Today, as we approach the 8-day Festival of Chanukah (December 14th-Twenty second) the topic of commitment involves mind.

Chanukah is generally known as the Festival of Rededication and of Lights. We count and add a candle every day, yet another each time, till the ultimate eighth day the room is flooded in lights. These are placed on the window for passersby to witness and rejoice.

According to the Jewish faith, we imagine that by counting the times we develop into accountable to G-d and the community, as we spread enlightenment to the world.

Why did the Jews of Israel, and particularly the Maccabees, get up to and fight against the powerful Syrian Greeks who demanded yet further Hellenization of their small country?
The tiny Jewish population of Israel in 164 BCE  fought not a lot to defeat the Syrians, but quite to retain their Jewish identity and remember who they were.

They were mindful of Abraham’s promise and their covenant with G-d. Therefore they might not eat pork and neither could they allow the Temple to be defiled. 

The Syrians were after their soul and spirit, i.e. after what the Jews were about. Therefore the Jews had no alternative but to withstand and take back control of their religion and lifestyle. To this they were committed. What is commitment. Is it love?

In the 1964 musical, ‘Fiddler on the Roof’, Tevye suddenly asks his wife Golde if she loves him. Golde is stunned and that is how she responds:

‘Do I like You? For 25 years I’ve washed your clothes, cooked your meals, cleaned your home, given you children, milked the cow. After 25 years, why speak about love immediately?’ L

Later, she says, ‘For 25 years I’ve lived with him, fought with him, starved with him; 25 years my bed is his. If that’s not love, what’s?’

I might suggest that this arranged marriage progressively, over time, developed into commitment and that Tevye was having a mid-life crisis! Commitment is greater than just an emotion.

As I write we’re also approaching the 250th anniversary of the birth of Jane Austen (December sixteenth 1775 – July 18th 1817). In a way this quintessentially English creator, who wrote six novels, in addition to quite a lot of poems and prayers, is the epitome of understatement and level-headedness. 

I even have all the time been struck by the title of her first novel, ‘Sense and Sensibility’, written in 1811. As a toddler I wondered what the difference was between sense and sensibility. Both looked as if it would point to the pinnacle quite than the center, to common sense and suppression of feelings and emotion. But later I spotted that, as a result of the French influence, ‘sensibility’ was in those days more akin to sensitivity, feeling and emotion, whereas ‘sense’ represented what we call common sense and reason. 

In her books, Austen was reacting against the gothic novels and romantic fiction of the 18th century. Especially in Germany, their biggest author, Goethe (1749-1832), had caused a sensation along with his ‘Sorrows of Young Werther’ (1774), written a 12 months before Jane’s birth and quickly translated into English. The result was quite a lot of suicides and other types of destructive behaviour, as young men emulated Werther and took his fictional story too seriously. 

This lovelorn publication by Germany’s biggest author, who became a cult figure, was followed immediately by the catastrophe for the British of the American Declaration of Independence (July 4th 1776), the French Revolution of 1789 and the Napoleonic wars during which Jane grew up and witnessed the uncertainty and instability amongst the people. No wonder Jane, within the Regency period, favoured sense over sensibility and admired commitment, loyalty and security over frivolity and flights of fancy. 

At Chanukah we reflect on the immense heroism of a tiny minority who kept the lights burning while throughout them was chaos and mayhem. This tiny minority refused to compromise their covenant with G-d even on pain of death. 

What the Syrian Greeks were demanding was that the Jews must be more comfy on this planet because it is, to develop into ‘one among us’, in other words. The downside was that in becoming ‘one among us’, the Jews would now not be Jews. And this was an excessive amount of to ask. 

The Syrian Greeks didn’t wish to commit genocide. This wasn’t Purim. Many Jews did associate with the Syrian Greeks. Who wouldn’t desire a more comfortable life? But those that demonstrated commitment and bravado, the Maccabees and their followers, were the ancestors of those brave souls who for as much as two years lived within the hell of the Gaza tunnels. These living skeletons hoped against hope and tried to light their makeshift candles at Chanukah, although there have been no windows on Hamas territory. 

No wonder ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ and Jane Austen each advocate commitment over the transient. No wonder Jane Austen continues to be revered as one of the best form of English author in an era long gone.

At this Chanukah time, we are going to light the candles and remember all those quietly brave souls who went to their deaths, not because they were fanatics like their murderers, but because they were committed and due to this fact accountable, committed to the tiny positive actions that make up the material of a life well lived. 

That 0.2% of the worldwide population proceed to have the effect that they’ve goes to indicate that size isn’t every little thing and that tinyism is usually a positive force for good when it stands up for G-d and its beliefs. This tiny people in a tiny land (0.1% of the world’s surface) still survives due to commitment, positivity, and true heroism.

At Chanukah we read the Story of Joseph (Genesis 41-44) accompanied by the Haftorah reading of Zechariah (2:14-4:7). At the tip of his vision (4:6), the prophet states: “‘Not by might, nor by power, but My Spirit,’ says the Lord of Hosts.” For real commitment it’s the spirit that counts and that’s what the Jews have in spades.