Just doesn’t feel right celebrating Hanukkah this year.

[Anonymous]

Anyone else feeling the same way?

[Anonymous]

No

[Anonymous]

I feel like we have to celebrate and find joy where we can

[Anonymous]

“Zamietchkowski, you are a hundred percent right,” answered the Rabbi. “When I reached the third blessing, I also hesitated and asked myself, what should I do with this blessing? I turned my head in order to ask the Rabbi of Zaner and other distinguished Rabbis who were standing near me if indeed I might recite the blessing. But just as I was turning my head, I noticed that behind me a throng was standing, a large crowd of living Jews, their faces expressing faith, devotion, and deliberation as they were listening to the rite of the kindling of the Chanuka lights. I said to myself, if G-d has such a nation that at times like these, when during the lighting of the Chanuka lights they see in front of them the heaps of bodies of their beloved fathers, brothers, and sons, and death is looking from every corner, if despite all that, they stand in throngs and with devotion listening to the Chanuka blessing “Who performed miracles for our Fathers in days of old, at this season”; indeed I was blessed to see such a people with so much faith and fervor, then I am under a special obligation to recite the third blessing.”

https://ohr.edu/holidays/chanukah/miracles/2835

[Anonymous]

Hannukah is the story of the Jew’s victory over Syrian invaders and forced conversion.

[Anonymous]

No, not feeling that way. Celebrating Hanukkah doesn't have anything to do with supporting nor condemning the state of Israel.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I feel like we have to celebrate and find joy where we can

Agree. That's what's the terrorists want - for us not to be Jewish - so we have to be Jewish.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No, not feeling that way. Celebrating Hanukkah doesn't have anything to do with supporting nor condemning the state of Israel.

+1

Judaism, the culture and religion, is not equal to Israel, the nation-state. They obviously aren not unrelated but they are NOT one and the same. We do no one any favors by confusing the two.

[Anonymous]

No. We upped our decorating, and I'm planning on attending any and all local community gatherings, in addition to our usual family stuff. It's important to attend the local celebrations, to be with community, and not to hide.

It's a holiday about triumph and religious freedom and not assimilating. More important now than ever.

[Anonymous]

Lighting the Chanukah lights is a mitzvah totally independent of anything else (just like all the other 612 mitzvot, though I'll admit I don't regularly perform that many of them). Does it feel wrong to light Shabbat candles? Bless challah? Go to shul?

It's true that Chanukah's substantive content is a little on the nose against the backdrop of a war largely being planned by messianic far-right zealots and provoked by another band of messianic Islamic death cultists, but the holiday is the holiday. If you're Jewish, celebrating the holiday doesn't in any way obligate you to feel one way or the other about anything that's happening in Israel.

(Personally, I'm going to find it pretty bittersweet to celebrate Simchat Torah next year for reasons related to the current war, too, but I'l be going to that, too.)

[Anonymous]

Why are you feeling that way, OP?

We continue to celebrate for others who cannot. Perhaps light an extra menorah in support of those who cannot. Maybe set an extra place at the the table to remember. Include charitable giving in your gifting this year. Make it extra meaningful!

[Anonymous]

I'm struggling with multiple aspects, mainly the dichotomy between friends having lost family members in the war and also having israel committing war crimes. Nothing feels right or fair, nothing feels celebratory.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No, not feeling that way. Celebrating Hanukkah doesn't have anything to do with supporting nor condemning the state of Israel.

+1

Judaism, the culture and religion, is not equal to Israel, the nation-state. They obviously aren not unrelated but they are NOT one and the same. We do no one any favors by confusing the two.

But even if the two were linked (they are NOT), you still wouldn't have to apologize.

All these demands for Jews to naval gaze and self flagellate are played out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No. We upped our decorating, and I'm planning on attending any and all local community gatherings, in addition to our usual family stuff. It's important to attend the local celebrations, to be with community, and not to hide.

It's a holiday about triumph and religious freedom and not assimilating. More important now than ever.

THIS. we all should make it a point to celebrate as much as possible.

[Anonymous]

Is this a troll?

OP didn't say what their problem with Hanukkah is.

Winter solstice isn't taking a year off. History didn't stop being history this year.