THE TEACHERS' INSTITUTE OF THE HEBREW UNION COLLEGE, CINCINNATI HE HANUKKAH FESTIVAL OUTLINE OF LESSONS FOR TEACHERS BY RABBI LOUIS GROSSMANN, D. D. PRINCIPAL OF THE TEACHERS' INSTITUTE -pn CINCINNATI THE TEACHERS' INSTITUTE OF THE HEBREW UNION COLLEGE 1914 THE TEACHERS 7 INSTITUTE OF THE HEBREW UNION COLLEGE, CINCINNATI THE HANUKKAH FESTIVAL OUTLINE OF LESSONS FOR TEACHERS BY RABBI LOUIS GROSSMANN, D. D. PRINCIPAL, OF THE TEACHERS' INSTITUTE im *z-y -ly:? -pn CINCINNATI THE TEACHERS' INSTITUTE OF THE HEBREW UNION COLLEGE 1914 PREFACE. THESE Outlines are designed for teachers in Jewish Religious Schools. They are suggestions as to the aims which the teachers should have in the presentation of the lessons on Hanukkah. The chief condition for a correctly con- structed lesson is that it be clear in purpose. Our schools would be more effective and the pupils would take a heartier share in the work, if it were made definite for them. In view of the principle that Religious Edu- cation must proceed on the same lines as Secu- lar Education (a principle which I wish to maintain most emphatically) the Grades designated in these Lessons are Grades of the Public School. The classes in the Religious School should always go parallel with the same classes of the Public School. There must be unity in the child's educa- tional life. This unity enables teachers of both kinds of schools to see that they have an equal bearing upon the child's development and gives to the child an equal valuation and respect for both. We shall have clearness in Religious 2097080 PREFACE. Education just as soon as we shall have given it the relation it ought to have with general education. These Lessons on Hanukkah follow the periods of growth of the child in the direction of responsibility, loyalty, and character, with the aim to enlighten, cultivate and strengthen them. The story and tradition on which the Hanukkah festival is based not only fascinate Jewish children, but also will always be dear to Jewish men and women. Louis GROSSMANN. CINCINNATI, Oct. 1, 1914. CONTENTS. PAGE Introduction ; ^ . . 5 Grades One and Two 13 Grades Three and Four 18 Grades Five and Six 22 Grades Seven and Eight 25 The Adolescent Class 31 References 33 "Benedictions" 35 LESSONS OF THE HANUKKAH FESTIVAL. INTRODUCTION. THE usual lesson-content of Hanukkah is Patriotism. But that is intelligible and practicable with pupils of an advanced age only. Patriotism is a social feeling of a developed character. The Festival is also made to yield the lesson of Loyalty to Faith. But Faith is an abstraction which children can neither grasp nor hold. Children are not able to think so abstract a subject as Faith and can have no strong feel- ings about it. Both interpretations mean nothing unless they appeal to will-power. Patriotism and Loyalty to Faith are adult- qualities for which children have merely rudi- mentary capacities. If Hanukkah is a Children's Holiday, it must have a child-significance. It must, by the interpretation of the teacher, make a contribution toward the religious and moral growth of the child. 6 HANUKKAH FESTIVAL. , All Children's Holidays must have educa-. tional significance. And in each grade of the school-life it must get a distinctive interpretation. A holiday too is a lesson, a lesson addressed to the type of child-life represented in the class. We must adjust our treatment to the child- hood we deal with. Each grade must be con- sidered with relevance to the demand it has for moral and religious growth. If we treat Hanukkah as a mere entertain-* ment, we despoil it of its significance. For everything in the School must have educational value, or else it should have no place in it. And a lesson must be presented from the point of view of the needs of the child for which it is meant, or else it is irrelevant and futile. It should not be forgotten that the Hanuk- kah Festival is a Winter Festival. Perhaps it was that already in its origin. At any rate, it is celebrated, at least so far as town-life is concerned, when the season of winter is at its height. This co-incidence of the religious with the seasonal aspect of the holiday is far from un- welcome. A connection can be made between the religious and the natural facts of life. And HANUKKAH FESTIVAL. 7 Religion can be shown to have direct bearing upon every-day-life. It is from this point of view that we can best meet the embarrassment we have as to the competition between Hanukkah and Christ- mas. Teachers have laid too much stress on the historical import of Hanukkah and not enough on the seasonal. Much is said of the Re-dedi- cation of the Temple and not enough of the Regeneration of Life. The teacher should make clear the religious significance of Winter, the forethought of God, as it were, for the preservation of life. He should help give the children a religious adjustment to the experiences of winter. Its cold should acquire a right significance. Our urban ways of living have made us undervalue much that is legitimate and necessary in our contact with Nature. The "exchange of gifts" associated with the Hanukkah was originally an intimation of the limitations due to winter restraints and winter hardships and has nothing to do with "charity." To children surely the seasonal relations have a direct import, and they have also a more personal appeal than the historical. Winter also is the busiest season for chil- 8 HANUKKAH FESTIVAL. dren, as it is for most people nowadays. The "cozy home" is really a winter home. And school-life is in the main winter-life. Spring and autumn are mere "ends" of it. There is need for lessons on the moral and religious significance of Winter. And the Hanukkah offers it. Light is a winter symbol. The Good is inextinguishable. It overcomes everything that is hostile to it. The things that are bad must go. The Good remains. Here we have an opportunity to establish confidence in Nature, in the World, in God. Not a philosophic confidence, but a child-trust, a happy confidence. The Lights of the Hanukkah Festival are symbolic. But religious symbolism should have nothing to do with pedagogy. A symbol contains no educational influence. Not only because it is mystic, but also because it gets its significance from the theological side with which child-life is not occupied. But the sym- bol may be regarded as a form of poetry and its subject is a fact of Nature, and that child- hood understands and loves. The subtle appeal of Christmas is not in its theology, but in the poetry of Winter which it implies. In- terest in nature is primordial and the very HANUKKAH FESTIVAL. 9 backbone of religious feeling. It may be that we Jews have neglected it. We have been so metaphysical about our faith. But real life wants to be near to the All-life. If we want to meet the tempting poetry of the Christmas week, we must compete with it not with "entertainments" but with the same poetry which makes it fascinating to the child-soul. We must restore romance and folk- lore to the heart of Jewish childhood. The fear that it will paganize the children is hardly a compliment to the sanity and the clarity which we claim for them and for ourselves. One of the vulnerable points in Jewish life is its lack of romance. Our spirituality is dry. Unless we give buoyancy to our children when they crave it at our hands, they will seek it in novels and theaters where it is rampant and spurious. Ours is the time for thoughtful training of this phase of human nature in our children. Their parents are impotent to respond to it, for they have come out of the sordid Ghetto. Our children must get a fresher intimacy with Nature and the beauties of life. They must learn again the legends of old and feel the sweet dreads and the haunting loves that make everything divine. The Hanukkah Festival signalizes some- 10 HANUKKAH FESTIVAL. thing better than a war and something other than an obstinacy to a creed. It signalizes that life can be maintained, even in the face of death. By man against wrong, as against death by God. God prepares the miracle of resurrection at the end of autumn as He holds His warm hand over bud and blossom to save them against the cold blasts. Watch any twig. Just as there was a resurrection of the Jewish people, as in the Hanukkah story; just so ther? is regeneration of trees and of plants and the farms from beneath snow and ice. But this does not mean that the teacher should talk science. As little as he should talk theology. He should give suggestions by way of nature- legends, and by legends that reflect "rescues" in human experiences. Legends are child- science and they are also child-theologies. There is some folk-lore in the Hanukkah Story. And it is meant for Jewish childhood. The legend of the Cruse of Oil. It points the lesson that each home has a hidden good. It is the love that children and parents have for one another. Or the confidence or the loyalty or trust in God. They share in the noble interests. These refine, strengthen and unite us. The story of Hannah and her sons, provided HANUKKAH FESTIVAL. 11 it is cleared of the gruesome, and made sweet, has its point, not in an exaggerated stiffness as to creed, but in the love of a mother and of children for her, in spite of a bad man. The motive is frequent in child-stories. The Jewish version brings in God, while the others do not. And many of the episodes of the Maccab- bean story can be given the right turn for reli- gious pedagogy, if the teacher has psychological insight and tact. And especially if he uses imagination. Imagination too is true, since it gives value to facts, moral value. Even the progressive increase of the Lights of the Hanukkah Week should be employed as the basis for a lesson, touched by folk-lore sense. Once upon a time some men went into the Temple. It was dark, for bad men had put out the light. And the men did not like it. For they knew God loves the Light and they wanted to make the Temple cheerful, just as their hearts were. And one of the men said: "I am going to light a taper and find my way and when God sees me, He will say to me: Thou hast done well.' ' And he lit his taper and the men stood at the distance, as he went forward to where the Great Altar stood. And some said: "I think I hear God, I hear Him 12 HANUKKAH FESTIVAL. speak." But the others shook their heads and would not go forward to where the first man had gone. But, as they stood there and could not take heart, one of them took a taper and started off after the voice he thought he had heard. And soon the men saw two stand- ing before the Altar of God. And then, one more, seeing two tapers burning, left those that were in the rear hesitating what to do, and went after the Light as he saw it in the dist- ance, and lo, there he stood beside them." And so you can complete the picture. Till when they all stood there, a brave and loyal line of men, there was a great glow of light upon the Altar. This is the religious interpretation. But it can have a domestic interpretation. Through a difference of version. How father brightens the Home, how mother does it in her way and how the boy does, and the girl. But do not make the "moral" obtrusive. The force, and the natural effectiveness of folk-lore lies in the fact that its "moral" is subtle and mere intimation. In a similar manner all the other tales can be utilized. Invest them with the warmth of your imagination. History becomes real to children through the graphic suggestive- ness of imagination. And History becomes a moral influence only by that manner of treat- ment, because it reassumes life. HANUKKAH FESTIVAL. 13 GRADES ONE AND TWO. There can be no such thing as an abstract meaning in a subject taught to children. A subject is designated for definite ends of educa- tion and addressed to children with definite needs. The teacher must get hold of the educa- tional task with a clear purpose to help child- hood in its process of growth. Every phase of child-experience contributes to that, whether it be a casual home-experience, or a devised school-experience. A child is never out of school, we might say, never outside of influence. Its play is a dis- cipline no less than its school-life, and the week-day exercise and the holiday are equally moral influences. In the so-called Kindergar- ten age, therefore, where there is no rigidity and formality in instruction, the traditional conception of holiday has neither point nor application. Every day is a holiday and a free day, and everything the child does is play and not "work." In fact, play is work and work is play. But play is an anticipation of work and work is a suggestion of cheerful and happy employment out of which joy and contentment will come. 14 HANUKKAH FESTIVAL. The fundamental purposes of the Kinder- garten are to supply to the town-child the knowledge and the love of Nature and of na- tural Life which urban life fails to give, and to develop natural sense-capacities for which the same urban life affords no opportunity. Both these have no direct bearing upon the speci- fically moral and religious discipline which the Religious School pursues. Though it is evident that there can be no genuine morality and no real "love" and "awe" of God unless enlight- ened and warmed by an intimacy with God's World. The Kindergarten, we may say, lays the foundations of those virtues which we ex- press by the terms "confidence in God" and "Hope." The more intimately children feel themselves related to all that passes on about them and the surer they are that all things are correct and reliable, the more positive will be their "faith." It is lack of definite knowledge of the essentials of life and a lack of certain in- formation and enlightenment regarding the "Laws of God" that insinuates doubt and dis- trust and skepticism. The adult skeptic is often merely a man whose moral certainties, in their rudimentary form as child-trusts, have either not been established or not enlightened in his early years. The more precise information the HANUKKAH FESTIVAL. 15 child obtains about the elementary phenomena and the more it is induced to dare to be trust- ful in things and men, the richer will be its eventual religiousness. The Hanukkah Festival, being a Festival of Nature and at the same time having historical content, that is conveying the two-fold "trust in God," in what He does every day for the things we see and handle and also for men whom we know and deal with, is peculiarly fitted as an educational subject to bring the les- son of confidence to beginners in life. To be sure, both "Nature" and "History" and "Con- fidence that God does the Right," are subtle notions. But they are in the germ in every child-soul. The child is naively trustful in everybody and everything and its frequent mis- placements of confidence do not in the least disconcert or discourage it. So persistent in virtue is human nature. Hanukkah should be interpreted for the Kindergarten Class as a Lesson in Confidence (not Self-confidence), in Confidence in all that goes on about us. The frown yields to a smile, anger to affec- tion, and wrongs are righted. (The Syrians represent the one, the Israelites the other, as it were) . 16 HANUKKAH FESTIVAL. The Syrians go their way and the Israelites theirs. And the end is, "The Israelites are happy ever after." But all this must be founded not on meaningless beatitudes, but on the convic- tion that it is right to expect the good. The winter is cold and trying, but it brings spring and the flowers. The winter night is dark and long, but when we put up lights which lengthen the day and shorten the night, we have at once cheer. The Maccabbean Story is a picture of life in general. It is not a "historic" incident and the struggle of paganism against monotheism should not be dwelt on now. Judas is merely the trustful and courageous child written large. And Jonathan is another type of child-optimism. Hannah and her chil- dren are the child's mother and its brother and sister. What good child would not do just what its mother wants it to do? The King is the Tempter, and he is more foolish than mean to try to disuade the child from his loyalty. One effective department of Moral Educa- tion is to endorse right instincts. This Child-Confidence is the germ out of which grows the moral character. It makes for optimism, for all those feelings of approach HANUKKAH FESTIVAL. 17 which, in their developed form, we call social, and it prepares in the sphere of religion for certainties of belief. All later character-build- ing in the school and home takes it for granted and must count on it as active in the child. The teacher can help only that child that believes in him, and only those children grow morally whose hearts are open in frank receptiveness. 18 HANUKKAH FESTIVAL. GRADES THREE AND FOUR. In Grades Three and Four the Lesson should refer to the Love of Home. The Maccabbean Story is a Lesson of the Love of Home, what men want to do and are willing to bear, for the sake of the love they have for their own people. Nobody can estrange them from their Home. The bad men (the Syrians) tried it. But they could not. The Home is the place where men and women are contented. There they are happy in one another. And God is there. The Hanukkah Story is now not a Lesson in Loyalty to Monotheism or of faithful adher- ence to the Law of God, but it is a Lesson how men do hard things cheerfully for the sake of their families. In the account there should be no battles and no campaigns, and Judas Maccabbeus is not a war-hero, but just simply a prototype of the child's father, an idealized father (this, of course, without blunt statement). And the father from the point of view of what he does, not according to the sordid standard which the child knows already too well, but from the high standard, what strong deeds, deeds of moral stamina, the father does. HANUKKAH FESTIVAL. 19 And so also as to the nobilities of the mother. So the Story of Hannah. Avoid the bloody martyrdom. Hannah is sure of her boys. The King frightens, coerces them, but the boys can- not be tempted. The "Persecution" can be treated thus : The Jews are happy, and are at work every day and God is pleased, and they are content. They meet in the streets after their work is done, on the Sabbath and on the holidays. And they are friends and they are true to one an- other, and they are peaceful with one another. And sometimes they go, all of them, to the ' House of God, to their Temple, to thank Him for all the good they are enjoying. (Make this idyllic life as graphic as your imagination enables you.) And the mean men come. These do not like to see the people of Israel happy. They do not want to see anybody happy. So they annoy the people. Especially when the Jews are in the Temple, for then they are happiest. So the mean men disturb the Jews while they are praying and singing, and try to stop them and to chase them away. And they try to force the Jews to do wrong. For they know that people who do wrong become unhappy. But the Jews 20 HANUKKAH FESTIVAL. would not do wrong. They said : "We love our homes," and the children said: "We love our fathers and our mothers." And the fathers said : "We love our town and our streets, where we walk to our work and where we meet as we come and go on the Sabbath. And we love one another, because everybody does what is right." And one day the mean men annoyed them again, and the fathers got angry and told them to go and drove them away. And when the mean men saw that the Jews were angry, they became afraid and ran and ran, and never came back. This is about the form the Story should take. In terms of what children see on their own streets and experience in their own lives. Only somewhat idealized. It is the contrast between the ugly, mean facts which children cannot help but observe and the Utopia which children also dream. And Religion, not "politics," should initiate this Utopistic dreaming. And the child- Utopia should be within the moral experiences of child-life. The child should feel the domestic serenities which are the base of all social good. The Hanukkah Lights are home-illumina- tions. The Cruse of Holy Oil may be found in the Home. It is there somewhere. Who will HANUKKAH FESTIVAL. 21 look for it and who will find it? That Light that makes everybody glad is, not Religion, but Religiousness. It typifies, not Faith, but the faithful child. And so with the rest of the Hanukkah Stories. What teacher does not wish there were more of them ! The Home, however, must not be repres- ented, as it usually is, as a place of comfort or parental solicitude and so on. Leave that form of the treatment to a later Grade. This festive occasion demands an emotional form of pres- entation. Stir feeling by way of suggestion. Touch up the emotion, the joyous feeling about the Home, by imagination. There is a time when a virtue is brought home to children not merely as profitable, or desirable, or reason- able, or necessary, or dutiful, but as natural sentimentalism. Once at least, let the child get the enthusiasm direct and warm through its own impulsiveness. In fact, this spontaneous enthusiasm is the best part of the child's love of Home, or else the love and the loyalty would be mere afterthought and would fade out with the changes of life. Hanukkah with its domestic entertainments and family-festivities, is an opportunity for the fostering of loyalties. 22 HANUKKAH FESTIVAL. GRADES FIVE AND SIX. In Grades Five and Six we advance to an- other educational aim. The Lesson is "To do what is right before God and Man." The Story of the Maccabbeans implies moral stamina, loyalty to the Right and respect for the Truth. But this does not mean belief in or assertion of "principles," but the moral habit of being faithful to one's self. It does not involve fidelity to a sect or to a nation. It simply means that the children get the prototype of real honesty and genuine sincerity. Hanukkah is the triumph of men who found it hard to be true, but did remain true despite hardships. True to themselves, true in the face of opposition and temptation. The Story of the Maccabean "orthodoxy" is not a chapter in the history of Religion, and their struggle is not political. It is simply human. The Syrians are not intolerant idolators, and the Jews are not inveterate monotheists and HANUKKAH FESTIVAL. 23 the issue is neither one of theology nor of politics. It is an issue in which honor is at stake. The Jews stand firm because they respect them- selves, because they respect their fathers, be- cause they wish to be worthy of their ancestry. They have a standard and they live up to it. It is very wrong of the Syrians to worry the Jews and to browbeat them. The Jews honor their fathers who are true and conscientious men and want to do what these did. But the Syrians endeavor to divert the Jews from that. And they try desperate things. The Jews were not to hold to what their fathers held and not even to their self-respect. They were not to keep their altars pure nor their bodies clean. The altars were to be soiled by the hog, and they were to eat what they abhor. It is an attack on filial reverence and on personal dignity. The Story of Hannah is a story of how those suffer willingly who want to keep their honor inviolate. Of course, avoid the goriness o^ the original version, which is probably an ancient form of rhetoric merely to make the story impressive. The Cruse of Fine Oil sealed by the High Priest. Real Aristocracy. 24 HANUKKAH FESTIVAL. Avoid the other side Pretentiousness. The Shamash and how he sets all the Lights aglow. Worth and Self-respect are based on what service we render. Not the place, but the man- hood. HANUKKAH FESTIVAL. 25 GRADES SEVEN AND EIGHT. The Lesson for the Seventh and Eighth Grades is Loyalty to kindred. The "People" is merely kindred writ large. The Love of Home grows into Love of the Country, of which the Home is a part. Part in the getting of benefits and part in the mak- ing of them. And loyalty is identification with the com- mon cause. Realizing that we touch one an- other's lives at essential points. Loyalty is not looking within and feeling certain obligations in one's own conscience, but choosing a duty which we ought and can fulfill as members of a large family. It appeals to the larger self, it is the pro- jection of the self into sympathies and, if need be, antipathies and builds up association and co-operation. It is not wrong to establish loyalties and to start up pre-occupations for certain moral ends, in favor of some people ; and it is equally not wrong, on the contrary it is quite human and right, to set the heart sturdily against wrong, and to establish the hate of injustice and immorality. There should be strong, though well-con- trolled emotions on the side of both admiration 26 HANUKKAH FESTIVAL. and disdain. They are healthy feelings in the nature of really moral men. There must come a time to every normal man when he hates the ugly and the wrong just as much as he loves the beautiful and the good. , This is the way to account for "religious" war (such as the War of the Maccabbeans) . Children at this epoch of their moral devel- opment are given to assertiveness, which is not so much obstinacy and conceit as it is an indication that their moral discrimination is sharpening. The Syrians are viewed as enemies of what is valuable to life. They have attacked, not the conscience of worshipers in Palestine, but the culture and the peace of men. Freedom is conceived in the large sense, free to be true, to be helpful, free to be at one's best. Religion and religiousness lapse into the moral field. Confidence in God is equal to confidence in the divine in ourselves. This is Belief. This is Worship. And this was attacked. And this the Maccabbeans de- fended and upheld. Of course, all this must be presented to the pupils with every possible avoidance of abstract terms and argumentation. It is the view-point of the teacher. HANUKKAH FESTIVAL. 27 The co-incidence of Hanukkah with Christ- mas superinduces a problem. It is a question of opportunism rather than of principle. For both pupil and teacher are quite clear that there is an irreconcilable difference between these festivals. It certainly does not help matters to meet the condition by outright condemnation of what is so popular and attractive. The Christ- mas season is altogether non-Christian. Most of it is pagan, and it is the pagan side of the festival that is fascinating to children. But this saving grace of the love of nature and mystery constitutes "paganism" and is a prim- ordial trait of all childhood, and in this Jewish childhood ought not to be an exception. It is this "natural" sense about it that may come to the rescue of the Jewish festival. There are two. ways to bring Hanukkah to its rights. One is to lift it into a significance of its own. But not by spurious imitation of the Christian festival, but rather by giving it a meaning and a form in keeping with its Jewish content and making it so forceful that it will stand out by itself against the foil of a competi- tor. The other way is to give to the Hanukkah Festival that which it lacks, when contrasted with the Christmas, and that which Jewish 28 HANUKKAH FESTIVAL. Childhood has a right to get: an opportunity for the exercise of the normal interest in Nature. This Judaism has neglected and can- not afford any longer to withhold. If our chil- dren are to be well-balanced in moral and reli- gious interests, if they are not to be what their fathers were, merely believers in God and not enthusiastic lovers of God's world, if their in- stincts and impulses and even passions are to be, as they should be, tools' for a normal and well-sustained life, they must be brought face to face with God's Nature. They must learn to love the seasons and see God in them, must see God in snow and storm and the pale light of wintry skies, in summer's sun and clouds and the whispering trees. And in this direction the Hanukkah Festival is full of possibilities. It awaits a restoration and has within itself the means for it: A vigorous story, dramatic incidents, strong personalities, fine home- scenes, abundance of imagery, plenty of tra- ditional customs, home-cheer (witness the "Trendele," etc.), cheerful child-play, (for in- stance, the "hopping over the Hanukkah Lights") and the illumination which has its origin, like the Christmas Tree, in the human interest in the victory of life over death. There is one additional aspect of the Festival HANUKKAH FESTIVAL. 29 which must be considered. Hanukkah is in the main a Home Festival. And that it ought to remain. In these days when business and social life make inroads upon the calm and the in- tegration of the Home, we need a solemn re- minder that the home is the one eternally classic fact of life. In this Christmas was at one time a formidable competitor, but it has ceased to be that since the celebrations have become social and public. And it is in this point that the Jewish teacher has a mission. Modern Judaism needs a Return Homeward. Like the rest of the modern world, the Jew's daily life is tangential, away from his house- hold. It was his domesticity that saved the Jew in ages past, and his gradual lapse from that domestic loyalty is his peril today. It is a serious mistake to reduce Jewish Holidays, such as Hanukkah, to the lower level of school exercises and school-entertainments. The proper place for Jewish festivities is the Home. It is an educational error also to believe that "treats" have any logical connections with the lessons of a Holy Day, or that religious influ- ences go by way of Candies and Gifts. It is association of feeling with the donor that makes a gift valuable. No less with children than with adults. The happiness which is boiled up by the artificial heat of a present boils 30 HANUKKAH FESTIVAL. down just as quickly. Gifts are the incidents but not the center of a holiday. Here a little thought on the part of the parent is in place. As to School Festivals this must be said: They should have connection with the lessons and the work done in the school. There should be a logical relation between them. Any other is a disturbance. And School-Festivals should never crowd out Home-Celebrations. These should have precedence, for Home is the center of all morality, of all religion and of all edu- cation. Conventional Hanukkah School Celebrations are a doubtful good. They are indiscriminate in means, unorganized in plan, and unpointed in purpose. They are meant to bring hap- piness, whereas they pamper only with "sweets" and "treats." They ought, in reality, be the climax of the Lesson, they should create that elation of feeling which it is in the spirit of the festival to bestow. Let each class express its respective festive sense, its child-aspiration in some formal form of worship. In that restore the Melody char- acteristic of the Day. And let the Service of the Day not be routine Prayer and routine Devotion, as of every other day, but crisp and happy and fresh. For the Festival is a Feast and a Joy. HANUKKAH FESTIVAL. 31 THE ADOLESCENT CLASS. The final Lesson in the Story of the Maccab- beans is "Manhood." Stand out and be a man. And use your man- hood not merely for the business of your life, though that is right, but for something which you see with your mind's eye, far ahead of you, and you yourself may not be able to grasp (an ideal). Here each one of the Maccabbean characters comes to his own, the old Matatthias and the simple heroes of Modin, Judas the strong, Jonathan the daring, Simon the suave. Various kinds of moral strength. Heroism need not be pose, nor always dramatic. It is the inner, the self-contained quality which makes heroic strength. It is not good pedagogy to stencil all children with the same moral im- print. Some of the class will take to Judas, some to Jonathan, some to Simon. Each ab- sorbs the moral food he needs. The story is replete with moral varieties. And not only the personalities but also the moral situations of heroism vary. Some are brave in the open field in fight. Some in endur- ance, in piety. Some are loyal in orthodoxy 32 HANUKKAH FESTIVAL. (they would not fight on the Sabbath) . Chil- dren at this age are given to a kind of '"orth- odoxy," to scrupulousness, which, if rightly directed, is capable of contributing much to the development of character. The Hanukkah Lights number eight. Each stands out by iself. And. all are in a line to- gether. So every pupil in the class is a moral personality. The sympathetic and observant teacher will discover wonders of idealisms and of moral ambitions, represented by the pupils of his class. And the Shamash lights the lights. The humblest has his place and his power. Sometimes a man seems insignificant, but there comes an occasion into his life when he evinces moral strength and surprises and de- lights his friends. And the Jew ; he is the Shamash in the Cul- ture of the World. He sets the Light aglow in many places. Thus the teacher may convey graphically the Lesson that each one should and can, if he will, make his life tell. The boy has admirations. That is his finest promise in moral growth. Admiration means taking copy from the worthy. It means emu- HANUKKAH FESTIVAL. 33 lation and effort. It evokes concentration of thought and a moral ambition. Hanukkah offers the occasion and the op- portunity. Judaism should and can be born in the boy as an ardor. It is nothing if it does not become impetuous. The adult Jew is stoical enough. At least youth may have the intoxication of his faith. Admiration is a salutary excitement. Cultivate it. WHAT TO READ. Graetz, History of the Jews, Vol. II. The Apocrypha, Books of the Maccabees. Article "Maccabbees" in the Jewish Encyclo- pedia, Vol. VIII. Montefiore, Bible for Home Reading, Vol. II., pages 718 ff. Abrahams, Jewish Life in the Middle Ages, pages 385 ff. The Function of Light in Life and Culture. The Symbolism of Light in Jewish Ritual, the, Ner Tamid. Winter and its significance in the Economy of Life. The tree and its symbolism. Nature Myths on Winter. 34 HANUKKAH FESTIVAL. Heroism and its moral content. Loyalty and its bearing on Home and on Country. Josiah Royce, Loyalty. The Traditional Prayer Book, Service for Hanukkah. Dembitz, Jewish Services in Synagogue, see art. Hanucca in Index. The Union Prayer Book, Service for Hanuk- kah. The Melody for Hanukkah in article "Maoz Zur" in the Jewish Encyclopedia, Vol. VIII. HANUKKAH FESTIVAL. 85 CHILDREN'S "BENEDICTIONS" AT THE KINDLING OF THE HANUKKAH LIGHTS. 1. This is the smallest of these Lights. It will start all and make them burn. Perhaps you think you are too small to do anything good for others. You can, if you try. 2. I light the first of the Lights. They would not burn, if this would not start them. God gave life to us and we are glad and happy in it only because He gave it to us. 3. I light the second of the Lights, and now two are burning, one like the other. So father and mother are with us, equal in our love. 4. I light the third Light. It stands for me, for I wish to be where my parents are and to be like them as much as I can. 5. I light the fourth Light, and I think of my brother and, may be, you think of your sister. They love us and we love them and we can make life bright for one another. 6. Five Lights are new burning. Two stand for father and mother, two for you and me, and this one is for our teacher, whom God may bless. 80 HANUKKAH FESTIVAL. 7. Six days thou shalt labor ! We do what we can at home and in school. Our parents give us our daily bread and everybody is kind to us. God be thanked for the comforts and joys we have, and for the light which is upon our life. 8. I kindle the seventh Light. Think of the Seventh Day in each week. The Sabbath Day is holy. It is a day of peace. On it we go to God's Temple and thank Him for His kind- ness to us. Into the Temple the Maccabbeans went, after God had helped them. There they praised Him, and so we praise Him, for He helps also us. 9. Eight days long the Lights burned in the homes of our Fathers, and eight days long they rejoiced. One little flask of sacred oil was enough to illumine the Temple and to keep it bright. So each one of us may gladden those with whom we are, and the Light within our heart may make bright all who are about us. 10. May the God of Israel aid us, so that we be faithful to God, to Israel, and to the good people with whom we are. University of Cattjajjjj ^ SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY^ 951 University < Southern Library