Last day of Chanukah
Family Stuff, Libertarianism, Pictures and Clips, Privacy, Tseela, Winter
Today was the eighth and last candle of Chanukah, marking the end of the holiday season. I love this time of the year in NY when the city getting decorated and trees are being covered with light.
The controversy following the holiday season almost every year is amusing to me. Both sides lost perspective while trying to enforce their world view; while the debate becomes more ridiculous every year.
Those of you that read my blog often can guess that I would like to minimize the government involvement in one’s life as much as possible. Ideally I wouldn’t want the government involved in education at all. I do not think that the state should have a say in the values we teaching our children. However since public school are the most common education institutes, and they are going to stay for the foreseen future, I’m supporting vigorously the enforcement of the separation of church from state. I would not want my daughter to be forced to pray in school for example. Nevertheless it seems like we are taking this separation into extreme. The separation, and the limitation, meant to force the government (and therefore the school) from forcing religious activities. Nowhere was it meant that children cannot come dressed with the Christmas colors.
The other extreme the demonstrations near wall-mart, protesting the chain decision to greet people these years with “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas” are no less ridiculous. Wall-Mart is not part of the government and therefore can choose to mark the holiday any way they choose too. If they decided not to greet with “Merry Christmas” it is not because of separation of church from state but because they chain think its better business decision.
Having the windows at our apartment facing the Statue of Liberty makes the candle lighting more interesting event. The holiday marks the fight of the Jews to freedom, not only political freedom, but mostly the freedom to worship god in their unique way. The Jews fought for their right not to be integrated into the Hellenic culture, but to stay isolated and, in a way, fundamentalist. Lighting the candles watching the Statue of Liberty emphasized that freedom is what’s make the US special.
Bill Maher summarized the issue very well :
“Oh, it was joyful. I hope you had a Merry Christmas. Yes, Christmas. I hate religion, but all that "holiday" shit is so annoying, every time I hear it I want to go join the priesthood. And I don’t even like kids.”
During the holiday we gave Tseela a present every day, making every candle lighting even more joyful event. Today as the last day of Chanukah we gave her dancing dress – a fairy custom. The happiness of having it was hour holiday gift. More pictures can be found here .
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Rogel @ January 1, 2006