![]() ![]() International Institute for Secular Humanistic Judaism.I do not have any control over the appearance of advertisements herein, and I do not endorse any product or service that may appear in those advertisements. The opinions expressed here are entirely my own they do not reflect the opinions of any organization or entity. And if you share the text on your own blog, Facebook page, Twitter tweet stream, printed publication, or any other way, please make sure to credit the source. So, feel free to use one of these if you like. ![]() I may keep rolling with one of these two for each night of Hanukkah, because they catch some of the humanism I really want to convey: that it’s the work of people that brought us to our present day, and the work of people that–for good or ill–made Hanukkah what it was then and what it is now, in all its forms. It fixes the Hebrew a bit–I can claim a bit more of the grammatical grace that goes with poetry–but rolls off the tongue less smoothly in Hebrew and English. Transliterated: Baruch kol gibur, ve-chol chacham, ve-chol maskil, ve-chol am yisrael, shehecheyanu ve-kiyemanu, ve-higiyanu lizman ha-ze. ![]() I’m considering changing the text to:īlessed is every hero, every sage, every enlightened person, and all the people Israel, who have given us life, sustained us, and brought us to this day. But I’m not typing it here, because I’m still debating whether I’m happy with the grammar of the thing–I want to keep the formulaic end of the original shehecheyanu, which really rolls off the tongue for me at this point, but the Hebrew is problematic as originally composed. Here’s what we used last night:īlessed are the heroes, the sages, the enlightened ones, and all the people Israel, who have given us life, sustained us, and brought us to this day. I wanted to keep some of the specialness of the shehecheyanu blessing, but have a humanistic text that captured not only the distinction of the first night, but also the humanistic focus I hoped to convey for the holiday. And I wasn’t so in love with the existing alternatives, so I rolled my own. If you’re not familiar with humanism, you’ll see what I mean when you compare to what I actually used. If you’re a humanist, you see the problem–those aren’t humanist at all, since the focus is on a theistic view of the world. (The second of those, the shehecheyanu, is generally only recited on the first night of any given holiday and on certain special occasions it’s named for the first Hebrew word that composes the non-formulaic part of the blessing, “who gave us life.”) The traditional theistic ones are:īlessed are you, Lord our god, king of the universe, who performed miracles for our ancestors in their days down to our own time īlessed are you, Lord our god, king of the universe, who gave us life and sustained us and brought us to this day. I wanted a blessing that would replace the traditional second and third blessings used on Hanukkah. You can order a copy from SHJ, Amazon, and elsewhere.) (You can find this numerous places on the Web and in print, including Rabbi Wine’s book, Celebration: A Ceremonial and Philosophic Guide for Humanists and Humanistic Jews, which has a number of humanistic options for Jewish celebrations. Transliterated: Baruch ha-or ba-loam, baruch ha-or ba-adam, baruch ha-or ba-Chanukah. The first is the well-used one composed by Rabbi Sherwin Wine, founder of the Society for Humanistic Judaism: “Blessed is light in the world Blessed is the light in humanity Blessed is the light of Hanukkah.” The Hebrew is: There are established alternatives within the movement, and we used two blessings last night for the Hanukkah candles. I point this out because it has implications for what one says on holidays and in other liturgical contexts If you follow that guidepost of Secular Humanistic Judaism, the traditional blessings for Hanukkah won’t do. In Secular Humanistic Judaism, we put a premium on saying what you mean and meaning what you say when it comes to liturgy. Also, see other Hanukkah posts here, here, and here.) If you observe errors or have questions, please feel free to drop a comment below. (Note: updated 12/21/14 to add vocalized Hebrew and transliterations. Our menorah for the first night of Hanukkah
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