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| Bishop Oscar Cantú, Barbie Scharf-Zeldes and Rabbi Samuel M. Stahl at its local lighting.
Carol Baass Sowa | Today's Catholic |
By Carol Baass Sowa
Today's Catholic
SAN ANTONIO • Members of the Catholic and Jewish communities of San Antonio gathered at San Fernando Cathedral’s community center on Dec. 19 to celebrate a unique local tradition — the Seventh Annual Joint Catholic-Jewish Hanukkah Commemoration.
Father Tony Vilano, rector of San Fernando, introduced Archbishop José H. Gomez of the Archdiocese of San Antonio and Cathy Siegel Heins, president of the Jewish Federation of San Antonio, both of whose organizations sponsor this event.
Archbishop Gomez noted, “Each year I look forward to this celebration to come together in friendship and respect to celebrate the happiness of the time. Whenever I meet with leaders of our Jewish community, I recognize how uniquely blessed San Antonio is by our special relationship. This event each year is an inspiration to all of us, as we seek understanding and harmony.”
Said Heins, “As a lifelong resident of San Antonio, I know that our city has been blessed with a long history of special interfaith relations between the Catholic and Jewish communities. How wonderful that our celebration today is in that tradition.”
Following a musical performance of Hanukkah hymns by the Providence High School Choir, Rabbi Emeritus Samuel M. Stahl related that the strong relationship between the two faith communities in San Antonio has extended for several decades, long before Vatican II, and stemmed from the close relationship between Archbishop Robert E. Lucey and Rabbi David Jacobson. He introduced the event’s two speakers, Hazzan Jeremy Lipton of Congregation Agudas Achim and Auxiliary Bishop Oscar Cantú, both new to San Antonio this year.
Lipton thanked Bennett Feinsilber, original organizer of this event with then-cathedral rector Father David Garcia, for his encouragement, as well as that of Bishop Cantú. “This is a season of miracles,” he said, noting that “miracles happen all around us every single day. Life is a miracle; love is a miracle; our faith is a miracle.” He added, “It’s absolutely miraculous to me that I’m standing here in San Antonio at San Fernando Cathedral as shaliach tsibur, a representative of my congregation and my people, and sharing my thoughts with you today.”
He noted that in Hebrew, Hanukkah is Hag Urim, the Festival of Lights, which originated in the second century BCE when the Maccabees, a small band of traditional and observant Jews, were victorious over the Hellenists who had defiled the Holy Temple in Jerusalem. The Maccabees purified and rededicated the temple, which included the lighting of the menorah, a branched candelabrum. According to the Talmud, only enough ritually appropriate oil was found to burn the lamp a single day, but it miraculously burned for eight days. Besides being a military victory, this event is significant in that it brought about a widespread renewal of faith and tradition.
Some, he related, explain Hanukkah as a deferred celebration of the Biblical pilgrimage festivals of Sukkot and Shmini Atzeret — the Festival of Booths and the Eighth Day of Assembly, which were unable to be celebrated during the Temple’s occupation. However we choose to interpret it, he said, Hanukkah “is most certainly a celebration of miracles in the world.” He noted that the children’s game of dreydle, played during Hanukkah, focuses on God’s miracles, as the four-sided dreydle bears Hebrew letters that stand for “A great miracle happened there.”
He pointed out that the communal and historical relationship existing between Judaism and the Catholic Church in San Antonio could also be considered a miracle. His personal introduction came in October during the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, when his new congregation, Agudas Achim, hosted a number of Catholic seminarians, with all engaging in conversations centering around faith, God and service to community. “It was absolutely inspirational,” he said. A few weeks later, he found himself in Archbishop Gomez’ residence, along with other Jewish clergy, Catholic clergy and lay leaders from the community, having a kosher lunch, with the only agenda being focusing on things held in common.
Lipton described this as a natural extension of the two faiths' common history and musico-liturgical traditions, something he is especially aware of as an ordained cantor. Delving into David's song for the Temple dedication, Psalm 30, he pointed out similarities in both versions.
In Judaism, the word hanukkat in the psalm refers to the rededication of the temple and is associated with the holiday of Hanukkah. In the Catholic tradition, this same psalm is used in the liturgy for the dedication of a church and is part of the Holy Saturday liturgy.
He then demonstrated vocally the similarities in the chanting of both versions, adding that in musicological circles it is well known that the oldest music of the Catholic Church, based upon hundreds of years of plainchant tradition, found its roots in the liturgy and music of Judaism, as chanted and facilitated by the priests in the Holy Temple in Jerusalem. In both, he noted, the music is also subservient to the message of the text.
“Like the hanukkiah, the special menorah that we light during the holiday, we are all descendents from one singular, solitary, strong foundational base,” he said, “and branch out in different but balanced and equal directions. Like the branches of the hanukkiah, each of our beautiful traditions holds individual and unique flames that, together, have the potential to illuminate the world around us and bathe humanity in God’s nes, God’s miracle.”
“May Hanukkah’s lights,” he concluded, “illuminate the many miracles that are inseparably part of each and every day: the miracle of faith, the miracle of love and the miracle of life!”
Bishop Cantú began his presentation by noting that it was in December of 2001 that Bennett Feinsilber lit the menorah during a meeting with Pope John Paul II in the Vatican, leading to the present celebration. They were “men from two different faiths, but men with great hope in humanity,” he said.
The bishop then offered a reflection on the images of light in creation and in the Scriptures, by quoting from the opening of the Book of Genesis: “In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless space and darkness covered the abyss, while a mighty wind swept over the waters. Then, God said: ‘Let there be light.’”
This theme of light, he observed, permeates the Sacred Scriptures, both the Hebrew and the New Testament. In the northern hemisphere, the Christmas and Hanukkah seasons coincide with winter, when days grow shorter and nights longer. “The natural world around us goes through a visible transformation,” he said, “that speaks to the depths of our souls. It is a change that speaks to us of life and death, of light and darkness.” There is a certain sadness, as trees lose their leaves and creatures seek refuge from the cold and wind.
He noted the Jesuit poet, Gerard Manley Hopkins, captured this in his poem, “Spring and Fall,” which the bishop then read. Dedicated to a young child, the poem suggests her grief at the trees losing their leaves as actually grief over her own death.
The Genesis text, he said, tells of two obstacles to be overcome at the world’s creation — the darkness and the abyss. These God vanquished in the first three days of creation, as he brought forth light and the waters of the seas. “God scatters the darkness with light,” he said. “He does this as he hovers over the void to establish order where there was chaos, to bring life where there is death.” With mankind’s fall, darkness again entered the world, he explained, and this is still evident in our present time. “We see it in a world of conflict and violence, greed and selfishness,” he said, but still the “breath of God” is there, creating a transformation.
In the Christian tradition, he related, the Gospel of John suggests a new beginning, with Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan echoing the original act of creation and he illustrated this with another of Hopkins’ poems, “God’s Grandeur.” He noted that “our elder brothers and sisters” who light the menorah each day of Hanukkah “participate in that creative work, dispelling darkness with faith and with hope,” just as “we Christians wait on that final night the star rising in the east ... with hope and with joy in the Lord’s promise,” both thus recreating through words and actions: “Let there be light.”
Bennett Feinsilber then gave a brief history of the joint Catholic-Jewish Hanukkah. “We are brought together today under very unique circumstances,” he said. “I know of no other place where Catholics and Jews and people of good will come together to share a Hanukkah ceremony and, in some sense, mutually understand both the religious and historical connections of our faith.”
He recalled that 70 years before, as a boy, he lit the menorah now used in the joint celebration, along with his parents and grandparents, who had brought it with them from a small village in Poland. On Dec. 9, 2001, he brought it with him into the private reception room of Pope John Paul II and spoke with him about the holiday and its significance. He and Jerzy Kluger, a boyhood friend of the pope’s, then said the Hanukkah prayers, lit the candles and were embraced by the Holy Father. “I am told it was the first time in history Hanukkah candle-lighting took place in the Vatican,” said Feinsilber.
This was a break with the past, and Feinsilber saw in it more than the pope’s personal outreach to a few Jews. “His outreach was always unique and all-encompassing,” he said. John Paul’s actions inspired him to build on this example in bringing Jews, Catholics and people of good will closer and enabling them to understand and appreciate their common roots. “We come to God in different ways,” he said, “and yet, from our separate paths, making a commonality.” Pope Benedict XVI has done much to reinforce this, he added.
“For all people, to light a candle is to dispel darkness,” he said. Referring to Mother Teresa’s words, he concluded by saying, “I hope that by coming together in this ceremony, at this season, we can all be as lights, illuminating our community.”