‘Eight Days of Hanukkah’
How Orrin Hatch came to write a Hanukkah song for Tablet Magazine
Rasheeda Azar, Sen. Orrin Hatch, and Madeline Stone singing 'Eight Days of Hanukkah'
Tablet Magazine
MORE: Watch the “Eight Days of Hanukkah” video.
MORE: Download the “Eight Days of Hanukkah” MP3.
Ten years ago, I visited Orrin Hatch, the senior senator from Utah and a prominent member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, on Capitol Hill. I was writing for The New York Times Magazine and Hatch was thinking of running for president. We talked about politics for a few minutes, and then he said, “Have you heard my love songs?”
No senator had asked me that question before. It turned out that Hatch was a prolific songwriter, not only of love songs, but of Christian spirituals as well. We spent an hour in his office listening to some of his music, a regular Mormon platter party. After five or six Christmas songs, I asked, him, “What about Hanukkah songs? You have any of those?”
I have always felt that the song canon for Hanukkah, a particularly interesting historical holiday, is sparse and uninspiring, in part because Jewish songwriters spend so much time writing Christmas music. Several years earlier, as a columnist for The Jerusalem Post, I sponsored a Write-a-New-Song-for-Hanukkah contest. I received more than 200 entries. Most were dreck. The songs I liked best were the ones uninfected by self-distancing Jewish irony, songs that actually wrestled with the complicated themes of Hanukkah—religious freedom, political extremism, the existence, or non-existence, of an interventionist God—in a more earnest way.
Hatch lit up at my suggestion. He asked me to jot down some possible themes, which I did. Then he got sidetracked by his presidential campaign. (He didn’t win.) Still, time went on, and no song.
I never forgot about it, though. My interest in the Hanukkah story has stayed with me. I’m even writing a biography of Judah Maccabee for Nextbook Press. Last December, while reading From Ezra to the Last of the Maccabees, by Elias Bickerman, my mind wandered back to Orrin Hatch’s promise, and so I reminisced on my Atlantic blog about the time Hatch nearly wrote a Hanukkah song for me. A couple of days later, I received an email that read, “Dear Jeff, I know it’s nine years too late, but I hope you will like some of the following ideas.” What followed were five verses of a sincerely felt Hanukkah song.
I didn’t quite believe it was Hatch writing me, so I wrote back, asking this alleged Hatch to call.
The next night was Christmas Eve, and my family and I were wandering the aisles of the Martinsburg, West Virginia, Wal-Mart. (Don’t ask.) My children had just discovered something miraculous—a display case filled with kosher products. We had never seen this before. I began to deliver a lecture in the kosher food aisle, explaining that what we were seeing was further proof indeed that America is a Promised Land for our people, a place where even the Wal-Mart in Martinsburg, West Virginia, carries Manischewitz matzo-ball mix. It was at this moment that my cell phone rang.
“Jeff, it’s Orrin,” I heard over the phone. “What do you think of the song?” It was, indeed, Hatch. The second miracle of the night.
“Senator Hatch,” I said. “It’s Christmas Eve.”
“Yes, it is!” Hatch replied. “What about the song?”
“Senator,” I said, “I love the song.”
And I do. It’s a delightful thing to have Orrin Hatch write a song for Hanukkah. Of course I appreciate the absurdist quality to this project, but I also deeply appreciate Hatch’s earnestness. His lyrics are not postmodern or cynical, which is a blessing, because I for one have tired of the Adam Sandlerization of Judaism in America. Yes, we are, as a people, funny (at least when compared to other people, such as Croatians) but our neuroses, well-earned though they may be, have caused us to lacerate our own traditions, which are in fact (to borrow from Barack Obama) awesome. The story of Hanukkah is a good case in point—maybe the perfect one.
I also appreciate the song because Hatch’s collaborator, Madeline Stone, has written music that, to borrow this time from Felix Unger, is happy and peppy and bursting with love. And I love the fact that the song’s producer, Peter Bliss, hired a delightful singer named Rasheeda Azar, who was not only a back-up vocalist for Paula Abdul (Jew) and Janet Jackson (not a Jew) but is a Syrian-American from Terre Haute, Indiana. Rasheeda’s participation closes a circle of sorts, since the Syrian King Antiochus was, of course, the antagonist in the story of the Maccabean revolt.
And so it was a very American day in a recording studio on West 54th Street in Manhattan when we gathered to hear Rasheeda sing. In one small room were Bliss; Madeline Stone, a Jewish songwriter who writes contemporary Christian music in Nashville; a crew of downtown Jews from Tablet Magazine; Hatch’s chief of staff, Jace Johnson, who didn’t seem to know exactly what he was doing there, but was very nice about the whole episode; and Hatch himself, who sang background vocals and even showed us the mezuzah he wears under his shirt. Hatch, like many Mormons, is something of a philo-Semite, and though he is under no illusions about Jewish political leanings in America—he told me that though he likes Barbra Streisand very much, he’s fairly sure she doesn’t like him—he possesses a heartfelt desire to reach out to Jews.
Hatch said he hoped his song would be understood not only as a gift to the Jewish people but that it would help bring secular Jews to a better understanding of their own holiday. “I know a lot of Jewish people that don’t know what Hanukkah means,” he said. Jewish people, he said, should “take a look at it and realize the miracle that’s being commemorated here. It’s more than a miracle; it’s the solidification of the Jewish people.”
He’s right. Without Judah Maccabee’s militant intervention in 167 BCE, the Syrian program of forced Hellenization might have brought about a premature end to the Jewish story. But, for such a pivotal figure, Judah Maccabee is one of the more misunderstood leaders in Jewish history. He was not, for one thing, a paragon of tolerance. One of contradictions of Hanukkah—an unexplored contradiction in our culture’s anodyne understanding of the holiday—is that the Maccabee brothers were fighting not for the principle of religious freedom but only for their own particular religion’s freedom. Their understanding of liberty did not extend even—or especially—to the Hellenized Jews of Israel’s coastal plains. The Maccabees were rough Jews from the hill country of Judea. They would be amused, if they were capable of amusement, to learn that their revolt would one day be remembered as a struggle for a universal civil right.
But Hanukkah doesn’t belong simply to Judah Maccabee. Each generation finds new meanings in this holiday. The Zionist revolution, for instance, led to a revolution in the way the story of the Maccabees—previously a source of ambivalence in the Diaspora—was interpreted. And of course, the Hanukkah story doesn’t belong merely to Jews. Judah Maccabee is a hero to many Christians: If there had been no Judah, Judaism might have disappeared; no Judah and no Judaism would have meant no Jesus.
And no Judah would have meant no Mormon senator in a studio with an Arab singer and a bunch of New York Jewish background vocalists recording a Hanukkah song of his own making. To my mind, at least, this counts as a minor American miracle.
MORE: Watch the “Eight Days of Hanukkah” video.
MORE: Download the “Eight Days of Hanukkah” MP3.
Jeffrey Goldberg is a national correspondent for The Atlantic. He is at work on a book about Judah Maccabee for the Nextbook Press Jewish Encounters series.
I have to agree with Sarah, I am not Jewish or Mormon, But after sitting here and reading the post from both side in a way it seems like you are trying to do the right thing. but, to me it seems like a way of forcing your religion still after the fact that they have pasted and most Jewish people do not like it. I have talked with my aunt and uncle who are Jewish and they feel the same way. I look at it like every week growing up and the Mormons would go door to door over and over even after you tell them no thanks. i have talked with many Mormons from around the world but when my best friend decide to join the church they basically stopped him from talking or being around his old friends, and i really talk offence to that like they think they are better then most people. And for Sen. Hatch i think it just was way to get the Jewish Community on his side for when it comes time for voting. I am not a really religious person but when people try to make X-Mas song in rap form i think that is distasteful.. I am sorry if I have offend anyone that was not my intention…
Clearly there is nothing Orin Hatch could do, including doing nothing, that would quell the kvetches.
Scott Abraham, you’re a fool. Chanukah is an extremely important holiday. Just look at what the Kabbalists say about it. It represents why we as Jews and all of humanity were created. To bring light to the world – to repair the world. That isn’t “very minor” to me. Senator Hatch is a true hero. He stands up for the moral values revealed in the Torah. He also stands up for liberty and against socialism. May God bless and keep him.
I don’t understand why someone would be upset because another person wanted to do something nice for them.
Whether you like the song or not, Sen. Hatch tried to do something nice
Don’t worry about posthumous baptisms. There is no magic in the water (although I’m sure Catholics would disagree with me). A baptism is a ceremony that is meaningless without vows, either by the individual being baptized or by the parents on a child’s behalf. Not very likely that someone who is dead could be making vows. Even in the case of the parents making the vows on behalf of the child, those vows need to be confirmed by that child once they reach adulthood (as seen by the church – usually around 13). A Mormon who is attempting to baptize Jews after death is wasting time and displaying their own ignorance.
WONDERFUL replies, to a wonderful post! (So sane, compared with most comments!) I am a (deep) believer in God, but, I am neither Jew nor Mormon (nor Christian, I might add). I identify deeply with Jews, but, sorry, not at all with Mormons. But having said that, bless Senator Hatch! And bless another Mormon, who, as I recall, who contributed $1,000,000 to our DC Holocaust memorial. Bless that person! And also, bless that poor guard, who was killed by a pathetic idiot killer.
Alright, whoever said that Hatch is trying to get the Jews on his side for voting didn’t realize that we are talking about Utah. Being from there, I’m positive that he’d win without the Jewish vote considering 75% of the state is Mormon. Why do we always assume there’s an ulterior motive when people do something nice?
I wan not just implying that running for state. (of course he has that) but maybe I don’t for president if he was ever to. Or something else.
From where I stand politician most of they time do something nice in return for something else. At least that is the way I see it.
I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This article was sent to me by a very dear friend, who happens to be Jewish. We have had many long discussions involving religion and have found the similarities in our faiths far out weigh the differences. I am deeply saddened by the number of comments here which insult, belittle, and demean the LDS Church and our beliefs. I would never tell another person their faith is wrong, or they do not know “the truth” about their own church and its practices. Mormons hold a deep respect for all faiths. Ruth, I would ask you to learn a little more about us before making such hateful remarks. Tom, I am a convert to the LDS Church and know firsthand the Church does not in any way prohibit new members from continuing previous relationships; in fact, such interaction is encouraged. Perhaps you and your friend simply grew apart? I am grateful to my friend for sending this article to me. It has meaning on so many levels. I deeply respect her beliefs as she does mine. It would be wonderful if we would all do the same. I have said to my friend, on many occasions, she is one of the most Christian people I know, and she has sincerely accepted this as the compliment it is meant to be and in the spirit in which it is intended. For those who believe we seek to “impose” our beliefs on others the eleventh Article of Faith of the LDS Church states: “We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty G*d according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may.” (I have edited the name of our most holy Heavenly Father in deference to the Jewish belief the name is too sacred to be uttered.) We all have so much in common. Why must we focus on the differences? Why must the persecution of both faiths continue? Don’t both faiths teach us to love and support our neighbor?
Danielle, thank you for showing a loving attitude, as we’ve been taught to do, in clarifying what we as Mormons believe vis-a-vis baptisms for the dead, having friendships with non-members, etc.
I also would like to say that our faith contains the utmost respect for others, maybe even especially Jewish people. I’ve had personal interaction with Senator Hatch, and while he may think a little highly of himself (and, I think, be wrong more often than he is right politically), he is nothing but sincere in (a) his respect and admiration for others, and (b) his desire to do what he believes is right . Happy Hanukkah!
Quite aside from the Jewish politics of this and the Orrin Hatch politics and the Maccabean politics, I think it sad that Jeffrey Goldberg finds “the song canon for Hanukkah . . . sparse and uninspiring”. It is nothing of the kind — though, indeed, many Jews think it is — which is why I give entire lecture/ presentations on old and new music for Chanukah, from various eras and in a wide variety of styles. I invite readers to check out my Jewish music lecture offerings at http://www.rlcwordsandmusic.net/music/jewish-music-lectures — and invite me to speak!
To our Mormon friends; I am ashamed of the intemperate and frankly prejudiced comments posted by some here who probably think they are “open minded” and “liberal” when in factthey are intolrent of all except there like minded left and genreally anti-religious cronies.
Most Orthodox or traditional Jews feel admiration and kinship to Mormons because of the shared lifestyle,religious values and devotion to Scripture.
It is ironic that it is mostly those Jews who do not believe in the afterlife who are offended by post-death baptism. Frankly,I am not offended, since my faith does not recognize these acts as having any value.
G-d bless Senator Hatch and the people of the Moromon faith, for being true friend of Israel, the Jewish people, and the United States of America.
Happy Chanukah to all
As an active Mormon, let me say that I love the Jewish people. Please forgive us if we’ve done you wrong–we won’t ever be perfect, but we’ll try, and are trying, to correct past practices that might have offended you. We admire your culture and traditions. Respect for the Jewish people is inherent to our religion as anyone who has ever read the Book of Mormon knows. Happy Chanukah to all.
Interesting comments. I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (in other words, I’m a Mormon).
I am saddened that there has been so much hurt caused over the baptisms performed posthumously for Jewish victims of the Holocaust. I can understand that some Jewish people feel hurt because the memories of their loved ones have been misused. Like others have said though, no harm was meant. I know this to be a fact. I happened to know the woman who started all the problem with baptizing for Jews who have died.
I met Wilma in 1990 when she was in her 80’s. She had had a hard life, and had one great joy in her life–she love Jesus Christ and what He had done for her. She felt the Jews had also had a hard life, and she wished to share what she had with those who had already passed away. One day, when I was talking with her (abt 1990), she told me what she had been doing. On her own, she had gone to the library and sought out the names of hundreds (and probably even thousands) of Jews in hopes of giving their spirits comfort. She had been doing this for several years as a quiet gift to them.
I, on the other hand, was greatly concerned. Not because somebody might find out, but because her practice went against Church policy; no one is to do temple work for those they are not closely linked to. I felt that she was taking upon her something that was not hers to give.
Anyway, I moved shortly after this and I lost touch with Wilma, but I know that she was not acting under the direction of the LDS Church in any capacity, nor was she doing anything to purposely harm anyone. From what I could tell, she seemed genuinely pleased with the gift she was giving.
As an aside, I am grateful my children’s Jewish grandparents, are open minded enough to accept my children without resentment for slights that have been unintentionally caused by members of my church. I am grateful for generous minded people.
Those who attack Senator hatch for not supporitng the current health care legislation (regardless of what is actually in the bill), please remember that Hatch and Ted Kennedy were the authors of the law that provides health care for children in low-income families. Back when Republicans were in control of the Senate, Hatch helped bring a lot of social welfare legislation to fruition, though Democrats as a body seem to have a very short memory and no apparent sense of gratitude for the help he gave. He also disagreed with President Bush about restricting Federal funding for research on using fetal stem cells. but those of you attacking Hatch know nothing about his actual votes or opinions, but just condemn him in an unthinking way for being a Republican (and a Mormon). For those Jews who support Israel, you should know that Hatch has been a supporter of Israeli defense and freedom.
I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. My mother is a Japanese convert to the LDS Church from the Russian Orthodoxy of her family in Japan. In the direct line of my grandfathers in Sweden is a Jew named Abraham who died about 1650. I can assure you that he, along with other ancestors who were Lutheran during their lifetimes, was baptized vicariously by his Mormon descendants. Whether it makes a difference to him depends on (a) whether you believe that he continues to live as a spirit after death and (b) whether, as a spirit, he has decided to accept belief in Jesus as the Messiah, and in the specific authority of the LDS Church as agent of Messiah, as his descendants did in 1896.
Regardless, it may interest you to know that Mormons do NOT believe that a Jew who lived as a just and good person will “go to hell” or suffer any kind of eternal punishment for failure to accept Jesus as the Messiah, in contrast to many other Christian denominations. On the other hand, there are many Christians in the Catholic and Protestant churches who believe in various rationales that a person who died as a Jew can still be “saved” from eternal damnation, in some cases by his spirit accepting Jesus as the Messiah after death, but without the need for baptism, vicarious or otherwise. In other words, there are many Christian churches who believe that my ancestor Abraham may be “saved” as a Jew who has accepted Jesus as Christ, even though they don’t do anything here on earth to specifically assist him in doing so.
Do Jews condemn Christians who believe in such post-mortal evangelism? I have not seen any such condemnations. The only difference from Mormon Christians is that Mormons have themselves baptized on behalf of their dead ancestors (such as my Japanese ancestor Kawai Bunzaburo, who died as a Russian Orthodox member), in order to give those ancestors the choice of accepting Jesus as Messiah or not. If you don’t think Mormons have any special authority from God to do such ordinances, then the ordinances are totally ineffective, and there is no reason to be upset about them. They have no more effect than the prayers of Christians who hope that deceased Jews will accept Jesus as Christ after death, or the belief of other Christians (which Mormons disagree with) that deceased Jews are condemned to eternal torment in Hell. If you don’t accept Jesus as the Messiah, nothing a Christian says or does or prays about to God can affect the eternal condition of your soul or that of your ancestors, whether the Christian thinks your ancestor is in Hell or Heaven.
If you are not interested in the theological issues I have discussed, and your only concern is that you think it is disrespectful to YOU when a Mormon is baptized on behalf of his own Jewish ancestor, then you should reconsider your attitude that you somehow have a superior claim on the deceased than his own descendants have. Mormons don’t research through old archives of birth and death records in order to irritate you. They are looking for their own ancestors, in order to incorporate them into their own eternal family. If you want respect from Mormons for your own belief, perhaps you need to respect their beliefs as well, as articles of faith that are sincere and motivated by goodwill and love for G-d and neighbor.
If it drives you crazy to think that somebody somewhere does not accept your religious beliefs (or political opinions), then you are never going to be able to live peacefully with the diversity of people in the world, most of whom disagree with your own religion (which is true for every person on earth). That is called religious intolerance, and it was practiced by Jews and by Christians and by Muslims at various places when they had the political power to coerce membership in state religions (such as Judea under the Hasmonean dynasty when it conquered its Idumean neighbors, and Catholics in 1492 Spain, and Puritans in early New England, and Muslims under the Taliban). On the other hand, if you are confident enough in your own beliefs that you can allow people who disagree with you about religion to live in peace, then welcome to the pluralistic society called America.
How sad that a guy writes a song for a people and a person he admires, and another guy writes a gracious and well put together article about the whole thing – and other people feel like this is an excuse for them to vent their political and almost misanthropic frustrations on both these guys. What is that? You can’t just say, “Nice effort,” and go do something productive with your time? I have to say this: I know Senator Hatch; I’ve done business with him.
What seems like political grandstanding to you is the real deal: the guy remembers the birthdays of hundreds of people he genuinely admires – and sends them flowers. People who have no semblance of any kind of influence in the world at all. Insignificant people like my kid. The guy is just genuinely nice. But we can’t believe in that, can we?
And he votes his conscience. It’s not a political thing. And you can agree with him or not – it’s a free country because of people like him. People who care about other people and do their best to try to do what’s right. If he fails at this, he fails – but he’s trying to make nice because he really is nice. Laugh at that. How sad for you. I wish I was nice like that.
My,my. When you’d all like to be friends, but just can’t seem to get it together, switch to something you can all agree on. Senator Hatch, is married to a lovely lady. So, if you don’t care for the senator, just say, “But, he has a lovely wife.” As for the Jewish side, “Let us all remember, the Jewish Holy Scriptures are a treasure and a blessing to all the world.” And, the Mormons, well, you can always mention their Mormon Tabernacle choir—that’s world class.
There was one very good bit of advice here, nested among other things. It doesn’t hurt to know your friends. I remember a T-shirt I once saw worn in Israel, “Don’t worry America, I’ve got your back.”
I love the Jews, and the Promise of God to them is everlasting and enormous.
Especially considering that the King of the whole entire world, even the Universe, was born Jewish, the chosen people of God, of the house of David through his mother, and adopted father, and for that reason, when he comes back,
*yes, he is alive, and the first to be so after death* He will sit on his throne in Jerusalem, and the entire world will adore and worship him there. What other man would be accepted of the Jews as the world leader, without any gentile being able to contradict it. Name on. Jesus is a huge honor and blessing not only to the world, but his own Jewish people.
Thank you.
I, like Senator hatch, often feel sorry myself that i was not born Jewish.
Historically, the Jewish people first had to not accept Jesus, for the rest of the world to have the opportunity to hear about him and accept him, for themselves, apart from Judism. Had the Jews accepted it immediately, then any gentile who also accepted it would have to convert to Judism. How does that preserve and remain separate and special the Jewish nation..it doesn’t, it kind of diminishes it. This way, Jewish nation is preserved and the world is saved and honors the Jews. God is enormous, and his knowledge is beyond searching or finding out. Praise be to him for ever and ever.
I hope that Jews of modern day can accept him and go against the Traditions of hating Jesus… it doesnt mean to abandon your culture. It means to accept Excelsius.
Acknowledging Him doesn’t mean to become like the Biblebeating christians. God forbid. Thank you.
ITs our hearts upon which need to be circumsized, and in private, even a closet. but without denying publically the existance of Him as the Messiah of the World. obviously.
Thank you. Love you very much, my brothers and cousins. okay.
@Richard
Exactly WHY should a Mormon adopt Jewish values? I forget. When you go to his house and proselytize him, please ask him?
@rachel
The Mormons stopped doing that years ago and apologized for it.
So, unless you have some evidence for your claim that “Mormons make a practice of baptizing Jews after death in order to save them”, you may wish to apologize before next Yom Kippur — to us, to Sen. Hatch and the Mormon Church.
@arielle
Exactly what makes this an “awful” and “drecky” song? The lyrics? The melody? The performance? Please be specific. I’m not arguing – I just don’t understand.
@Drew Nealski
1) Exactly why is the song “terrible”? The lyrics? The melody? The performance? Please be specific. I’m not arguing – I just don’t understand.
2) In what way, exactly, is this song “the worst sort of political pandering”? Who exactly is he pandering to – the 3000 Jewish voters of Utah? The Jewish voters in the Senate? What makes you say that? Where is that coming from?
Isaiah was right when it was written that only a small remnant of Jews will survive, and when Jesus said, that anyone who choses glory from men or even their own family before Him is not worthy of Him, is correct. And those who deny Jesus, and are ashamed of him in public, likewise will the King be ashamed of THEM before His father, and they be thrown out of eternal life.
You people are looking more for the traditions of your fathers, who killed the prophets, then your own relationship with God. And denying Jesus, you deny God. You have never even known Him, who you say you worship. whitewashed gravestones.
Glad I found your article on google when I was surfing the web. Good STUFF!
much respect to my Jewish brothers