I’m getting a real kick out of celebrating Hanukkah this year.
Not because I’m trying to be trendy or make a point, but because it feels honest. I have only been lighting a menorah the last handful of years, but Jews have always been part of my life. In Chicago, that’s just how it was. You didn’t ask what someone believed first, you asked what neighborhood they were from. You asked them what parish they were in. Edgewater. Rogers Park. St. Edith’s. St. Basil’s. Parish before politics, street before slogans. It was common back in the day to hear a Jewish guy say that he was in Saint Gregory's or Saint Ita's.
When I was a kid in Catholic school, the Bible wasn’t divided by teams. The Old Testament was Judeo. The New Testament was Christian, Judeo-Christian. I honestly thought being Catholic meant you were Jewish too, just later in the story. My old man worked on the railroad with Jewish guys. They came to our house for Christmas parties and we went to their homes for special occasions. The food was unreal and the music sounded familiar. It felt a lot like the German side of my family, big tables, loud voices, history carried in recipes.
So yeah, I’m protective of Jews and supportive of Israel. Enough so that when Israel was attacked and I said so out loud, I lost friends. That told me more about them than me.
Here is the hard part, the part you don’t dodge if you are serious about faith. I carry hatred toward another religion. That is the hard truth and that truth scares me. Because I believe in heaven and I believe in purgatory.
I picture it clear as day... a chain-link fence between me in purgatory and my dad in heaven, and him saying, “Moose, I told you. You needed to get that hate out of your heart.”
That is my hypocrisy.
Loving one people while hating another and I know it.
I once told a priest in confession exactly that. His face froze, but confession isn’t for theater... it is for honesty. If you have a flaw, you name it and then you work on it.
So here I am lighting candles. Letting George say the prayers. On Sunday I will be finishing Hanukkah with neighbors, a menorah by the train station, and a box of sofganiyot from the Jewish bakery. A Riverside tradition that one of the Jewish neighbors has been doing since Covid.
Faith doesn’t accept defeat. It keeps working, it keeps wrestling. Keeps the heart open, even when it is uncomfortable.
The last weekend before Christmas. Last minute shopping and time spent with family and friends.
Believe and astonishment will follow.
