We will sing again, Hanukkah edition

Many times over the last year, I have felt the relevance of history and tradition echo in my present. I know I am not alone in this. I know that many of you also felt the fragility of life — like when we experienced the Iranian attack just before Passover last spring. Maybe your family, like mine, shared our awe-struck reverence of our miracle of survival at the seders soon after. Months later, I felt exposed when I sat in my sukkah, making sure I knew the location of the nearest bomb shelter. Now we face our second Hanukkah living under the reality of war, and as I prepare for this holiday that, in part, commemorates the miracle of military victory, I am looking for hope in our history in a way that is more urgent than ever before.

In my search for optimism, I began to explore Maoz Tzur — the traditional piyut, or liturgical poem (the long version) that has verses that weave history together with deep emotional processing of what the Jewish people went through under the Egyptians, the Babylonians, and the Greeks. When I consider those travails in light of the record of miracles that God provided for us, I am stopped in my tracks. It is a fascinating study, incorporating the distress of the Jewish people throughout the historical epochs with a recognition that God alleviated that distress or redeemed it. It implicitly makes the point that for every era of oppression or persecution, there was a salvation to follow. 

It was a lesson I took all the more to heart this week, when I opened my siddur (prayer book) to review it before the holiday. It is part of the Hanukkah soundtrack for me, and so many others whose candlelighting is capped by the traditional tune. And yet, I read it with fresh eyes. 

That’s because I spent the five or so months between Passover and Rosh Hashanah invested in the compiling, writing, editing, and production of an anthology of new prayers, Az Nashir — We Will Sing Again: Women’s Prayers for Our Time of Need (published by The Layers Press, an imprint of The SHVILLI Center). Spearheading the project meant immersing myself, together with my co-editors Rachel Sharansky Danziger and Anne Gordon, in the spiritual, prayerful responses to life in Israel after October 7th, as presented by some 70 Jewish female writers, poets, artists, activists, spiritual leaders, Torah teachers, academics, and masters of the creative expression who contributed their poetry and visual artworks to this collection of prayers.

Delving into all our writer’s words of yearning, praise, mourning, and hope gave me a new appreciation for what may be Hanukkah’s most famous song. The rhyme scheme, the allusions to historical events, the way the story leads the reciter through our history; I had never paid as much attention. But now it was the very crafting of the piyut that caught my attention, especially in the way that it closes with a call for a redemption that has still not come to fruition. 

And just as my processing of Az Nashir, the rich “siddur companion,” as we call it, opened up my perspective on Maoz Tzur, my review of Maoz Tzur prompted me to think about the prayers of Az Nashir afresh, too. 

Like Maoz Tzur, many of the prayers of Az Nashir respond to suffering and pain of what the Jewish people have endured since October 7th. The details are fresh in our collective memories; the deaths of thousands of our brothers and sisters, both civilians and soldiers; the hostages held captive in Gaza; the burden of the hundreds of days of reserve duty on the soldiers — and on their families; living under rocket fire — or evacuating home to avoid living under too much rocket fire. It’s all too much.

I realized that since we collected these timely prayers, I have been living with their words. Every time I recite them, my heart breaks again with the nation’s brokenness, giving utterance to my own needs before God:

Dear God, full of mercy,
I lay my broken yellow-ribboned heart at Your feet…
Have we ever needed a miracle
More than at this moment?”

(Prayer for the Release of Hostages, by Miriam Friedman)

We have not found a way to be whole when we send them away from home…
(Prayer for a Spouse at War, by Yaffy Newman)

How much longer will evil
Be allowed to raise its head?

(How Much Longer? A Grieving Mother’s Prayer, by Liat Jackman, whose son, Ephraim z”l, fell in battle in Gaza)

And then I paused and realized that — as Maoz Tzur does — many of the contributors to Az Nashir captured the gratitude I feel for the welcome miracles that live simultaneously alongside the suffering of this age.

One writer shared with me that her child was saved at the very last moment in the heat of battle. 

Hashem, You answered me the day I called You, Performing open miracles for my children, And for that, I want to say, Todah, Todah, Todah (Thank You).

(A Prayer for When Your Child Is Saved by a Miracle by Nathalie Levy Riess)

I take this lesson of gratitude to heart.

And the era of miracles too.

As a modern rendering of Dayenu reminds me:

How much favor has the Eternal One bestowed upon us! If He had rescued us from the hand of our enemies who were poised to end us, and not given us heroic soldiers, swifter than eagles and mightier than lions…it would have been enough, Dayenu.

(A Song of Praise upon Being Delivered from the Missiles of Our Enemies, 6th of Nisan 5784 by Dr. Yael Ziegler, on the Iranian attack of April 14, 2024, before the Passover holiday)

And in the wake of that same Iran attack, with the promise of another (that came soon after publication, on October 1, 2024):

…His people will turn to Him eternally,
Upon any and every threat from this nation or another,
From grief and fear,
To prayer and faith,
And with hope for a peace that lasts forever.

(A Song of Thanksgiving, by Anne Gordon)

The attempt to integrate the experience of grief and hope, tragedy and miracle is complex, both in its scope and in its inherent challenge. Converting that effort into the language of prayers that speak to and of the Jewish psyche is extraordinary. Moreover, it is humbling — sharing in individuals’ dialogues with the Divine about the new world we are all struggling through.

I am comforted by the holistic nature of these complexities. The contemporary moments of inner battles — and balance — mean that there is no room for a pollyannish attitude. We must reach to God with truth, even when doing so is uncomfortable. I know how well people can articulate their charged feelings in speaking to the Divine, and the full range of our very human experiences belongs in those conversations. It is in that raw honesty, that unfiltered address, that the faith of the liturgical Maoz Tzur stands the test of time; and it is in these newly crafted timely liturgical texts as well.

So much of the Jewish and Israeli experience since October 7th has been clouded by darkness, but as we embark on eight nights of Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights, we turn to the lights of the open miracles that we pray will prove our salvation and the salvation for those who need it most.

With this in mind, the creators of Az Nashir: We Will Sing Again have compiled eight prayers for this holiday of miraculous lights. 

From my own:

During Your holiday of miracles,
We are beseech You to light the way,
Guide us with Your pillar of flame
Show us how to redeem them,

Bring all the captured of Your nation,
Back to the land, home where they belong,
Among their people, who remember Your miracles,
So that we may celebrate Your salvation,
For generations to come.

—

Click here for the free download of the Hanukkah edition (printable).

Click here to order Az Nashir: We Will Sing Again (Israel only)

Click here to order Az Nashir: We Will Sing Again (Amazon for the US)