The most famous
Hanukkah song is a lesson in history and theology.
Dr. Ron Wolfson
This well-known Hanukkah song summarizes historical
challenges faced by the Jewish people that have been overcome with God's help.
Yet this joyous song also contains a later addition, a sixth stanza composed
three centuries after the original Maoz Tzur was written. The appearance of
this little-known, rarely-sung stanza poses a challenge to modern Jewish
sensibilities. It is a raw, emotional reaction to persecution faced by the
Jewish community in Christian Europe. While being able to identify with the
emotions that arise out of the historical circumstances, the call for Divine
retribution is foreign to the modern ear. Nonetheless, the theological question
of God’s role in history raised in the last stanza of this song is a question
that is still asked today.
Reprinted with permission from Hanukkah: The Family
Guide to Spiritual Celebration. (Jewish
Lights Publishing).
Maoz Tzur is undoubtedly the most famous of Hanukkah
songs. Composed in the 13th century of the Common Era by a poet only known to
us through the acrostic found in the first letters of the original five stanzas
of the song--Mordecai-- it became the traditional hymn sung after the
candlelighting in Ashkenazi homes. The familiar tune is most probably a
derivation of a German Protestant church hymn or a popular folk song.
Although many
families attempt to sing the first stanza, either in the original Hebrew or in
a not-so-accurate English translation by M. Jastrow and G. Gottheil entitled
"Rock of Ages," the song as it has evolved through the years now
contains six stanzas, the last stanza having been added by an unknown poet
sometime during the 16th century. Unfortunately, due either to the exuberance
of children rushing to open presents or general illiteracy with regard to
Jewish liturgy, Maoz Tzur often gets a token singing at best, with the
vast majority of Hanukkah celebrants quite unaware of its true meaning.
In a fascinating
look at Maoz Tzur, Professor Ismar Schorsch, chancellor of the Jewish
Theological Seminary of America, examined the text of the poem in a penetrating
article entitled "A Meditation on Maoz Zur" (Judaism, fall
1988, pp. 459-64). Explaining that he and his family fled from Germany on the
first day of Hanukkah, 1938, Schorsch says the singing of Maoz Tzur has
always held special significance for him. Yet, he wonders, why was it that
their practice was to sing the first five stanzas and not the later sixth?
The theme of Maoz
Tzur is a familiar one: God's unfailing redemption of the people Israel.
After an opening stanza promising thanksgiving to God now and always, the poet
recalls four moments of Divine intervention in chronological order: Egypt,
Babylonia, Persia, and the Greeks of the Hanukkah story.
It is the sixth stanza that brings Schorsch to his
analysis of the meaning of the poem. In a particularly blunt plea for revenge
against the "wicked kingdom," the poet dares to wish for God to
intervene once more and "vanquish Christianity in the very shadow of the
cross." How could a Jewish poet who knew of the persecutions inflicted on
his people by the Romans and their descendants be ignored at the triumphant
moment of Hanukkah? Yet, the addition of the sixth stanza calls into question
the basic theology of the entire song. If God always redeems his people, why
are we still awaiting the messianic kingdom?
Schorsch turns our
attention to Psalm 31, upon which the opening phrase, "Maoz Tzur" is
based. The second verse of the Psalm reads: "I seek refuge in You, O Lord;
may I never be disappointed; as You are righteous, rescue me." The
midrash, the rabbinic commentary that seeks to expound the simple meaning of
the text, pounces on the word "le'olam"--"never"--andposes one of the most difficult problems for a religious person: how to
reconcile the continuous promise of redemption with the harsh reality of life.
In the midrashic
dialogue between the people Israel and God, Israel asks why, if God's
redemption is everlasting, do we continue to suffer? "To be sure, You have
already redeemed us through Moses, through Joshua, and through some judges and
kings. But we have once again been subjugated and endure degradation as if we
had never been redeemed." God responds that redemption effected through
mere mortals is not true redemption, even if influenced by Divine intention.
The author of the
sixth stanza of Maoz Tzur, reeling from the shock of persecutions and
expulsions, attached his messianic codicil. The previous redemptions, from the
Babylonian exile to the Syrian-Greek oppressions, were of limited duration
because they were mediated by men. The fourth kingdom, Christianity will only
be overcome by God directly.
Schorsch concludes
that "taken together, the two strata of Maoz Tzur blend into a
liturgical reflection on Jewish history--the precariousness of minority
existence, the reality of Divine concern, the consolation of collective memory,
and the rarity of true messianism." He warns us to be careful of
emphasizing the human role of the Hanukkah story and draws a parallel to the
current political situation in Israel. Just as the Maccabees achieved only a
limited "redemption," Schorsch warns that "messianism, properly
understood, leads to political restraint."
The true meaning of Maoz
Tzur serves both to remind us of the harsh divergence between history and
theology and to hold out the promise of ultimate redemption by the hand of God.
Dr. Ron Wolfson is a leading North American Jewish Family
Educator. He is the director of the
Whizin Center for the Jewish Future, co-founder of Synagogue 2000, and vice
president of the University of Judaism.
Excerpts from Hanukkah: The Family Guide to
Spiritual Celebration, by Dr. Ron Wolfson, (c) 2001 by the
Federation of Jewish Men's Clubs (Woodstock, Vt.: Jewish Lights
Publishing). $18.95 + $3.75 s/h. Order by mail or call 800-962-4544 or online
at http://www.jewishlights.com/.Permission
granted by Jewish Lights Publishing, P.O. Box 237, Woodstock, Vt. 05091.
