The Dude Abides
Last week, the postal carrier dropped off two boxes from Amazon.com filled with DVDs of Christmas movies. Among them were “Polar Express,” “The Nativity Story,” and two boxed sets of the Rankin/Bass stop-motion animation TV specials I grew up with in the 1970s.
The new DVDs added to our already enormous Christmas movie collection. It’s our 10-year-old son’s first American Christmas and when it comes to that holiday and all of its stories, secular and sacred, we’ve got the bases covered.
But some of our closest family friends are Jewish and we’re want Vasco to know about Hanukkah, too. Unfortunately, when it comes to Hanukkah movies, the pickings are maddeningly slim.
We’ll probably show him Adam Sandler’s goofy animated flick, “Eight Crazy Nights” and, in a few years, maybe we’ll let him watch the racier “The Hebrew Hammer.”
There are a few child-oriented Hanukkah films out there but our son is used to the production quality of “Finding Nemo” and the Harry Potter epics, so hand puppets and low-budget animation just won’t fly.
The folks at the Sesame Street Workshop’s “Shalom Sesame” series, which explores Jewish and Israeli culture and history, have a Hanukkah special, which I’ve ordered, but that skews a bit young for a fourth grader.
Vasco already knows what a menorah is and is fascinated by the enormous dreidel erected at a public park nearby, but it has been a challenge explaining what Hanukkah is all about without the help of his favorite medium: movies.
We want him to know that Hanukkah, like Christmas, is not just about getting gifts and lighting lights. There is a powerful spiritual story behind the superficial cultural retellings the winter holidays receive.
For those of you who could use a little help, here is a short version of the Hanukkah story:
About 2,200 years ago, the Jewish people were living in Israel under the rule of Greco- Syrian kings. One of those kings, Antiochus Epiphanes, a particularly nasty fellow, forbade the Jews to practice their religion and tried to force them to worship Greek gods. When they refused because it was idolatry and forbidden by God, he killed them.
The nasty king even installed a statue of the Greek god Zeus in the Jew’s Holy Temple in Jerusalem and, as was the custom in Greek worship, sacrificed a pig on its altar. Having had enough of the terror, Judah Maccabee, the son of a Jewish priest, and his four brothers led a revolt against their oppressors and, after three years and against all odds, they managed to drive the Greco-Syrians out of Judea. It was their faith and obedience to God, the story goes, that led them to victory.
The Jews set about cleaning and recon-secrating their holy temple and needed to keep an oil lamp lit day and night as part of the ritual. But they only had enough oil for one day, and it would take another week to press olives for more. Miraculously, the lamp in the temple with barely enough oil for one day stayed lit for eight.
On Hanukkah, which comes from the Hebrew word that means “dedicated,” Jews around the world light a menorah for eight nights to remember that miracle and the victory of the Maccabees over their oppressors.
That’s a little difficult to explain to a 10-year-old who’s still learning English.
But there’s something essential in there that he can grasp. Hanukkah is about having the courage and the faith to live and be who you are supposed to be amidst a culture that says you shouldn’t or can’t.
Oppression is something that he can understand. Each of us has experienced the heavy mantle of oppression whether in huge, systematic ways or small, personal dramas.
Having the faith and the chutzpah to be who God made you to be when you’re being pressured to do otherwise or are living among people who don’t understand you or put you down because you’re not the same as them is a universal experience.
When that Hanukkah story became clear to me, I realized we already owned the perfect movie and had recently watched it.
It’s not new, high-tech or edgy. Pixar isn’t involved, and there is no accompanying line of children’s tchotchkes that Vasco wanted to run out to Target to buy.
The best film I can recommend to parents and children this Hanukkah is the 1979 flick “The Frisco Kid,” starring Gene Wilder and and a very young Harrison Ford.
Set around the turn of the 20th century, Wilder plays Avram, a Jewish rabbi from Poland who is dispatched to the United States to serve a new synagogue in San Francisco.
Avram is a righteous, if terribly naive, man, and his cross-country journey is jeopardized by three con men who beat him, steal all his money and toss his Torah scroll from a covered wagon after pocketing the silver tass, or breastplate, that decorated the front of its velvet cover.
Ford’s character Tommy, a bank robber with a decent heart, befriends Avram and accompanies him to San Francisco, fending off all manner of obstacles and enemies. Throughout the sometimes life-threatening journey, Avram consistently makes difficult decisions to do the right thing, according to his faith, and not the easier thing.
The rabbi refuses to ride his horse on the Sabbath until the sun sets, even though he and Tommy are being pursued by a lynch mob. God seemingly rewards his faithfulness and they get away.
Along the way the rabbi and the robber become friends, and we learn a lot about Judaism, ethics and the faith that it takes to do what you’re supposed to do just because it’s right. “Come here chicken, I’m not gonna hurt you, I just want to eat you,” a near-starving Avram says in one scene, chasing his would-be dinner. “I don’t wanna hurt you, I just want to make you kosher.”
Trust me on this one. Try “The Frisco Kid.”
You might learn a little something — about Judaism or perhaps about being your highest and best self in the midst of turmoil.
Surely you’ll have a few laughs and that will make for a very Happy Hanukkah.
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