Third installment of the Winter Holiday version of Something Old, Something New!

I am having problems either with my mind or the interface for making blog posts, I'm not sure which. So I'm sorry that there will be fewer pictures embedded (like none) today. I don't seem able to access the file uploader from here. I also seem to have no access to font tabs. I also am having a hard time finding the scheduler. I also can't find the unpublish button. I will try to republish it tomorrow, I guess. I am at a loss as to why either I'm creating so many problems or the interface is.

Something/Someone Old

My Something Old today is Hanukkah. Two thousand years old is pretty old, isn't it?

I only found out what Hanukkah was really about a couple of years ago, and was rather shocked. I'd always assumed it was another midwinter ceremony of lights, and it is, but the story behind the ceremony is a story of war and successful uprising. The history is a little complicated; the Jews were part of the Egyptian empire when someone from Syria, King Antiochus the Great, was rude enough to conquer Egypt. He was a smart guy, and made concessions to the Jews that they could live according to their customs and worship in the Temple of Jerusalem. I deduce from this that he was not fighting for religious reasons and thus cared little what his subjects did in their private time. It was a smart move; all went well for a while. Unfortunately, his son wasn't as smart as he was, and in 175 BCE, he invaded Judaea and basically forbade the practice of Judaism.

There are two schools of thought about this. One is that Antiochus IV was a heathen asshole who couldn't let people alone. The other is that Antiochus IV was requested to come in by some Jews who were having problems with other Jews, and that, like an idiot, he got into the middle of that fight. I know little of this history, so when people talk about Hellenizing Jews having a conflict with Egyptocentric Jews, I really am lost at sea. In any case, Antiochus got involved on behalf of the Hellenizing Jews, if you believe this version of the story. In all versions of the story, once Antiochus IV won the battle, he not only outlawed Judaism, he eventually put an altar to Zeus inside the temple and sacrificed pigs on it.

He was either possessed of a Trump-like ignorance ("Sure, let's put the embassy in Jerusalem, why not?") or, more likely, he was deliberately trying to antagonize the Jews, because, let's face it, how could you rub their faces in it any more than that?

Well, the Jews decided that enough was enough, as they say, and led the successful Maccabean Revolt. They purified and rededicated the temple...and now we've finally gotten to Hanukkah, which is the celebration of that rededication. The word Hanukkah derives from the Hebrew word meaning "to dedicate." Its full name is Hannukat HaMizbe’ach, which means Dedication of the Altar. It's also said that if you break the word apart into its components, it can mean "They rested on the twenty-fifth" (the twenty-fifth day of Kislev, when the fighting stopped and the Jews were victorious.)

Having taken back the Temple, the Jews wanted to light lamps around the altar, but they could find very little pure oil--most of it had been used up by the Zeus-worshippers. They found one flask, and thought they would only be able to light a lamp for one day--but the lamp miraculously burned for eight days, the exact amount of time needed to make a fresh supply of properly prepared oil. Hence, the eight-day festival of Hanukkah, celebrated with oily foods.

Now I've got no problem with the whole idea of them taking their own temple back, for goodness' sake, and of course they'd have a holiday to celebrate that. But what somewhat shocked me and struck me as profoundly odd, when I first heard this story, was that it's a story of war. It seems really rare to me to have midwinter holidays associated with war. Maybe it's just because for a long time, winter was the season when mankind did NOT want to go to war, because it's hard enough just to deal with the season.

Apparently, of recent years, rabbis have decided to make miraculous light the focus of the holiday, rather than the battle.

Something New

My Something New is latkes.

New and old are relative, of course, but in the context of a 2,000-year-old holiday, I think it's fair to call a custom 170 years old "new."

Again, I'm surprised; I had no idea latkes were so recent.

Of course, that kind of fritter is not new; the latke is based on a kind of fritter that might go all the way back to the Middle Ages. But the latke itself is not very old:

Latkes or latkas (לאַטקע) are potato pancakes that Ashkenazi Jews have prepared as part of the Hanukkah festival[7] since the mid-1800s,[8] based on an older variant of the dish that goes back to at least the Middle Ages.[9] Latkes need not necessarily be made from potatoes. Prior to the introduction of the potato to the Old World, latkes were, and in some places still are, made from a variety of other vegetables....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potato_pancake

The important thing here, as far as the holiday is concerned, is the oil. We are celebrating miraculous sacred oil, so of course, to celebrate, one should eat at least some oily foods!

What's even newer than the fritter itself? Its name!

In 1938, an expert committee on all things Jewish decided to assign names to the fried foods of Hanukkah. This resulted in the latke (potato fritter) derived from regular pancakes filled with cheese in Russia and Eastern Europe, and the sufganiya (doughnut).

Today fierce competitions occur over who makes the best latkes at home, while bakeries try to outdo each other — and themselves — each year, inventing fancy fillings and toppings in order to claim the most unusual and trendy sufganiyot.

https://kehilanews.com/2017/12/13/the-history-of-hanukkah-and-how-it-is-...

That sounds dangerously delicious. Potato cakes and doughnuts...mmmm.

Turns out I could have used the latke, or at least the word latke, as my Something Borrowed--from the Russians.

The word latke itself is derived (via Yiddish) from the Russian word ladka, oladka, a diminutive from oladya (оладья), "small pancake".

Oh, dear. Another Russian plot!

Something Borrowed

My Something Borrowed today is Mithraism, although the manner in which it was borrowed is uncertain. Mithra, was a Persian god in pre-Zoroastrian Iran.

First of all, he was the god of contract and mutual obligation. In a cuneiform tablet of the 15th century BCE that contains a treaty between the Hittites and the Mitanni, Mithra is invoked as the god of oath. Furthermore, in some Indian Vedic texts the god Mitra (the Indian form of Mithra) appears both as “friend” and as “contract.” The word mitra may be translated in either way, because contracts and mutual obligation make friends. In short, Mithra may signify any kind of interpersonal communication and whatever establishes good relations between people.

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Mithraism

Now that's a god I could get behind. He sounds like a god of civilization. I love the fact that in Vedic texts his name could mean either "contract" or "friend." How wonderful.

He has other aspects, including some militaristic ones I'm not as thrilled with:

Mithra was called the Mediator. Mithra was also the god of the sun, of the shining light that beholds everything, and, hence, was invoked in oaths. The Greeks and Romans considered Mithra as a sun god. He was probably also the god of kings. He was the god of mutual obligation between the king and his warriors and, hence, the god of war. He was also the god of justice, which was guaranteed by the king. Whenever people observed justice and contract, they venerated Mithra.

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Mithraism

I am, however, intrigued by the assumptions in the sentence "He was the god of mutual obligation between the king and his warriors, and, hence, the god of war." My cultural assumptions about war have nothing to do with obligations between warriors and those who send them to die, but then, I'm an American.

His central myth was of slaying a bull at the behest of the sun:

According to the myths, the sun god sent his messenger, the raven, to Mithra and ordered him to sacrifice the bull. Mithra executed the order reluctantly; in many reliefs he is seen turning aside his face in sorrow. But at the very moment of the death of the bull, a great miracle happened. The white bull was metamorphosed into the moon; the cloak of Mithra was transformed into the vault of the sky, with the shining planets and fixed stars; from the tail of the bull and from his blood sprang the first ears of grain and the grape; and from the genitals of the animal ran the holy seed which was received by a mixing bowl. Every creature on earth was shaped with an admixture of the holy seed....

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Mithraism

He was borrowed by the Romans, but the original notion archaeologists had--that the worship of Mithra had simply spread to Italy--seems not borne out by the physical data. For one thing, there are few relics or Mithraic temples in between Persia and Italy, or along the border of Persia closest to Italy, whereas there are many in Italy. The current theory most accepted is that someone (a "religious genius") decided to invent a soldier's cult that supported the imperium, had the idea to incorporate the Persian god Mithra into that cult, and struck gold. For some reason, the cult was extremely popular for about three centuries, only to die abruptly when Constantine decided to become Christian. I guess it's hard to be a imperium-supporting religious cult if the imperium suddenly decides it doesn't support you.

So what does he have to do with Christmas?

It all depends on how you interpret the writings and depictions we have from the past. There was an Indian god, Mitra. There was a Persian god, Mithra. Most people seem to believe that this was the same god, who simply traveled a bit and took on some new aspects when he got to Persia. There was also a Roman god, Mithras. As I said above, he looks to have been a homegrown invention of the Romans. But given certain visual cues, including his Persian cap, and certain narrative echoes, such as having a sacred bull-slaying as his central myth, it seems likely that the inventor cast about for an exotic god to incorporate into his soldiers' cult, and lit upon Mithra.

People think Mithras' birthday was December 25 because that was the Roman festival day for Sol Invictus, the Unconquered Sun, and there is an inscription to Mithras which refers to him as the Unconquered Sun. Scholars and internet skeptics are currently engaged in a feeding frenzy over whether or not the Romans identified Sol Invictus with Mithras or not, a frenzy enhanced by Christians seeking to disprove the idea that Christianity ever took over a pagan holiday and used it for themselves. I don't claim to know the truth of this. I'm simply going to point out that Mithras' central myth begins with him being commanded by the sun god, culminates with him feasting with the sun god, and ends with him riding off in the sun god's chariot. I know that doesn't mean Romans thought he *was* Sol Invictus; I'm just saying that's a lot of association with the sun.

It's an interesting cult, no matter where it came from.

Something Blue

I found a Hanukkah blues song!

Have a happy winter holiday, everyone!