He is the Real One

Well, we’re kinda spoilt for choice today: it’s the third Sunday in Advent—Gaudete Sunday—but also at sunset tonight Jews around the world begin the celebration of Hanukkah.

What to do? Oh, what to do?

Okay, right. The Gaudete of today is meant to be a break in the solemn preparation for the birth of Christ. Advent is, at heart, a pulling away from the exterior world, making space for contemplating the gift God is about to give humanity, for reflecting on what’s surface and what’s substance. True Advent music is about anticipation and clearing the way.

Gaudete Sunday is meant to be a little opportunity to bust loose and express anticipatory joy, so you can make it all the way to the Nativity. That's why we light the rose-colored candle.

Hanukkah celebrates the retaking of Jerusalem and the reconsecration of the Second Temple during the Maccabean revolt against the Seleucid empire in the Second Century BCE. The holiday lasts eight nights—commemorating how long the oil for the sacred light lasted when the temple was rededicated—and it’s a celebration that takes place in the home, not in the synagogue. But there is singing, as well as food, candles and gifts.

Here's a song from the Sephardic Jewish tradition—Mediterranean Jews, as opposed to Ashkenazi Jews from Eastern Europe. Their language is Ladino, which has echoes of Latinate origins.

The narrative of the folksong “Kuando el rey Nimrod” contains some elements familiar to the birth of Christ—King Nimrod interprets a star shining directly over the Jewish quarter of the city; fearful of being supplanted, he orders that all male newborns be put to death. Abraham’s mother slopes off to a cave to give birth; the infant Abraham tells her to leave him, as he’ll be taken care of. When she returns 20 days later, he’s a grown man, leaping in joy. Nimrod finds out about Abraham, calls him to appear before him and then throws him in a furnace. But in a sign confirming that he is the Real One, Abraham survives, and he is known ever after as the first Jew.

(Okay—small discrepancy about how he comes from the Jewish quarter, but is the first Jew. Work with me here.)

Here’s Apollo’s Fire singing it. You might want to turn up the volume.

 

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