Hanukkah: It’s Not THAT Bad

Look who's the appologist now!!!

It seems there must be something in human nature that compels people to mark special occasions that repeat themselves each year.  The occasion is both novel (because it's different than other days) and completely familiar (because you repeat it every year). 

I have no idea why we do it.  But if every culture that manages to develop a calendar also colors a few days differently to mark them out, I'd suspect they serve some purpose.  I'm with Tamar in that I'd be averse to casually doing away with them just because we can't accept the whole story that comes with them.

--Z

"
The message of the war against Antiochus is, at its heart, a message of self-esteem for Jews."

How do you figure? It was a war against the Yavanim -- the Hellenized Jews. Not a specific despot.  And all of the brutality towards Hellenized Jews makes this painfully clear from the Hasmonean end, and the downplaying of the war itself by the rabbis--in favor of a more quiescent approach-- makes this clear from the clerical end.

What are you basing this interpretation on?

Leviticus 23 is a list of the Feasts we are to keep. The problem I have with Hanukkah is that it is not mentioned in Leviticus, and is not commanded in the scriptures at all. In fact, the scriptures appear to discourage adding our traditions to the Feasts. Because of this, I was always content to ignore Hanukkah, not caring to know any other reasoning against it, as the word of the scriptures is sufficient for me.

Tamar,

I usually love what you write, but here I feel like your response to Hitchens's piece was a bit wimpy.  Let's be up-front here:  the Hitchens essay attacking Hanukah is a load of crap.  He introduces his point by glorifying epicurean culture, which is a bizarre move coming from someone who is quick to see the worst in any contemporary religious culture.  But the Maccabean critique of epicurean Hellenism was totally legitimate.  The epicureans glorified pleasure and physical beauty.  It was about eating whatever you wanted to the point where you got sick.  It was about worshipping perfect naked bodies, and considering physically flawed people to be worthless.  It was about maximizing the pleasure of powerful male heads of household at the expense of just about everyone else -- women, male slaves, etc.  They weren't exactly concerned about the widow and the orphan. 

Hebrew culture, by contrast, offered some different values.  Instead of stuffing any old thing that looked good into your mouth, the Hebrew or Jew was supposed to think about each bite that went in and where it came from -- was it killed in a proper manner (kashrut), was it tithed to support the important institutions of society (truma and ma'aser), were corners of the field left for the poor (leket, shichecha, etc.)?  Instead of treating slaves and the poor as though they were sub-human, the Hebrew or Jew had serious constraints on the ownership of slaves and had important responsibilities to the less fortunate in society.  Instead of worshiping physical beauty, the Hebrew or Jew was taught the value of "Physical grace is deceptive and beauty is empty" (from the Woman of Valor verses). 

 Besides ignoring the valid reasons that the Maccabees had for resisting being coerced to become Greeks, Hitchens also dismisses Greek imperialism by jumping to the fact that the Hasmonean regime that emerged was corrupt and brutal.  But how does this excuse Greek imperialism or establish that the Jews should have succumbed to it?  As my preschooler would say, two wrongs don't make a right.  As someone older than a preschooler might note, the eventual excesses of the French Revolution are no reason to stop celebrating the Revolution and its motivating ideals.  Similarly, we don't stop celebrating July 4th just because the American revolutionaries tarred and feathered their enemies (but maybe Hitchens thinks we should?).

Hitchens next parts ways with sanity altogether when he blames the Maccabees for creating Christianity in a bizarre twist on the old saw of blaming the Jews for killing Jesus.  For good measure, he pins the rise of Islam on the Jews as well.  So according to Hitchens, the Jews DID "cause" September 11th. 

On a more serious note, Hitchens completely ignores what Hanukah has been for the past two thousand years of rabbinic Judaism.  The appeal of a story in which a small band of Jews stood up to a large, powerful empire that wanted to destroy them is not hard to understand for a people who spent much of the last 2000 years living as a small band of Jews dominated, oppressed, and terrorized by large powerful empires of Christians throughout Europe.

Finally, I can't help but point out Hitchens's fundamental misunderstanding of the First Amendment.  The First Amendment does not privilege "enlightenment" over "faith," as he fantasizes.  On the contrary, the First Amendment, had it existed in ancient Greek Palestine, would have protected the right of the Jews to continue to practice their religion freely, eating their kosher food and worshiping in their temple, free from any coercion by the Greek majority.  Granted, it would also have protected the right of the Hellenizing Jews to assimilate to Greek culture, but it most certainly NOT have protected the Greeks' right to defile the temple and ban Jewish practices.

Finding things to criticize about the texts and actions of people from more than 2000 years ago does not take a genius.  It's easy.  It's cheap shots.  What's challenging is finding continued worth and value in ancient texts and rituals, which is one of the reasons I usually enjoy reading your column.

Amidst all the noise generated by the Hitchens article, this was, by far, the most reasoned and enlightened response. Kudos.

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I blog at Jewlicious.com

I love Jewlicious.  I used to read it a lot when I lived in Israel (and was working part-time from my home in a rural kibbutz). I read it less now that I'm a working mom in the Bronx, but it is still great.  Keep it up.

I recently attended a Jewish text study on Sfat Emet.  Rav Y. Lieb talks at length about the temple within and the small light contained in every Jew needed to seek out our inner temple.  It also talks about a small light providing hope when all hope appears lost.  This could be a source of comfort when a small group defends itself from a mighty tiereny, or it could provide hope to an individual in their own darkest hour. 

In regards to our own Temples, every day that I reciete the Amida, kiss the mezzuzah and maintain my kosher kitchen, i am rededicating my temple.  When faced with comments about money hungry Jews or how Jews are taking over the world, my small light shines within me even brighter.

There are so many levels to every story, and lessons to learn.  We would all be missing the out if we only examined the historical story.   

Here is how wikipedai describes his power trip: 

"Destruction of Jerusalem ignites Jewish rebellion"

"Antiochus' humilation at Egypt was followed by the most well-remembered aspect of his policy, namely his confrontation with the Jews, which ignited their uprising under the Maccabean leaders. Aside from their interest for Jewish and Seleucid history, these events are of interest as among the first instances in world history of religious persecution, a hitherto nearly unknown phemomenon which would in coming centuries assume an important role in human affairs.

As depicted in the Books of the Maccabees, upon his return from Egypt, Antiochus IV organized an expedition against Jerusalem, which he destroyed; he put many of its inhabitants to death most cruelly. He had soldiers enter the Jewish Temple and slaughter a pig (which is impure by the Jewish law) on the altar of the Lord. They set the pig ablaze and then took the meat and tried to make some Jewish men eat it. The men refused and he cut their tongues out, scalped them, cut off their hands and feet, and burnt them on the altar of the Lord.[citation needed]

After this, the Jews began a war of independence under their Maccabean leaders, defeating the armies that Antiochus sent against them. Enraged at this, Antiochus is said to have marched against them in person, threatening to exterminate the nation; but, on the way, he suddenly died (164 BC).[citation needed] The Jewish accounts are in the Books of the Maccabees, and their successful revolt is commemorated by the hDestruction of Jerusalem ignites Jewish rebellion

Antiochus' humilation at Egypt was followed by the most well-remembered aspect of his policy, namely his confrontation with the Jews, which ignited their uprising under the Maccabean leaders. Aside from their interest for Jewish and Seleucid history, these events are of interest as among the first instances in world history of religious persecution, a hitherto nearly unknown phemomenon which would in coming centuries assume an important role in human affairs.

As depicted in the Books of the Maccabees, upon his return from Egypt, Antiochus IV organized an expedition against Jerusalem, which he destroyed; he put many of its inhabitants to death most cruelly. He had soldiers enter the Jewish Temple and slaughter a pig (which is impure by the Jewish law) on the altar of the Lord. They set the pig ablaze and then took the meat and tried to make some Jewish men eat it. The men refused and he cut their tongues out, scalped them, cut off their hands and feet, and burnt them on the altar of the Lord.[citation needed]

After this, the Jews began a war of independence under their Maccabean leaders, defeating the armies that Antiochus sent against them. Enraged at this, Antiochus is said to have marched against them in person, threatening to exterminate the nation; but, on the way, he suddenly died (164 BC).[citation needed] The Jewish accounts are in the Books of the Maccabees, and their successful revolt is commemorated by the holiday of Hanukkah.

Antiochus committed an extreme provocation against a subject people which had hitherto been quite content to live under Seleucid rule. His goal was to wholly assimilate and Hellenize the Jewish state into Greek culture and remove the identity of the Jewish people as Jewish -- an act that set off a rebellion which further undermined the Seleucid regime and provided the Romans with new possibilities of driving a wedge by allying themselves with the rebellious Jews."

"Antiochus committed an extreme provocation against a subject people which had hitherto been quite content to live under Seleucid rule. His goal was to wholly assimilate and Hellenize the Jewish state into Greek culture and remove the identity of the Jewish people as Jewish -- an act that set off a rebellion which further undermined the Seleucid regime and provided the Romans with new possibilities of driving a wedge by allying themselves with the rebellious Jews."

Read the whole article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiochus_IV_Epiphanes