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Many will soon notice seven-candle holders prominently displayed in parks, public squares and windows of Jewish homes. This distinctively candlestick, called a menorah, is depicted on the seal of the State of Israel and, along with the Star of David, a key symbol of Judaism. This year Chanukah starts tomorrow (Dec 18) and will continue for eight days, each night seeing the addition of one more lit candle. Some Gentiles call this time of the year the ‘Jewish Christmas’ because of the coincidental timing and the Jewish custom of exchanging presents. Children will play with dreidels, spinning tops with Hebrew lettering on its sides, eat latkes and sufganiot (deep-fried doughnuts) at festive tables and Chanukah Geld (a small coin or chocolates in the form of a coin wrapped in a tinfoil) will be given to any child who asks an adult for one. It is one of the most beloved festivals in the Jewish calendar but the meaning of it is obscure for many.
The history behind this festival is extraordinary. What’s more, far from being important only to the Jewish people only, this festival is relevant to the entire Western civilization. I would even go as far as to say that this festival commemorates a decisive moment for the Western world because the events of more than 2000 years ago celebrated at Chanukah influenced — indeed, determined — the future of we know today as the Western world. If you think this assertion a bit over the top, please read on.
The Hanukkah story
Let me take you back to the time of the Greek-Syrian despot Antiochus III (222 -186 BC) , succeeded by his son Seleucus IV, and then by his brother of the same name during one of the most dramatic times Israel has endured in all its long and difficult history. Needing the money to pay off the Romans, who won a war against him, Seleucus decided to foot the bill by confiscating the treasure from the Temple in Jerusalem. At the time, every Jewish adult paid a special tax – ‘half a shekel” – in order to provide for orphans, to provide for the sacred rituals and, of course, to maintain the Temple itself. The decision to confiscate the national treasure was met with outrage but the people were helpless to resist.
Seleucus IV was succeeded in 174BC by his brother, Antiochus IV, more commonly known as Epimanes, the madman. To root out an intractable Jewish individualism he forbade all Jewish laws to be followed. The Jews rebelled, were crushed and thousands died. Jewish worship was forbidden, the Torah scrolls were siezed and burned, their study declared punishable by execution. Sabbath rest, circumcision and the observing of dietary laws were prohibited under pain of death, with many more thousands killed for refusing to comply. The spark which ignited the firestorm was lit in the village of Modiin, where an elderly priest, Mattityahu, refused to offer sacrifices as demanded by the gods of the Greeks. The villagers fell upon the Syrian soldiers and killed them. After this, the Jews had no choice but to seek refuge in the surrounding hills of Judea, and that is where the rebellion became a guerrilla war. The Jewish volunteer legions were formed, led by Juda Maccabee. This name, by way of background, was an acronym of the four Hebrew words Mi Kamocha Ba’Eilim Hashem – “Who is like You, oh G-d”.
Despite their overwhelming strength, the Syrian-Greek armies were defeated by the Maccabees, who returned to Jerusalem in triumph and rededicated the Temple, casting out the idols placed there in 139 BCE.
However, there was a problem. To conduct Templ’s re-dedication ceremony specially prepared olive oil was needed. Maccabees hadlocated only one supply of the good oil, but this was sufficient for only a single day. The legend tells us that this meagre quantity nevertheless kept the lamp burning for a miraculous eight days, hence Chanukah’s emphasis on having oily foods on the festive table. After the Temple’s re-dedication the war of liberation continued, with all invaders defeated and the land of Israel free and independent.
WHAT has all this got to do with the rest of the world? OK, the Jews won and, rather optimistically as it turned out, were looking forward to living happily ever after. There were more wars, however. People fought for their beliefs and their survival, won or were defeated, and thus did history repeat itself again and again. Human history is a ledger of endless war. Why then is this Jewish war against Greeks and Syrians so different, so important?
The answer is both simple and complicated at the same time. At a glance, this is the story of another liberation struggle for national integrity and identity, a revolution of dignity and of brave and unshakeable resistance. But there is another dimension, that of universal relevance and impact. Let me explain.
The key to understanding this seemingly puzzling twist is in the word ‘Bible’. Let me be clear and restate the obvious: the Bible — the Old Testament, as Gentiles call The Book — is a literal translation of the five books of The Torah, which Jews believe to be divinely inspired. From this simple fact all the rest flows. The Jewish struggle to retain the Torah, to continue to teach it to their children and to pass it on to the future generations goes well beyond the guerrilla war, however heroic. The Jewish fight to the death against paganism also takes on an entirely different meaning. The immensity of Jewish sacrifices in defending the Jewish right to follow the Jewish Law is indisputable. However, in their darkest hour, the Jewish people, being at the time the only monotheistic nation on the planet, fought for the future of all humanity even if they did not realise as much at the time. That is, objectively, the result of their struggle against paganism.
Imagine for a moment, that the Jews had lost, that the Syrians and Greeks succeeded in banning The Torah, forbidding all Jewish practices and installing in the Temple the idols of which they were so fond. Western civilization would not have become monotheistic and paganism would reign supreme. The Bible would not have become the cornerstone of the Western civilization. Christianity would not exist and there would be no Christian culture, nor would we enjoy its many contributions to the rise of West. No Sistine Chapel, no Ave Maria, no Ten Commandments, no supremacy of the life of the individual, no concept of human rights – just idols. It would be a different, very different culture. Surely, as day follows night, it would be different world, very different one.
The struggle for Jewish freedom was the fight to save monotheism for the world. That is why, I believe, the Menorah light represent much, much more than the miracle of the oil. Rather, it is a light of knowledge and hope for all members of the human race.
So Chanukah Sameach! Have some latkes!
Thank you, Michael – a happy Chanukah to you and marvellous contributors like wdr, and merry Christmas to other Quadrant warriors!
Such a good telling of the story and explanation of its meaning. God has kept his convenient with the people of Israel. It is a quite remarkable fact that after thousands of years, and appalling persecutions, the people of such a small nation remain distinctively among us when so many other nations have disappeared.
Wonderful story, Michael.
It raises an interesting question about faith, however. From the perspective of the believing jew or christian (and without downplaying the great courage of the Maccabees), the result of the battle could, necessarily, never have been in doubt.
Happy Chanukah!
Religious writings are meant to be inspiring but that does not make them historically accurate. However, the power of metaphor is great and we forget that when we literalise religious teachings.
And while tribes can develop into kingdoms and then into more, the few Hebrew/Jewish tribes which arrived in Palestine from what is now Iraq, around 3,000 years ago were some among many others in land which had already existed for 2,000 years if translations of ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs are correct.
It is important to record and respect the contributions of all groups, religious, tribal or as peoples and what is clear is that many religions have made a contribution to what we call the modern world, including Islam, Hinduism and even more critically the great ancient Egyptian religion of the Goddess Isis, many of whose teachings were later taken up or over by Judaism and Christianity. Such is the path of religion for gathering up what belongs to other religions entices followers and all religions have done that. The Jews were also heavily influenced by the Greeks, whom some say they hated, but who played a major role in the development of Judaic education and literacy.
So, while this Jewish festival is important for Jews and to be respected, it should not be made out to be more than it was or is. All that we are is the sum of all human experiences and given the curious nature of humans, all religions have played a major part. Without the Muslims we would not have much that we now value in mathematics and then where would our world be?
Let us honour all who have gone before us.
What you say is true, and deserves repeating. However, it is also worth paying respectful acknowledgement to the fact that the Jewish people, throughout their 5000 year history, have never enforced their own beliefs onto another group. Never used violence, intimidation, forced conversion, expulsion, murder. Not sure the same can be said for any of the other great participants in humanity’s long haul out of darkness. As a proud cultural Jew, immensely grateful to my deep history, the ritual of LIGHT that Hannukah represents is one I share each year with my beautiful partner, who lived the first 20 years of her life in communist Romania…
Unfortunately what you say is untrue. Not surprisingly the Hebrew/Jewish tribes which wandered into ancient Palestine 5,000 years ago were as violent as any others in the times. Jews had a long ancient history of aggression and forced conversions. Why would they not? They were people of their times.
And there is then the issue of the Khazars and their conversion.
And neither were Jews truly united as a people beyond the religion as the ancient tribal groups of Hebrews, who set up camp in Palestine had their own internecine clashes as documented in religious writings.
You said: Never used violence, intimidation, forced conversion, expulsion, murder.
Beyond the ancient violence it is clear you have not read the history of Palestine from 1947 when Jewish terror groups and later Zionist soldiers most certainly used violence, intimidation, expulsion and murder. This is well documented by international and Israeli historians so I am not sure how you missed it. They might have forgone forced conversation by the 20th century but they certainly used it in ancient times.
You said: Not sure the same can be said for any of the other great participants in humanity’s long haul out of darkness.
It cannot be said of Jews either as history so clearly records, ancient and modern.
You said: As a proud cultural Jew, immensely grateful to my deep history, the ritual of LIGHT that Hannukah represents is one I share each year with my beautiful partner, who lived the first 20 years of her life in communist Romania…
And good for you celebrating your religion in freedom. That is how it should be. I presume you work for the right of Palestinian and Israeli Christians and Muslims to do the same.
Correction – CONVERSION not conversation. Although no doubt it amounts to the same thing.
Shalom, brother.
AT LEAST TWO PROBLEMS HERE, MICHAEL:
1. The Zoroastrians of Ancient Persia were monotheists, and beat the Jews to it by around 1,500 years, and
2. The Ionian Greeks were polytheists, and created no mean civilisation on the strength of it. The rationalists in their ranks created Western Philosophy, included within which is all of classical and modern science, as well as everything in what has become known to historians as The Enlightenment. The latter, as you would be aware, succeeded despite the vigorous opposition of the clerics of the Catholicism dominant at the time.
So arguably, the impetus towards monotheism involved the reaction by the polytheistic clerics of the day to that ‘Ionian Enlightenment.’ The trial and death of the rationalist Socrates at the hands of the clerics of his day, and as described by Plato in his Apology, is pertinent here.
You say: “Western civilization would not have become monotheistic and paganism would reign supreme. The Bible would not have become the cornerstone of the Western civilization. Christianity would not exist and there would be no Christian culture, nor would we enjoy its many contributions to the rise of West. No Sistine Chapel, no Ave Maria, no Ten Commandments, no supremacy of the life of the individual, no concept of human rights – just idols. It would be a different, very different culture. Surely, as day follows night, it would be different world, very different one.
“The struggle for Jewish freedom was the fight to save monotheism for the world.”
The implication there is that the ‘very different world’ would have been of necessity, an inferior one, and markedly so. I for one dispute that. Human rights, for example, were fought for by the rationalists of the Enlightenment against the opposition of the Christian clerics of the day, in struggles involving the martyrdom of many, not just Giordano Bruno and (very nearly) Galileo Galilei. Vide also the ‘Wars of Religion’ in Germany and France, and the English Civil War.
As well, as trade routes such as the Silk Road opened up, they became important for the spread of ideas as well as of goods, and from the Second Century BCE to the Fifteenth Century AD.
For example, Christ’s Golden Rule was not the first formulation of it. That honour appears to belong to Confucius (trad. 551–479 BCE) who put it in the arguably superior negative form of: ‘Do not do to others what you would not have others do to yourself.’ That idea could have made its way down the Silk Road to many destinations, including Palestine, there to be formulated by Yeshua bar Joseph (aka Jesus Christ) into its arguably inferior positive form.
Well said. The ancient Egyptians were also monotheistic for Isis was the great Mother Goddess who ruled over all. In the era before Judaism and Christianity were invented there were many Mother Goddess religions so monotheism had been around for a long time. No doubt Jews picked this up because religions have always been ‘gatherers’ of stories, Gods and practices to plump up their new religion and to encourage others to join them. The Christians collected a lot of their Saints in this way. All very sensible. And many of the attributes of Mary from the Great Goddess Isis and Jesus from the Mithraic religion.
And the European and English Christians also led the way and laid the foundation for human rights and our Western culture.
In regard to this comment:
“The struggle for Jewish freedom was the fight to save monotheism for the world.”
This comment is a hyperbolic retrofit to the distant past where it would have had no relevance.
It seems a massive leap to impute such motives to relatively backward tribal peoples who were no different to other tribal peoples, except for worshiping a different God, and that was par for the course in the times.
Surely in the ancient past the goal of any tribal group was power and dominance and there is plenty of historical and religious evidence to that end for Judaism and its followers.
Any Jewish struggle would have been for tribalistic Jews only, with no thought to the world in general. Particularly since ancient teachings held that only Jews had a soul and were therefore superior as human beings. In short, one doubts that Jews 5,000 years ago gave a toss about anything but themselves, just like all other tribal groups wrangling and wrestling for power.
Thaks Michael, I agree totally. To my mind Christianity is a heterodox Jewish sect. To many ancient Romans Judaism was attractive but they didn’t want to be circumcised and Judaism had too many difficult rules including the inconvenient dietary rules. Along came the greatest and most successful marketing genius in history, St. Paul, who made the conversion to “Judaism” relatively painless.
Now I’m Jewish myself so this opinion may be biased, but what the heck!
Any study of religions, spirituality and mythology make it clear that all religions are sourced in the same human beliefs, instincts, desires and hopes. In short, at core, they all have the same basic teachings and that is because they have all drawn upon earlier human beliefs and religions from the beginning of time. Why would they not?
Our humanity is common and shared and religion/spirituality was and is a human endeavour where more is shared than is different. And all religions reflect their sources and the beliefs, attitudes and environment of the times in which they were invented.
Could we get a few things straight? To Israel, God revealed himself as the creator of heaven and earth, of the whole of creation, including time itself — all things visible and invisible. The monotheism of Zoroaster was incomplete — Ahuramazda was not omnipotent and evil was a ‘real’ entity, as distinct from an ‘absence’ of the the good, emptiness and nothingness.
Christ not only affirmed what had been revealed to Israel but raised its demands still higher, not only to love one’s neighbour but also to love one’s enemies. The Christian life St Paul preached was no ‘soft’ option. Read St Paul on marriage and contrast it with Jewish practice, Read what he demanded of pagan Greece and Rome compared with their practices. Christianity was not, and is not, the ‘soft’ option.
mgldunn: I think that if you read the history of the Christian West, you will find that ‘turn the other cheek’ has been honoured by Christians far more in the breach than in the observance.
In untold interactions between Christians, mostly unrecorded in the history books, it has been a valuable moral guide. It is clearly impractical advice for the conduct of statecraft if one wishes the state to survive and prosper.
Ian MacDougal: ‘turn the other cheek’ is the opposite of ‘payback’ and ‘payback’ blights primitive societies by ongoing violence. The once violence riven Torres Strait Islands invited Christian missionaries to change their violent culture and they peacefully celebrate that missionary event each year in “The Coming of the Light” festival.
rosross: Surely you give too much credit to Mohammedanism {Islam] for sourcing our Mathematics. They merely passed on Hindu scholarship and numerals and concept of zero. Mohammedans also sanctified violent Jihad as they swept over half the Christian world who found that turning the other cheek was best kept for interpersonal relations.
According to the history the Arabs developed mathematical process. I have no doubt they picked things up from elsewhere, including the Hindus, but that does not negate where they took the knowledge. Having lived in India I also know the Indians claim to have invented everything. Jains believe their religion is millions of years old. Whatever the truth or ‘truth’ there is no doubt that Europe gained much from the Muslim world.
As to violent Jihad, all religions have waged such wars and the Muslims were not unique on that count. The slaughter by Christians throughout history probably tops even Islamic Jihad so let us agree that violence has been common to all religions and remains a factor in orthodox or less developed religions today.
brandee:
Christ’s ‘turn the other cheek’ in his Sermon on the Mount, was arguably an attempt on his part to avert a Jewish insurrection against Rome, which he apparently saw as a hopeless cause. His view was justified by what became known as The Jewish War: a series of large-scale revolts by the Jews of the Eastern Mediterranean against the Roman Empire between 66 and 135 CE, resulting in the destruction of Jerusalem, and the diaspora.
Perhaps the most spectacular example of ‘payback’ in our time was 43rd POTUS George W. Bush taking his revenge on Saddam Hussein for the latter’s attempt on the life of George W’s father, POTUS 41, George H.W. Bush. The ‘payback’ took the form of Gulf War 1.
The late Christopher Hitchens, with whom I have never personally found myself in disagreement, identified himself as being part of what he called ‘the Anti-totalitarian Left,’ as distinct from those he described as ‘the Pro-totalitarian Left,’ which included all those on the left who supported Saddam’s cause against that of Bush senior, including such luminaries as the journalist John Pilger. .See https://www.independent.co.uk/news/saddam-sent-hit-team-to-kill-bush-in-kuwait-2321888.html and also https://oig.justice.gov/sites/default/files/archive/special/9704a/05bush2.htm
One would have to question if the good Christian, as claimed, George H.W. Bush, descending to violent ‘payback’ has any sort of case given the more than a million Iraqis killed, the 10 million maimed or wounded and the millions more made refugees by American aggression.
Saddam’s rage is perhaps better understood when it is known that he ‘floated his plans for Kuwait’ past the American ambassador and did not get a No, which, to an Iraqi meant Yes. And perhaps it had been a Yes until she checked head office when it became a No, delivered too late.
Wheels within wheels.