A Happy Hanukkah to the New Maccabees
via Bookworm Room » Happy Hanukkah to the new Maccabees.
As every Jew will tell you, in the traditional Jewish calendar Hanukkah is not big deal. It reached its present status because it happens to fall at the same time as Christmas. Jewish parents, therefore, turned it into a gift-giving holiday so that their children didn’t feel completely left out from the happy, generous, celebratory Christmas season.
The fact that it’s not a big religious holiday, though, doesn’t mean that Hanukkah doesn’t commemorate an extremely important event, one that has enduring meaning to all freedom seeking individuals. For those who don’t know it, the story of Hanukkah is as follows:
Since time immemorial, nations have fought over that small patch of land we now call Israel. Considering that nature was less than generous in endowing Israel with fresh water or arable land, there must indeed be something special about the Holy Land, some transcendent aura, that has made it such a tantalizing prize to so many nations and people.
In 168 B.C.E., Greek soldiers located in modern-day Syria seized the great Jewish Temple in Jerusalem and defiled it by dedicating it to Zeus. Jews were appalled and offended, but still passively accepted this insult, for fear of incurring even greater wrath from the Greeks. Human nature, though, is human nature, and you cannot appease a tyrant. Heartened by Jewish passivity, the very next year, Antiochus, the Syrian-Greek emperor, mandated that any Jews who observed Jewish rituals would be put to death. Just to make sure he was completely clear, he also ordered that all Jews must affirmatively worship the Greek gods.
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image courtesy shutterstock / Wally Stemberger
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It’s odd, really, considering that 2 Maccabees 10:6 refers to Hannukkah as a second Feast of Tabernacles. Then again, it’s no more ironic than the fact that 1 and 2 Maccabees are considered canon by Catholics but not by Jews.
What’s odd? It’s still a rabbinic holiday, post-Biblical, and about the only Jewish holiday when one is not supposed to take off (why be a lazy bum?) with of course no sacrifice.
There are two Rabbinic holidays, Purim (in the book of Ester) and Chanukah. The first celebrates God’s salvation of His people from physical destruction, the second from spritiual desstruction. Hitler and Lenin, if you will. And both show that even after the destruction of the first temple, God was still with His people.
Catholics want to claim continuity between our bible and theirs. We believe prophecy ended at the start of the Secomd Temple, so our bible ends there.
Very nice post – thank you.
I should point out one slight issue – the Macabbees were outnumbered, while the Americans always outnumbered the British, because Britain would not draft into the Army for foreign wars.
The season is someone ironic, because the main point of Chanukah is the right of a minority religion not to worship the majority religion – not to sing “Silent Night” in class, even if there is a Chanukah song next, not to walk into a Church, not to say “Merry Christmas”, and so forth. Somehow the majority will have to avoid being offended, because none is intended – not by me, anyhow. Put up your cheches anywhere you like, just don’t make me participate (tax money is ok; the US is a Christian country).