The real victory Jews celebrate on Channukah

It has always seemed to me that Chanuka does not receive the appreciation which it deserves. Dreidles, jelly donuts, jokes about calories, perhaps because we are dealing with one of the later holy days of the modern era.

But Chanukah is the genuine independence day. On Chanukah, the Jewish People was saved not from physical annihilation but from slow extinction and disappearance into the creases of history, as it happened to many other nations.

The most dangerous enemy on Chanukah were not the Greeks. With them history would have got along: they come, flex a muscle, gradually slide into fadeout and disappear like the rest of them. The big and serious problem was posed from the enemy within, the . Militarily, they were insignificant. They were merely the spoiled and sly protégés, but a shared diabolical interest was forged between them and the Seleucids regime.

The Hellenizers, the elite of they, not only wanted to adopt the Hellenistic lifestyle and in many cases 

also the pagan religious customs of the Greeks, but also wished to turn it into the prevalent norm.  The Greeks, of course, were eager to assist their allies to turn Judea into another Hellenistic entity among many. They issued forced conversion edicts, forbade circumcision and Shabbat observance, the heart of the Jewish faith. Had the revolt not erupted and the Hellenizers been successful in their plan, there would be no more Jewish People. It would have disappeared within no more than two or three generations.

Many a times, the question of what happened to the Romans arises, how could there remain not a 

single Roman out of such a powerful empire? The answer is that they did not disappear, they lost their identity in a long process which started before the physical liquidation of the capital of the Western Empire in 476 CE. Even this was, incidentally, carried out by allegedly "Roman" soldiers, that is, a barbaric army which was enlisted for money or lands. The agreement was not honoured, they burned the club and a minute later, there was not one Roman left, at least not on the Western side since no one of the Empire's residents cared whether they are called Romans of Hotentotes. They were a rabble, a mob of nations, tribes, languages and religions. One just changes the name of the sponsor printed on the shirt and moves forward.

Throughout history, even during genocides, the victim was never eradicated entirely. Nations disappeared because they assimilated among other populations and after a few generations there was no trace of them, they had no unique traits to distinguish them from others. That is precisely what the revolt of the Maccabees stopped and prevented.

The war had three stages:  the first, the rebellion was the most important one and the one we celebrate. During it, the Temple was rededicated. It ended with the defeat of Nikanor – religious autonomy was reinstated, the edicts cancelled and the goal achieved.

The second stage started when Judah, the Maccabee dismissed the corrupt high priest Alcimus who summoned his Seleucid patrons who sent an army of 20,000 soldiers headed by the warlord Bacchides against Juda's 800 men.  Judah was killed, the Greeks took partial control over the land. However, Judah's brothers restored the army on the eastern front of the Jordan river until a few years later, Bacchides was defeated by Yonatan and Shimon and left the land not before he unleashed his anger and carried out a small massacre over the Hellenizers as he saw them as responsible for his defeat. Bacchides, it is noteworthy to mention was pressured to fight Yonatan and Shimon by the hellenizers who wanted to do away with the rebels which, as we saw, was a bad idea. Hence Bacchides’s decision to massacre some of them. The Greeks maintained control over a few fortified cities, among them Jerusalem, even though Yonatan who situated himself in the nearby, Michma

The last stage was the most chaotic of them all since upon the onset of the internal struggles in the Seleucid kingdom, each side tried to pull the Hasmoneans to his side and ingratiated them with appointments, gifts and titles. Finally, Trifonas the traitor, the last Seleucid ruler who still tried to cling on to Judea, pretended to be a friend in order to slyly capture Yonatan and demand ransom money in exchange for him. Shimon paid, but Trifonas murdered Yonatan and tried to invade the country. Shimon's army came out against him and the Seleucid turned around and escaped.

This incident signifies the onset of the political independence of Judea. Two years later, Dimitris the II, who returned to his country, officially recognized the independence of the Jewish state under the ruling of Shimon. These two events are not mentioned in our history and even their precise date is not known as they are considered less significant

There are those who claim that the Hasmonean kings were “hellenizers” themselves, and as proof 

they cite the fact that they adopted a Greek way of life as well as their names – Alexander, Horkanus, Aristobelus etc. This is inaccurate. The difference between calling oneself Alexander and Hellenizers, in the sense of pre-revolt, is the same as between eating MacDonald’s and becoming a Christian.

Coins that are minted in our times carry an image of rays of plentitude, the same as those minted by Yochanan Horkanus. It is a pagan symbol which is more pagan than pagan. It originates from the 

story of the goat that nursed Zeus, the godhead in the Greek mythology. So what?

Neither Horkanus nor us are idol worshippers, but there are always natural influences on our lives, 

language and terminology from our surroundings – this is insignificant. The main problem on the eve of the rebellion was the attempt to outroot that Jewish faith in the wider sense, the popular kind, not  whether anyone wore a fashionable Grfeek dress or listened to Aris San.On Channukah we celebrate 

the main victory, the removal of the threat of cultural annihilation. 

Political Independence  was but a by-product much later because then, as today, the losers did not sit idly, but continued to apply pressure  and hoped to win "this time around," Each such effort merely created a chasin of events which brought about their final and absolute defeat and strengthened the Jewish state.

The Great Yet Little Applied Lesson of Chanukah

Last week, as we were about to enter the Jewish Holy Day of Chanukah, I wrote an article about miracles. For many, and unfortunately so, I might add, Chanukah begins and ends with the miracle of the can of oil that lasted eight days when it should have sufficed for one day only.

A beautiful and cheerful story indeed which merely tells us why the holiday lasts eight days but not why we celebrate it. The second “why” is one of the most important lessons in our Jewish history, a lesson we seem to have forgotten.

For me, and many others, Chanukah is about the Jews taking over and shaping their own destiny. It is about Jews and ONLY Jews defining who we are and what our tradition, its symbols and concept are all about.

As during the times of the Maccabees, nowadays we also have Hellenizing Jews. Yes, I am talking about those Jews who lack a backbone, appease and cater to those who they believe can save them, little realizing that in many cases, those who claim to love us, are merely doing it in pursuit of their own agenda be it political, religious or economic ones.

Some of us call it, the “Ghetto mentality,” the kind Jews had been forced to adopt while living  under the rule of foreigners for a very long time. In Yiddish, there is a special term for it, the “Sha Shtil,” (be quiet) mentality.

These Jews who possess and practice such a mindset will go out of their way to please those they feel may give them a sense of security or a longer life sentence. They will let them usurp their most treasured symbols, allow them to define them and let them advocate for them wherever threats to Jewish existence lurk - all in the name of gaining and buying safety for one day longer.

Funny, because all around us, we see the opposite is happening. Minorities, be it people of colour, members of indigenous nations or anyone else, are offended and rightfully so, should an outsider engage in efforts to define them or usurp any of their symbols.

However, should a Jew “dare” to stand and speak up against such endeavours by others to do the same to us, they get chastised, blocked, offended and are subject to witch hunts.

I bet those members of our People whose blood has filled the rivers of history are probably turning in their graves witnessing and wondering if Jews have learned any lessons from their untimely death

Is that what was the fabric of our destiny when we entered nationhood? Were we meant to be followers rather than leaders? Was that the purpose of establishing a Jewish state in our ancient Homeland, merely to allow it to be conquered physically and ideologically?

Whatever happened to Jewish pride, the kind that the Maccabees restored, “in those days at this time?” What happened to their defiant Spirit or the Spirit of the heroes of Metzada? How about the vigor of the warriors of the Warsaw Ghetto or the Jewish partisans who fought in the forests of Europe against the Nazis? How about the essence of the members of the underground movements, in the years that preceded the establishment of the Jewish state, to whom we owe our presence here in Eretz Yisrael?

Let us bring it back!

Am Yisrael Chai in Eretz Yisrael, its past, present and future Home 

Miracles

“There are two ways to live. You can live as if nothing is a miracle. You can live as if everything is a miracle.” – Albert Einstein

As we are approaching the Jewish holy day of Chanukah, we prepare to commemorate the story of heroism of the Maccabees. For many, though, that holiday is mostly associated and linked with the term “miracle.” We hear about the miracle of the can of oil that lasted 8 days when it should have sufficed for one day only. We also hear of the miracle of the victory of few over many.

For some, it is unreasonable to believe in miracles. Not for me.

That is why I elected to live my life according to the latter part of Einstein’s quote. In a way, it was my destiny. It is the kind of a reality I was born into, a reality that had been shaped by a world devoid of vision, trust and hope.

Lest some may deem my words a riddle, let me explain.

It is not a secret that I am a daughter of two Shoah survivors. Their survival was, in my view, a miracle. It transpired against all odds. And if some define the term “miracle” as defying all laws of nature, then their survival, without a doubt, was one. I will not tire the readers with episodes from their life while facing the fragility of their existence under the oppression of the Nazi war machine. Their kind of horrific experiences and those of others who went through it have been documented. Those records are publicly available.

Neither am I going to sit here and play the victim. That would be too easy.

Instead, I chose to celebrate my parents’ survival. It was a miracle, just like many other milestones in Jewish history. Miracles are the golden thread that runs through it. The more we, Jews, accept that notion, the greater is our celebration of Life.

Through my parents’ unwavering gift of Life, and by default, I, likewise, consider my presence here, on this earth, a miracle.

And no miracle should be wasted.

Whether one believes that miracles are predestined and are part of a grand scheme of our universe, or disjointed, with each creating their own miracles, in either case, it is futile if gone wasted. Preserving the outcome of a miracle, vesting and upholding it is an art that some are yet to master.

One way to grasp the significance of miracles in both our Jewish, private and national life is to sustain and carry the memory of how bitter and harsh life had been before the miracle occurred. Memory through commemoration is the process in which we tie our past experiences and apply the information to our present and hopefully make it better and safer for all. 

And that, dear readers, is one of the messages of Chanukah.

May we all continue to live our life as a miracle and join in its celebration.

Chag Sameach