Where What When

The Story Behind the Story of Chanukah

The story of Chanukah starts over 2,100 years ago, when Matityahu rebelled against the Greeks and fled to the hills, issuing his famous call: “Mi leHashem eilai –Whoever is for G-d, come with me!” What is less known is that Eretz Yisrael had already been under Greek rule for over 150 years.

It started with Alexander the Great. Alexander’s father, Phillip of Macedonia, had forcefully united the Greek states. His son Alexander was educated by Aristotle and took over the powerful Greek army after the assassination of his father. (Some believe he was in on the plot.) In a military campaign that lasted 12 years and took him 10,000 miles, Alexander conquered the colossal Persian empire (remember Queen Esther and the 120 provinces?) in 331 BCE. His conquests extended from Greece in the West till the Indus River in India, making him the undisputed ruler of the known world. After Alexander’s early death at age 32, the empire broke up into three parts: Greece, Egypt, and Syria, each ruled by one of his generals. Eretz Yisrael was first under the Ptolemaic dynasty of Egypt but came under the rule of the Syrian Seleucids in 199 BCE.

Jews and Greeks: Love at First Sight

In the years following Alexander, Greek soldiers and settlers spread the Greek culture throughout the newly conquered lands, where it mixed with the old indigenous cultures of the Middle East, producing a new hybrid culture called Hellenism (Greece is Hellas in Greek). Hellenism was to have a huge influence on the Romans, Christianity, and the West. Its relationship to the Jews was more complex.

The Greeks and the Jews were fascinated with each other at first. The Greeks had a deep intellectual tradition, and philosophers like Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. With their love of wisdom, science, and art, they were much more advanced than other peoples the Jews had interacted with. And Alexander himself had been tolerant of the Jews’ ways.

For their part, the Greeks had never encountered another people with the lofty tradition of one loving G-d Who acts in history. They admired the Jews’ profound legal and philosophical traditions, their literate populace, and their ideas of social welfare. The Greeks were the first to translate the Torah, when King Ptolemy II forced 70 chachamim to produce the Greek Septuagint (meaning 70) in 250 BCE.

Jew vs. Jew

The fascination did not last. By the time of Matityahu, Jewish society was in deep conflict in its response to Hellenism. The rich upper class Jewish Hellenists tried to force their devout brethren to relinquish their “primitive” beliefs. They saw assimilation as a positive, modernizing influence, and welcomed the release from Jewish parochialism. On the other side, were the majority of the people, who remained observant and loyal to Judaism. They saw in the Greek glorification of the body, beauty, and logic, to the exclusion of spirituality, a danger to Torah and Jewish survival.

As for the Greeks, they considered the Jews’ rejection of the Hellenistic lifestyle disloyal, even rebellious. It was important to them that the Jews assimilate, since the Land of Israel was the strategic crossroads between the rival Greek states in Egypt and Syria.

As Jewish society became polarized, the Hellenist Jews involved the Greeks in the country’s internal quarrels. Antiochus IV, the Syrian Greek king, was determined to impose his idol-worshipping values on the Jewish people; he outlawed Shabbos, Rosh Chodesh, bris mila, the study of Torah, as well as enacting other harsh decrees. He set up a statue of Zeus in the Bais Hamikdash in Jerusalem, systematically desecrated Jerusalem’s holy sites, and barbarically executed Jews who refused to worship his pagan gods. Many Jews acquiesced to save their lives. It was a very dark time for the Jewish nation.

The Maccabees

Things came to a head in a small village called Modiin, 40 kilometers from Jerusalem. Greek soldiers came one day in 167 BCE and demanded that the Jews sacrifice a pig to the pagan god. At first no one stepped forward, and the Jews stood in proud defiance of their pagan oppressors. But then a Jewish Hellenist volunteered to perform the mock offering. Furious at this outrage, Matityahu, from the family of Chashmonaim priests, killed the man on the spot, and then killed the Greek soldiers who were present. Matityahu and his five sons fled to nearby caves and became the core of a guerrilla fighting unit. They were prepared to fight and die to preserve the exclusive worship of Judaism – battling the Greeks not only militarily but religiously as well.

The elderly Matityahu died within a year and never saw the success of the revolt he began. His son Judah, a brilliant tactician and leader, took over as leader, and it was under Judah’s inspired leadership that the Jews were able to successfully confront the Greeks. For the Maccabees, it was not Jewish physical life that was at stake but the spiritual life of the Jew. The name “Maccabee” is an acronym for the Torah verse “Who is compared to You among the mighty, O Lord” (Exodus 15:11).

Within three years, the Maccabees had recaptured Jerusalem, removed the sacrilegious objects from the Bais Hamikdash, and restored Jewish autonomy. It was, as we say in the Al Hanisim prayer, a victory for the weak against the strong, and the few against the many. Religious liberty was established, and the Temple was rededicated. The one unblemished container of olive oil lit in the Temple on that day miraculously lasted eight full days.

It’s Not About the Army

According to the Talmud, the festival of Chanukah is less about the military victory of a small band of Jews against one of the mightiest armies on earth, and more about the miracle of the oil. The Talmud makes only a passing reference to the military victory: “When the royal Chashmonai family overpowered and was victorious.” It focuses exclusively on the story with the oil, as if this were the only significant event commemorated by the festival of Chanukah. Why was this?

The answer allows us to appreciate the essential ingredient that has defined 4,000 years of Jewish history. The military victory was extraordinary indeed, yet it didn’t last. The Hasmonean descendants themselves became Hellenized and corrupt, bringing great suffering to the people and paving the way for the Romans, who destroyed the Bais Hamikdash just 210 years later. Jerusalem was plundered, Israel was decimated, and the Jewish people exiled. It was the beginning of a period of Jewish powerlessness, dispersion, and persecution that has lasted almost two millennia.

The Real Miracle

While the political and military victory of Chanukah unfortunately did not endure, what did endure was the spiritual miracle – the Jewish faith – which, like the oil, was inextinguishable. Strength founded on military power alone is temporary. It may endure for long periods, but ultimately it will be defeated by a greater power. On the other hand, strength founded on moral courage, on spiritual light, and on faith in the ultimate power of goodness can never be destroyed.

Chazal instituted the Chanukah holiday with a keen understanding of this truth. With their eyes focused on eternity, the rabbis of the Second Temple era grasped that the timeless core of Chanukah was not the victory on the battlefield alone; rather, the military triumph led to the rekindling of the sacred light and the moral torch. Sure, the military victory was an enormously significant event for which we are deeply grateful. Yet what makes Chanukah a vibrant and heart-stirring holiday more than 2,100 years later is the story of a little container of oil that would not cease casting its brightness even in the darkest of nights and among the mightiest of winds.

For more than two millennia, with the onset of Chanukah, Jewish families gathered around their menorahs, their children’s faces aglow with timeless joy. As they gazed at the dancing flames, they could hear the flickering candles sharing their story, a story with a penetrating punch line: the flame of Jewish faith, the flame of Torah, the flame of redemption, would never be extinguished.

Top

Article List - December 2005