For eight nights starting on
Kislev
25 the celebration of Hanukkah begins. The holiday is commonly thought
of as somesort of Jewish Christmas or even the Jewish winter solstice
festival. However, a look at the history, culture, and geography of everything related to Hanukkah reveals a rich story
of humanity.
Hanukkah's Pre-History: From Aristotle's Student to a Line in the SandBy
his death in 323 BC Alexander the Great had created, at that time, the
world's largest empire. The Macedonia Empire stretched from present-day
Albania to India, from Romania down into Egypt. With his passing the
empire collapsed not back into native regimes but into feuding
Greek-in-culture, Hellenistic, empires. The two Hellenistic empires
that matter to the story of Hanukkah are the
Seleucid Empire, which ruled modern Syria, Iraq, and Iran, and the
Ptolemaic Kingdom, which ruled modern-day Egypt.
The region of Judea, the Jewish homeland, was a piece of property
which both the Seleucids and Ptolemaic Egyptians repeatedly fought
over. In 168 BC Seleucid
King Antiochus IV Epiphanes
launched his second invasion of Egypt over rumors the Ptolemaics were
plotting to win back Judea and lower Syria. However, this time the
Ptolemaics had aligned themselves with the expanding regional power: the
Roman Republic. A Roman ambassador intercepted Antiochus on his way to
war, drew a circle in the sand around Antiochus, and said if Antiochus
stepped out of the circle before giving Rome an answer on its demand
Antiochus end the war that Rome would declare war against the
Seleucids. Antiochus got the message and withdrew. This was the origin
of the saying "line in the sand."
The War Which Made HanukkahMeanwhile a rumor that
Antiochus was killed in Egypt spread in Judea. A coup was launched against the
pro-Seleucid Temple High Priest Menelaus (who was pro-Greek culture) by
Jason (who was also pro-Greek culture). Antiochus was advised of the
situation and crushed the rebellion and instituted a policy of
Hellenization which outlawed Jewish religious rites and required worship
of Zeus. His thinking was that if the Jewish religion were destroyed then Jews would be easier to control and Temple politics would stop being a source of conflict.
A rebellion originally led by a priest named Mattathias broke out.
Mattahias and his family/follwers, the Maccabees,
launched a war against
the Seleucids and the pro-Greek Jews. At the end of the seven year war, which the
Maccabees won, the Temple was cleansed from paganism and a day's worth
of oil burned for eight days. Since then the celebration of the miracle has been a minor holiday in Judaism.
The Maccabees founded a new dynasty which ruled Judea until the Roman conquest and founded the
Pharisee school of thought which later provided the basis of non-Temple, Rabbinical Judaism.
The Catholic History Which "Saved" HanukkahThe rebellion is recorded in the Biblical books
First and
Second Maccabees.
These books were originally written in Hebrew and fairly quickly, and
ironically, translated into Greek. The Hebrew copies were lost so that when scholars were actually putting the Bible together it was only found in the
Greek-language Bible known as the
Septuagint.
The
early Church recognized the books in both the Hebrew and Greek versions
of the Old Testament and therefore First and Second Maccabees were declared cannon
along with the other books of the Bible.
To this day the Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox Churches, and
Oriential Orthodox consider both Maccabees books as biblical (Protestants first had the Maccabees books in a separate section of their Bibles but then these and several other books were dropped during the rise of Bible societies in the 1800s to save printing costs). However,
as Christendom gained power in both the Latin and Greek world the Jewish
world began to reject all Greek influence again. Since original Hebrew
versions of both the Maccabees books could not be found they were
rejected. Jews still celebrated Hanukkah but the meaning was being lost
over time. It took Christendom to restore its meaning.
Professor Jon Levenson, professor of Jewish studies at Harvard Divinity School explains: (Hat Tip:
Shameless Popery)
The Roman Catholic tradition honors these Jewish martyrs as saints,
and the Eastern Orthodox Church still celebrates Aug. 1 as the Feast of
the Holy Maccabees. By contrast, in the literature of the Rabbis of the
first several centuries of the common era, the story lost its connection
to the Maccabean uprising, instead becoming associated with later
persecutions by the Romans, which the Rabbis experienced. If the change
seems odd, recall that the compositions that first told of these events
(the books of Maccabees) were not part of the scriptural canon of
rabbinic Judaism. But they were canonical in the Church (and remain so
in the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox communions).
And so we encounter another oddity of Hanukkah: Jews know the fuller
history of the holiday because Christians preserved the books that the
Jews themselves lost. In a further twist, Jews in the Middle Ages
encountered the story of the martyred mother and her seven sons anew in
Christian literature and once again placed it in the time of the
Maccabees.
Hanukkah Today: American Jewish ChristmasRabbi Kerry Olitzky writes
that Hanukkah, traditionally a minor holiday, is big for two reasons 1)
It is close to Christmas and allows Jews to celebrate along with
everyone else while doing something different to preserve Jewish
identity and 2) it is a celebration with few rules unlike other Jewish
holy days.
However, there is concern that Hanukkah and its meaning is being abandoned by
American Jews and those in interfaith marriages. Israel even created an
ad warning that children in the United States will forget Hanukkah and
celebrate Christmas instead.
Hanukkah: Every Judeo-Christian's Holiday?
Besides its obvious Jewish base Hanukkah's appeal various, primarily
American, Protestant and Catholics are starting to pay attention to the
celebration. Some Protestants are attracted to Hanukkah due to the old
Anglo-Protestant tradition of Judaizing (adopting Jewish customs).
Meanwhile some Catholic intellectuals since Vatican II see the holiday
as part of the universal tradition of Abrahamic faith in God. Even Neo-Protestant (i.e. Catholic Rejectionist)
Mel Gibson is planning on making a movie about the rebellion.
Meanwhile Hanukkah continues to integrate itself into mainstream
culture. Adam Sandler has sung multiple versions of his Hanukkah song
while in 1996 the first animated cartoon series in the United States
marked the holiday with a special:
Rugrats Hanukkah. Now the holiday, if not its meaning, has been well known to most Americans.
Happy Hanukkah! Remember its meaning of fighting for what is right!
