this territory goes uncharted

Two things I learned.

One, sometimes apartment complexes will flat out forget to tell you they’re sending someone over from the fire department to check your fire extinguishers.

Two, no matter how bad ass a person thinks they are, a naked person swinging a sword at them will knock them off balance both physically and mentally.

shanidar 1 is a neanderthal who, at a pretty young age, was hit in the head hard enough to blind him. this also led to that side of his brain shutting down and withering his right arm, and possibly crippling his entire right side. not only that but his skeleton also shows that at some point, he broke a bone in his foot and, in addition to the other factors, resulted in a noticeable limp. there are some sources which say he likely had degenerative diseases. (arthritis was really common in neanderthals) 

going off of widespread ideas of “”primitive”” (no longer the word used in anthropology/academia to describe early-modern humans) societies, shanidar probably died really young, deliberately abandoned or killed. i mean, he was severely crippled, blind, etc., he couldn’t contribute anything, he would have been a “”burden to society””, right? 

except he lived to be between 40 and 50 years old. (about ~80 in human years)

this means that his social group had to have taken care of him for a minimum of two or three decades without his ‘contributing’ anything significant to the group. this discovery (and Shanidar III’s) was huge because it basically proves that early humans had a concept of hospice. early modern humans cared for the sick and the elderly, greatly extending their lifespan, simply because they cared. 

CRACKS KNUCKLES. STRETCHES ARMS. OKAY SO LIKE.

so like it’s something something bce and israel/judea/whatever you wanna call it has been INVADED BY THE GREEKS. specifically, invaded by a bro named antiochus, pronounced aunt-eye-oh-kiss, who is a dick.

thing about hanukkah is that, like, there’s the Historical Story, which is important and worthy of study and shit, and then there’s the Hanukkah Story, which is more fun

so in Historical Story the invasion by the greeks was pretty slow and there was a lot of hellenization of jewish culture and blah blah blah 

in Hanukkah Story the greeks SMASHED IN WITH A BUNCH OF SWORDS and were like FUCK YOUR TEMPLE. FUCK YOUR GOD. FUCK YOUR PASSOVER, AND ALSO, FUCK YOU. and they DESTROYED THE TEMPLE and let, like, pigs go running around in it? which, if you know literally anything about judaism: pigs in the temple. they set pigs on the fucking holy fucking temple.

ANyway, then a greek general was like “yo, okay, i am threatening you all with Death unless you sacrifice to zeus.” and everyone was very Stoic and Rebellious until one bro was like FINE!! I WILL SACRIFICE TO ZEUS, GIMME THE STATUE OF ZEUS, IMMA KILL AN ANIMAL AND GO YAY ZEUS. i’m not sure if this also happened in the temple, but i like to think of it happening in the temple, because sacrifices to an idol??? in the holy fucking temple???? and he is almost about to kill the animal WHEN

WHAM, here comes mattathias (a.k.a. matisyahu, a.k.a. no, not the rapper) and CUTS OFF THE BRO’S HEAD.

then he yells ANYONE WHO WANTS TO FIGHT BACK COME TO THE HILLS!!!! and FLEES to the hills along with his sons. their family name is MACCABEE and so they are known as the MACCABEES, which means THE SLEDGEHAMMERS, because this story was apparently NOT METAL ENOUGH ALREADY.

meanwhile the occupation continues. there is a chick named HANNAH, who i have loved for one thousand years because i can either identify with her or hannah-samuel’s-mother, who is boring.

hannah has SEVEN SONS, which is MORE THAN I WOULD LIKE TO HAVE. the greeks capture them all and go “EAT PORK. EAT IT. EAT IT.” hannah and her seven sons are like no!! wtf calm the fuck down with your pork

so the greeks, who have literally no chill, go “okay, we’re gonna torture son #1 until he eats pork.” which they do - except the son does not eat the pork?? and eventually he just like DIES and the greeks are like, WHAT THE FUCK, okay, TIME TO TRY THIS AGAIN.

so they try it with son #2 and it is EQUALLY INEFFECTIVE. NO PORK, NO EATING. the greeks are BEWILDERED, they go on to torture and kill sons #3 THROUGH #7. LITERALLY ALL OF THEM. NONE OF THEM EAT PORK.

the greeks are like “HANNAH. HANNAH. YOU HAVE JUST WATCHED ALL YOUR GODDAMN CHILDREN DIE. EAT THE DAMN BACON.”

but hannah is the most rad of all the jews. she goes “i will not eat your fucking pig because you KILL PEOPLE ABOUT IT. god DAMN calm the fuck down and LET US BE JEWISH LITERALLY WHAT IS YOUR DAMAGE.”

the greeks have an elephant!! the greeks have A HUGE ARMY!! the greeks have a Whole Fucking Empire! the jews have, like, matisyahu and his five kids. (one of them is judah maccabee, who i like to think of as Very Hot.)

and we win.

[intermission: NO-OT BY MI-IGHT AND NO-O-OT BY POWER (TAKE A SHOWER!!!) BUT BY SPIIIIRIT ALONE (RUACH) SHALL WE ALL LIVE IN PEEEEAAAAAAAAAACE.]

so we kick! the greeks! out! of israel/judea/palestine/whatever! and we’re like FUCK YES WE’RE GONNA KICK THE PIGS OUT OF THE TEMPLE WE’RE GONNA CLEAN THE TEMPLE WE’RE GONNA MAKE THE TEMPLE NICE AS SHIT

okay. quick note on the law, for gentiles: one of the most important things about synagogues is that you always gotta have a light in it. it represents god, and it can’t ever, ever go out. it can be electric or fire or anything, but it cannot go out.

so the jews get into the temple and the light is fire, obviously, because electricity has not been invented yet, and the light is almost out.

Oh Shit, say the jews.

there’s oil to keep the light burning. there’s enough oil to keep the light burning for one day. the nearest supply of oil is eight days away, round-trip.

Oh Shit. say the jews.

i mean. what are you gonna do. they send off a guy on a horse to go for the oil. they light up the remaining oil. they scrub the temple floors, and kick the pigs out, and sit, and recover, and wait for the fire to go out.

the fire doesn’t go out.

for one day, it lasts. then for another. for eight fucking days the oil burns, and the horseman returns with the new supply, and the fire is still burning in the temple. the fire never goes out in the temple. we survive the entire invasion and the fire never goes out once.

most jewish stories are stories about survival. this one’s about a little more than that. because we could have assimilated; we could have hellenized. we could have worshiped their gods and eaten pork, and we would have lived.

person, writing all of this down: yeah awesome! what are we gonna do with our arms tho??