#hanuca

Okay first off, the Greeks came in originally nearer to the beginning of the time of the second temple, and weren’t so bad, Under Alexander of Macedon. He respected the sages as intellectuals and promised on several occasions not to do them harm. However, there was an inherent harm to the Greek takeover, which is that it lured many Jews away from Judaism, to study Greek philosophy and assimilate in Greek culture. The Greeks valued logic above all else, and Judaism isn’t logical. The hesitance of traditional Jews to involve themselves with -or simply accept- the Greeks, both in business, and marriage and religion led to bitterness between the two groups, and -as a result- bitterness between the traditional Jews and those who had assimilated. The Greeks set up 3 main decrees, all of which had a penalty of death attached, and those were:

1) there was a decree against keeping Shabbat. If a Jew refused to come to work for the government on Shabbat, there was a death penalty waiting for them.

2) there was a decree against ritual circumcision. If a family was caught holding a Bris, the entire family would be killed.

3) there was a decree against Niddah/abstinence before marriage. Women would be forbidden from going to the Mikvah, under penalty of death, and as well - if they wanted to get married - the Greeks forced them to be violated by a Greek general before (or right after) the marriage took place, also with a penalty of death. This made the Greek occupation of the land of Israel particularly harsh for the women, and is one of the main reasons why women nowadays have special customs that they do on Chanukah (such as not to do creative labors - like on yom tov - at the time when the candles are burning.)

The Jews who had assimilated into Greek culture used their extensive knowledge of Judaism as a weapon against their fellow Jews to help the Greeks enforce their harsh decrees.

Now the manner and reason for which the uprising of the Chashmonayim (Hasmoneans) began was rather unpalatable and embarrassing itself. One of the women in the house of the Hasmoneans (who were Kohanim) came to her wedding naked. And in the midst of everyone yelling at her, and wanted to execute her for adultery, she declared “What’s the difference between being stripped naked now, or having it forced on me by the Greeks after the wedding?“. Her family was so embarrassed that they hadn’t realized the depth of the problem that they got up and started a revolt, becoming the well-known Macabbees.

The situation of the revolt was very unfortunate; you would hope that they were mostly fighting actual Greeks, if they were rebelling against them... but in fact they were fighting mostly assimilated Jews. In that sense, we are in a stronger position today than we were at the time of Chanukah, because very few assimilated Jews nowadays would ever help a Goyishe government commit either a cultural or literal genocide against their own people, whereas at that point it was a huge majority.

Now, after the war was won, they had to light the menorah again (See here for some details of the Chanukah Miracle). The traditional picture you see is of a beautiful 7- branched golden menorah... but that is not at all likely what they were actually lighting. The Greeks stole many of the valuable furnishings of the temple -including the menorah- and in order to light the menorah, they had to improvise. It was explained to me by Rav Goldberg of Hadar Hatorah (a halachic authority) that the main requirement of the menorah is that it be made of metal, not necessarily gold (although gold is the best way to fulfill the mitzvah), so the menorah was likely built out of wood and tin (a wood or tin base, with 7 tin branches coming out) which would tide them over until they would be able to build a new golden menorah.

Unfortunately, even after the miracle of Chanukah, things were not at all “hunky-dory“. The Hasmoneans declared themselves the Kings of Israel, which caused friction between them and the rest of the people, since it had been established already that the kingship belongs to the tribe of Judah, and they were from the tribe of Levi. The rift between them and the sages was further widened as they themselves began to assimilate/be affected by Greek culture. This resulted often in mass executions of great sages of Israel. The Hasmonean rule ended with infighting between brothers in the family, and a massacre conducted by Herod - who was a Canaanite servant in the house of the Hasmoneans, and rebelled, killing all of the Hasmonean family.

However, the story of Chanukah has modern parallels from which we can participate and which we can learn.... and we can prevent ourselves from falling into the negative situations which the Hasmoneans themselves fell into.

In Communist Russia, there were many Jews who assimilated and became communists - And just like those who assimilated in ancient Greece, they used their knowledge of Judaism as a weapon to destroy their own culture... and yet, with the effort of a select few, who stood to the point of martyrdom, Judaism is very alive in Russia today.

The United States has been kind to the Jews, for the most part. This has made it all-too-easy to become involved in - and sunken into - secular culture in America (and even in Europe for a while in the past 70 years)... to fall prey to assimilation. It is up to us to stop the assimilation - and hold strong - not to make the same mistake thrice. And through this we’ll light up the dark. We’ll fill the universe with a light that there hasn’t been since the beginning of time. A light that will leave no place for war... No place for hate.... And no place for darkness anymore.

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Aharon Ephraim