**Warning - grisly details of the REAL Chanukah story below**
Dear Friends,
Despite what you may have heard, the Chanukah story is really not for kids.
It is tempting to force history into neat little moral packages. For Jewish immigrants to the United States, Chanukah became a tale of liberty — religious freedom hard-won by the righteous Maccabees. Don’t get me wrong, there are good reasons to identify with that aspect of the story. But that is not the whole story. The fuller version includes a mix of political intrigue, sectarian infighting, and bloody betrayals. For instance, Judah Maccabee’s successor Simon was murdered by his son-in-law in a power grab. Later, Aristobulus I, the first Hasmonean/Maccabee to declare himself king, did so by imprisoning and starving his mother. His successor, Alexander Yannai, sparked a civil war with the Jewish sect called the Pharisees. In an especially dark turn, he ordered the crucifixion of 800 of his Jewish political rivals.
As you can see, the Maccabees were not messiahs. The sectarian infighting, in particular, foreshadowed bitter Jewish divisions that would lead to the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple by the Romans 200 years or so later, leading the Talmud to attribute the dissolution of the great Jewish commonwealth to sinat chinam — reckless hatred. (Yoma 9b)
The real story of the Maccabees, then, is both a reflection on hard-fought freedom and a cautionary tale against the corrosive effects of power. The victim had prevailed over the tyrant — hooray! But now what? Unfortunately, that ‘now what’ for the powerless newly grasping power, so often leads down a dark road.
I’m pulling back this particular curtain to invite reflection on how we think of history. Instead of viewing it in black and white terms — replete with heroes and villains, victims and oppressors — what would it look like to view history as a dialectic? Our stories contain beautiful kernels of light, but also warnings of the abuses of power and the excesses of ethnic pride. There are profound lessons to learn from real history — lessons that complement and complicate the beautiful miracle of the oil that burned for eight days. When we embrace our history and ourselves with honest reflection, then, we stand to learn and grow the most.
This dilemma certainly lends perspective to the challenges of divisive times. It also makes me feel so very lucky to live in the United States, a country conceived to end tyranny and political instability forever. It is so easy to take for granted concepts like rights, representative government, and checks and balances. It is easy to forget just how unusual these ideas are — not just in the scope of human history, but in the modern world, too.
And what can we learn from the real Chanukah story, today? We all need to be a part of democracy. No matter who is in the white house we must protect it. Whereas the Maccabees were soldiers of war, we are all, to paraphrase the great Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin, soldiers for peace. And as soldiers for peace, we cannot tolerate the winnowing of democracy any more than Judah stood by when the tolerant Syrian- Greeks began to persecute Jews.
To learn more about the real story behind the holiday, I invite you to a class I am teaching on Sunday, December 15th at 11 AM. I am calling it From Despair to Triumph: The Maccabee in Ancient History and Modern Judaism. Together we will examine how the famous story of Judah and his brothers has migrated, evolved, and informed Jewish self-understanding in present-day America and Israel. Please email Caroline (office@tbtshoreline.org) to sign up.
While we light our Chanukiot (Chanukah menorahs) this year, let us not elide the darker aspects of our history. They remind us of the dangers we may yet avoid.
May this Chanukah be built with light and vigilance. Where the Macabees fought military battles, let us continue to fight peacefully for a better America and a vibrant democracy.
Chag Urim Sameach (Happy Festival of Lights),
Rabbi Moss