Oh great, I promised to write about Chanukah today. That’s not fun? Why did I do that? Oh right, I have nothing to write about today and it’s important. Chanukah is not important as a holiday, but it teaches important lessons. I’m not talking about lighting the menorah or presents or even chocolate gelt. I didn’t get any gelt this year; now I’m depressed. How did I deprive myself like that? I’ll have to discuss this in therapy.
Why is Chanukah a minor holiday? Because the events happened too late to count in Jewish law. It was decided that events that happened after the building of the second temple were not canonical. The Maccabees books are not part of the Old Testament, they are considered apocrypha. That sort of nonsense is also not what makes it important or the miracle of the oil. Unlike every major Jewish holiday Chanukah celebrates historical events, and it’s those events that I want to discuss.
The history of Israel is complicated and what we pick up in common culture gets it wrong. For most of its existence Israel was not an independent country but a part of an empire, those empires kept changing. I’ll pick up the story when it was part of the Babylonian empire. This is the period of the Babylonian captivity when part of the population was forcibly transferred to Babylon. The Babylonians destroyed the first temple. This was not a good time to be a Jew but had lasting consequences. Aramaic, the language of the Babylonians replaced Hebrew as the everyday language and Babylon became a center of Judaism. Most of the Talmud was written in Babylon. The Talmud is written in Aramaic.
The Babylonians were conquered by the Persians led by Cyrus the Great. The Persians were much better rulers. They allowed the Jews to return to Israel. Cyrus is referred to as God’s anointed, literally the Messiah. The Jews were allowed to rebuild the temple which marks the official end of the biblical era. Under the Persians there was a local king of Israel who was a subject of the Persians. This was a good time to be a Jew. The Persians knew how to run an empire. They kept Aramaic as the lingua franca as that’s what most of the population spoke. They did not force their subjects to speak Persian.
Then Alexander and the Macedonians conquered the Persian Empire. We tend to view this from a European point of view, the victors write the history books, and they saw this as a victory for civilization. In many ways it was. Hellenic civilization accomplished great things. After Alexander’s death his generals split up the empire and thanks to its position Israel was fought over by the Ptolemies in Egypt and the Seleucids in Syria. The Seleucids won control. The Seleucids were not as cosmopolitan as the Persians and imposed their ways on their subjects. This is why at the time of Jesus the Jews were divided into the Hebrews and the Greeks. Many Jews took up Greek as their first language. Those that spoke Aramaic were referred to as the Hebrews. Sometimes things just don’t make sense.
But now we are up to the period of Chanukah. The Seleucids were oppressors and went as far as to insist that Greek idols be placed in the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem. This led to an uprising led by the Hasmoneans aka the Maccabees. The revolt was successful and led to the first independent Jewish state in centuries. Stripped of all the myth and mysticism this is what Chanukah celebrates, a colony becoming a country. This is something worth celebrating. Chanukah is the Jewish Fourth of July. But the history of Israel aka Judea did not follow the path of the American revolution, but instead that of so many countries in the postwar period that achieved independence from their European colonial rulers. The leaders ceased power not for their people but for themselves but used their reputation as liberators to give them credibility. I’d like to say that the Hasmoneans ruled well but they didn’t. They proceeded to do what so many have done in history, the oppressed became oppressors when given the opportunity. They imposed their ways on gentiles. They forced people to convert to Judaism. This violates fundamental Jewish law, but they could get away with it as they were the liberators.
Eventually the Hasmoneans were conquered by the Romans and things returned to the historical norm, Judea as a subject state of an empire. History repeated itself when Caligula became emperor and insisted that his statue be placed in the Temple. This led to what I think should be honored as holiday. The people responded not by an armed revolt but with a general strike that included a hunger strike. Using the methods of Gandhi, they forced the Romans to remove the statue. Eventually there was an armed revolt led by Bar Kokhba. It failed and that was the end of Judea and any semblance of Jewish self-rule. The Temple was razed, and the Jews forcibly expelled from Jerusalem. The country’s name was changed from Judea the land of the Jews, to Palestine, the land of the Philistines. Not that there were any Philistines left in the area, but they were the tradition enemies of Israel, it was just rubbing salt in the wounds. This accelerated the diaspora and things didn’t stayed that way for thousands of years until the rise of Zionism and eventual founding of the State of Israel.
Chanukah celebrates something great, the liberation of the Jewish people, but in doing so turned the Maccabees into heroes despite the terrible things they did once in power. That mixture of good and evil is what makes this important. We want to see people as heroes and villains but it’s not that simple. The same person can be both. I just realized that Magneto from the X-Men fits this so well. He sees himself as a Maccabee. That’s appropriate as he is Jewish. But we do this all the time in real life. Just because someone that accomplished something great says something, doesn’t make it right, or morally good. Good and evil does not depend on who is committing the act, but in the act itself. People have a hard time internalizing that. Chanukah is a cautionary tale to teach us that lesson.
OK, now that I did my pedantic duty I can remind you to listen to my top albums of 2019 in an extended edition of Gord’s Gold on Folk Music Notebook today at 6 PM. Set your alarm now so you don’t forget. I’m going to celebrate with a French toast breakfast. I use chocolate chip brioche so it’s extra good.
Wise Madness 