Hanukkah, Then and Now

The Maccabees' war has some startling similarities to the Hamas War.

Almost everything about traditional Judaism is misunderstood in the larger American culture, Hanukkah perhaps most of all.[i]

First, the largest misunderstanding is that Hanukkah is the Jewish Christmas. Christmas celebrates the birth of Jesus. Hanukkah commemorates a war several hundred years before Jesus was born, and has nothing to do with Christmas.

These points are usually made, but they don’t explain much:

• It was a war for religious freedom

• There was a miracle about some oil that lasted 8 days

• The war was led by a group called the Maccabees

• Everyone plays dreidel and eats latkes.

The Maccabees were not fighting for the right to attend or not attend the kind of services they wanted. Traditional Judaism is a way of life, not a religion focusing on faith, rites and prayers. When the Syrian Greeks outlawed fundamental practices of Judaism including circumcision, the study of Torah, and observance of the Sabbath, they were destroying our way of life.

Jewish Culture

Jewish law and life have two foci: service to God and service to humanity.

We are taught that righteousness is its own reward. The great Jewish scholar Maimonides[ii] said, “Let men serve God at first for reward; they will end by serving him without any such motive. He who desires to serve God from love must not serve to win the future world, but he does the right and eschews the wrong because he is a human and owes it to his humanness to perfect himself.”

While Judaism has nothing against beauty, it of itself is not a high value. The second of the Ten Commandments states, “You shall have no other gods before Me. You shall not make for yourself a graven image, nor any manner of likeness of any thing that is in heaven above.”[iii]

Because Judaism has not produced great art, enduring gorgeous ceramics, or beautiful buildings, sophisticates have said that we did not have a culture. Our culture is huge and magnificent—but it is based on the internal and ineffable, not on the material.

Character—what is inside a person—and intellect, especially that focused on Jewish learning, are valued more highly than the packaging. For this reason, the highest status people were not the strongest or most physically attractive. Rather, the best scholarly students often married the richest man’s daughters or the most charitable Jewish girl of suitable age.

Gratitude is a major Jewish value. As the daily prayers say, “We will give thanks and recount Your praise, evening, morning and noon, for our lives which are committed into Your hand, for our souls which are entrusted to you, for Your daily miracles which are with us daily, and for Your continual wonders and beneficences…for Your mercies never cease.”[iv]

We taught to be grateful to God for everything—even at the worst of times we should be grateful for life, because with life there is hope. An acquaintance who survived Auschwitz told me that even there, she awakened and recited the Modeh Ani prayer (pictured below) every day, telling God she was grateful for even that miserable life. This prayer, she said, kept her from becoming stuck in the despair that was all around her. An “attitude of gratitude” should extend to others as well as to God.

The Modeh Ani prayer, illustration by the author using Canva.com

Modesty or humility is another important Jewish virtue. In Judaism, being humble does not mean being poor or thinking badly of oneself. It means putting others first and one’s ego a distant second. This contrasts with the Syrian-Greek value of competition: being best. While striving for perfection and knowledge are important in Judaism, waving one’s accomplishments in front of others is frowned on.

An Age-Old Battle between Spirituality and Materialism

Today, as then, Judaism is threatened. Muslim fundamentalism threatens all of Western culture with their plan to impose one Muslim government, called a caliphate, on the world; Israel is just its first target. Also working to destroy western culture and very hostile to Jews are the academic Progressives.

While many people dislike these ideas—witness President Trump’s reelection—the only nation actively opposing them is Israel. Although the two evil sides are very different, they have many things in common

Comparisons

Jewish Tradition

The Jewish way has always been to educate children from infancy on the importance of kindness, gratitude, and justice, valuing above all the interior character of every person and how that translates into “a life of beneficence for Israel and humanity.”[v] This means behaving in the world as we have been taught by God, who provides compassion and grace to His followers and wants the best for His creatures.

Ancient Syrian-Greeks

The ancient Syrian-Greeks valued the superficialities of physical beauty of both people and inanimate objects such as statues, buildings, and even common items such as every-day ceramic pots. They also valued athleticism and competition that included pitting humans against hungry lions. Their god Dionysus, known better today by the Roman name of Bacchus, was the god of fertility, wine, and plenty.[vi] It is thought that originally festivals for this god were special women’s holidays occurring just three times a year, but over time these bacchanalia morphed into outright orgies of sex and drunkenness.[vii] Many Greek myths mention child sacrifice, and there is some concrete evidence that child sacrifice did occur.[viii]

Art by Copilot AI of ancient Greek pottery

Today’s Progressives

The seeds of many of today’s problems can be seen in the Syrian-Greek world view. Total consumer debt in the USA, as of the third quarter of 2024, was $17.9 trillion.[ix] Much of this was spent on striving for beauty through luxury cars, the latest clothes, and personal beauty routines. Many social media influencers and posts focus on and encourage beauty in all things.

AIDS, porn, social drinking and college drinking games,[x] the sexualization of children, and social media sites where young women brag of their sexual exploits have their seeds in bacchanalia. And allowing men, even those who have “become” women, to compete in sports against biological women is in some ways no different than throwing Christians to the lions: the women, as the Christians 2000 years ago, don’t have a chance to win.

Islam

Muslim culture takes the opposite side on many of these issues. Drinking alcohol is forbidden in Islam. Modest dress for women in public is not just recommended; in several countries it is required. Iran and some other countries have “modesty police” who ticket, jail, beat and sometimes kill the immodestly dressed, ensuring that all women are covered up according to that country’s standards.[xi]^,[xii]

Child sacrifice is theoretically despised in the Koran, but actual practice suggests otherwise. Daughters are not infrequently physically abused and even murdered, sacrificed in the name of “family honor.”[xiii] Parents of young adults who have blown themselves up in order to kill Jews are proud of their dead children: they have willingly sacrificed them for what they consider a higher value than life.

Palestinian Arab children as young as preschool are taught to use weapons and play “funeral of a martyr” and “martyr.”[xiv] Videos show children who appear to be about 5 years old wearing suicide vests. (Google has now chosen to hide these, but prior to the current war they were easy to find online.) The Syrian-Greek love of blood sports and an imitation of the god Bacchus can be seen in the bacchanalian zeal shown by the October 7 terrorists who shot, axed, raped, and burned alive 1,200 Israelis and then gleefully reported home of their exploits. Videos of these exploits have been made public. These terrorists were not drunk on alcohol but rather on the spilling of blood.

Division in Israel

Now, as in the age of the Maccabees, the Jewish world itself is divided. Long ago many Jews assimilated into the Syrian-Greek culture, opting for modernity: beauty, sports, competition, and socializing that sometimes led to drunkenness and lewdness. The same happens today. At the same time, others maintained the less flashy, quieter yet deeper and more meaningful life of the tradition.

The frequent anti-Netanyahu demonstrations in Israel are the product of Progressive Israelis, many of whom despise the Jewish religion, although they know virtually nothing about it. Yet since October 7, 2023 and the start of the Hamas War, many formerly Progressive Israelis have moved to the right politically. They have been abandoned by the world’s Progressives, who overwhelmingly support Hamas. For example, not one western feminist group has spoken out against the rape of Jewish children, teens and adults that occurred during the terrorist attack. And while screaming about abuse of Gazans, they have been silent on the plight of the kidnapped Israelis.

Liberal Judaism, which has focused on a political, Progressive view of “tikkun olam,”[xv] has not provided a spiritual basis for life, leaving people open to being sucked in by the materialism so prevalent in the world today.

How Hanukkah addresses these issues

The Syrian-Greeks profaned the holy Temple by using it as a stables and pig sty. The Maccabees cleaned it and wanted to rededicate it to God. In order to do so, they needed ritually purified oil for the menorah, the candelabra that was always lit, representing God’s light in the world. After much searching, they finally found a small, sealed vial of the purified oil, enough for one day. Purifying more, however, would take eight days. The question was, should they wait to light until they had enough oil, or should they light the little bit even though it would burn out? They chose to light it immediately, and miraculously that little bit of oil lasted eight days, until new oil was ready.

Some sages said that the real miracle was not that the oil burned for eight days, but that the people cared so much about rekindling the menorah that they didn’t want to wait for another week.

Remembering the oil is why we eat crispy latkes (potato pancakes), sufganiot (jelly donuts) or other foods cooked in oil. My gluten-free recipe for sufganiot follows.

Survivors of Oct. 7 and Soldiers

One survivor of the October 7 massacre said that before, she had proudly stated that she was an Israeli but not a Jew. But on October 7, a Palestinian who had worked for her family for years and had just killed members of her family said, “You are a European colonizer, not a Jew.” At that moment she realized that unless she embraced Judaism, this murderer would be correct.

One of the hostages who was returned after 51 days of captivity said that although she knew little about the Jewish religion, while in captivity she felt compelled repeat a phrase (I think something like this): “I trust you, the God of Israel, to protect me.” She said this prayer over and over. It gave her strength and filled her with the confidence that she would be freed. She decided then that when she got out, she would learn all she could about Judaism and keep a traditionally Jewish life.

Many nonreligious soldiers saw or experienced the inexplicable in Gaza and came to believe they were protected by a force they could only call God. Many began to learn and practice simple Jewish rites during their service and committed to learning and practicing more after they returned home.

Hanukkah, the holiday of rededication, reminds us that returning is possible. Although pigs lived in the Temple, it was cleaned and used as God’s home again. In the same way, we can all, regardless of our pasts, rededicate ourselves to living better lives, and better Jewish lives. For the many Israelis and other Jews who have deepened their Jewish identities in the last year, the holiday reaffirms their new commitment. This is inspiring to the rest of us.

Our Own Rededication

• What can we do to rededicate our lives to God and our people? Here are some ideas:

• Reading the Torah portion each week

• Starting and/or ending each day by writing in a gratitude journal five things one is grateful for

• Reading one psalm a day

• Adopting some or all of the practice of the kosher food laws, as much as you are comfortable with. Some steps might be

  • stopping eating meat and milk together

  • stopping eating all pig meat—pork, ham, bacon, sausage

  • completely changing the kitchen from an “everything goes” place to one with separate dishes and utensils for dairy and meat, and only buying kosher foods for the house, but continuing to eat non-kosher food outside

  • eating only strictly kosher foods, both inside and outside the home

• Giving charity every day. Some people put spare change in a dish near a pushke (charity box) and put coins from the dish into the pushke every day (except the Sabbath, when handling money is forbidden).

Photo by the author

• Using tefillin (the prayer boxes men strap to their arm and head during morning prayers). In some places, young men from the Chabad movement set up little stands on the street and ask Jewish men if they would like to “lay tefillin.” For many nonaffiliated Jews, this is the only time they ever do this mitzvah; many find it a deeply moving experience.

The list is endless. It does not require one to become Orthodox, nor to spend hours in arcane activities.

If every Jew, secular or religious, added one simple, traditionally Jewish act to their daily life, the spiritual value to the world would be incalculable. Hanukkah, the holiday of rededication, is the perfect time to begin.

Gluten-Free Sufganiot

Recipe originally from Kosher.com, adapted by the author

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon Instant Yeast

• 3 tablespoons granulated sugar

• 2 cups tapioca starch

• 1 cup white rice flour

• 1 and 1/2 teaspoons xanthan gum

• pinch salt

• 3/4 cup very warm water

• 3 large eggs, beaten

• 1/2 teaspoon molasses or silan (date syrup)

• 1 tablespoon Vanilla Extract

• 1 tablespoon Apple Cider Vinegar (plain white vinegar also works)

• 1/4 cup flavorless oil

• 48 fluid ounces vegetable oil suitable for deep frying (high smoke point)

• jam

• confectioners sugar, for garnish

Method

In a large bowl, com bine all the dry ingredients (the first group).

In another bowl, mix the second group (the wet ingredients).

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry. Beat with a mixer until smooth. The mixture will look like a thick batter. It should not be kneadable, but if it is runny add a little more flour.

Let rise for about 30 minutes in a warm place. Then stir down.

Meanwhile, put about 2 inches of cooking oil into a large, deep pan. Heat to 350-365 deg. F (176-185 deg. C).

Carefully drop the sufganiot into the hot fat, being careful not to crowd them. If they are crowded, the temperature of the fat will drop and they will end up with a greasy feel. When the bottoms are nicely browned, turn them over and cook briefly; the second side will cook faster than the first.

Remove from the fat and drain on paper towels.

When they are cool, use a thin paring knife or apple corer to remove some of the dough. Replace it with jam. A narrow cake decorating nib in a plastic bag can be used to squirt the jam into the donuts. Roll in confectioner's sugar.

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Notes

[i] One reason for this is that many Jews have no idea how ignorant they are about our rich spiritual tradition. When a non-Jewish writer asks for information, they do their best but unintentionally misinform.

[ii] One of the greatest Jewish scholars, also known by the acronym of his name, Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon or Rambam, lived from 1138-1204 CE. Born and living most of his life in Spain, he left because of increasing anti-Semitism and lived his latter years in Egypt, where he died.

[iii]https://www.chabad.org/search/results.asp?searchWord=second+commandment#gsc.tab=0&gsc.q=second%20commandment&gsc.page=1

[iv] Mangel, N., ed., Siddur Tehillat Hashem, Nusach Ha-Ari Zal, Merkos L’Inyonei Chinuch, 2012.

[v] Kastein, J., Hertz, J.H., ed. Pentateuch & Haftorahs: Hebrew Text English Translation and Commentary, 2^nd Ed., Soncino Press, 1960.

[vi] https://www.britannica.com/topic/Dionysus, accessed 12/16/2024

[vii] https://www.britannica.com/topic/Bacchanalia, accessed 12/16/2024

[viii] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/did-ancient-greeks-engage-human-sacrifice-180960111/ , accessed 12/24/2024

[ix] https://www.fool.com/money/research/average-household-debt/#:~:text=Data%20source%3A%20Federal%20Reserve%20Bank,That's%20a%20record%20high, reesearch from the US Federal Reserve Bank and Experion. Accessed 12/24/2024.

[x] https://www.savethestudent.org/freshers/university-student-drinking-games.html, accessed 12/24/2024

[xi] https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20220114-changing-times-for-saudi-s-once-feared-morality-police, accessed 12/24/2024

[xii] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-66218318, accessed 12/24/2024

[xiii] Ayaan Hirsi Ali, https://www.theahafoundation.org/honor-violence/, accessed 12/24/2024

[xiv] United Nations Human Rights Council, 27^th Session, Written statement submitted by the Amuta for NGO Responsibility, a non-governmental organization in special consultative status, 25 August 2014, https://documents.un.org/doc/undoc/gen/g14/149/90/pdf/g1414990.pdf, accessed 12/24/2024.

[xv] Tikkun olam, translated as “repairing the world,” traditionally means working on oneself within one’s family to become the most honest, kindest, grateful, moral person possible, thus being a role model for others and creating communities that are peaceful, caring, and just for all. The Jewish Reform movement, the Reconstructionists, and other liberal Jews interpret the phrase to mean working to impose Progressive concepts—today including justice, inclusion and equity—on everyone. Our tradition opposes this. Judaism does not teach that only followers go to Heaven and everyone else is damned, it teaches that morality should be encouraged and Jewish communities should model moral behavior, but it is up to non-Jews to choose how to live. We believe God appreciates and rewards every effort to live within the Seven Laws of Noah (basically the Ten Commandments minus those specifically about God and His Sabbath). Jews have never proselytized because non-Jews can have an honorable place in this world and in the hereafter. My personal belief is that the efforts of Progressive Jews to impose moral standards that are anathema to Torah Judaism, such as abortion and transgenderism, have alienated millions of Christians. Because the Progressives proudly use terms identifying their group as Jewish, Christians now oppose all Jews, swelling the ranks of anti-Semitism and anti-Israel sentiment.