"It’s easier to fight for your ideals than live up to them" Alfred Adler
Why, doesn't the Jewish Bible include the Books of the Maccabees--unlike the Christian ?
Why did does the traditional Hanukah celebration note the miracle of oil lamp burning 7 day yet ignore the victory of the Jewish militias over the Syrian Greek Army in 164 b.c.e.?
Is history consistent with narrative that Hebrews revolt was about the principle of that people should worship as they chose?
Why is Hanukah more celebrated Today than in the past?
Below the fold:
> The full history of Hanukah and its Regime Change
> Our changing memory of its meaning -
> Some thoughts why Hanukah History has political lessons for us today.....
The history of the Hasmonaean Kings gives a clue to why Pharisean Rabbis who wrote the Hanukah tradition into the Talmud three centuries later, don't give the full story of the results of "regime change" of Jewish victory:
• Jews used military might for independence, then went on to use it to expand the Kingdom and forcibly convert neighboring tribes.
• They suppressed internal dissent of fellow Jews, the Pharisees party who challenged the Sadducees party (Temple cult), which the Kings headed.
• Hasmonaean kings took "secular" Greek names and other trapping of rulers then in fashion, and did not return to much of the authentic Jewish tradition.
Within living memory of the Jerusalem Temple's rededication that began with the oil lamp, Hasomaen King Alexander Janneaus had 800 Pharisees party "heretics" crucified due to their challenging his rule and killed thousands in riots following disagreements on Succot Holiday Temple ritual.
Jews lost their independence to the Romans in just over 100 years due to their inability to compromise internally: The Romans were invited in to Jerusalem to solve the problem of regime change -- fighting between two Hasmonaean kings-claimants-- each supported by different factions.
It is worth noting the Kingdom’s structure: no separation of church and state, no separation of private ethics and belief from the public law. The King and high priest were either the same man, or the King appointed the other. Not surprisingly it lead to patterns of retribution between Pharisee and Sadducee depending on which was in power.
But the deliverance, the Miracle of amazing military victory of the small against the great is an historical fact. And there would probably be no Jews or Christians today if the Hasmonaeans had not reestablished the short lived 2nd commonwealth.
How to should memory handle this history?
The traditional framing is provided by the oppressed Pharisees who wrote the Talmud. Theirs is the tradition Jews have inherited, not that of Royal/Sadducee Judaism.
They noted the oil and the cleansing of the Temple, naming the holiday finally Hanukah – Hebrew for rededication. Focusing on God’s miracle, they ignored the military and heroic actions of Maccabeans described in the apocryphal books by that same name--which they did not add to the Jewish Bible. They also made Hanukah a minor holiday in writing the Talmud.
In the Modern era, Hanukah gained importance as part of "New Jew" mentality: the invention of the Zionist who stopped waiting for God and the Messiah to restore them to the land, but instead decided they turned to secular worldly means to auto-emancipate themselves. These Jewish focus shifted away from study as a way of evoking Gods action to redeem them from exile, and toward polical action of settling the land of Israel, taming the desert, and notably organizing Jewish Militias. Setting up Militia's were an unprecedented activity after two millennium. These Zionists, echoing the Maccabean story of the small against the great, first fought against the world’s greatest empire, the British, and then took on all the surrounding Arab nations in order to reestablish a 3rd Jewish Commonwealth, aka the country of Israel.
Given this new Jewish worldview, you can see why Masada fortress (where Jews took a Martyr's stand against the Roman army in 74 c.e.) was added as stop of Jewish pilgrimage -- and why it was not one previously.
And why Hanukah with its military aspects has taken new importance in Judaism. It gives context why even thought toy weapons are outlawed a most Jewish day schools, Hanukah is usually the exception.
Most Jews, even those on the left remember this and support Israel's necessary reliance on military might to survive, like the Hasmonaean Kingdom did.
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It’s often said you learn more from your errors than your successes.
Hanukah time may be a good time to remember the full history from the Maccabean era.
• ARE we secure enough in our trust in others in our country-- and their good will and intentions -- so we to accommodate them inside the community, or do we cast them out and seed rebellion?
• CAN we not just fight for, but also live up to our ideals of freedom of religion and discourse?
. Can we be humble enough to acknowledge that history and traditon are maleable human objects.
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- Sources to verify historical facts for this diary include Josephus writing in first century c.e. and Oxford Guide to the Bible.