Musing on the Jewish holiday of Hannukah
Nov. 24th, 2002 08:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xiphiasThis may turn into a rant; I'm not sure where I'm going with this, but I'm trying to noodle out on paper -- er, electrons -- some things that have been going through my head for the past couple weeks. I'd love to hear what y'all think about it, too. . .
So, next week, Jews are going to celebrate Hannukah. Lemme give the capsule summary-for-goyim-who-didn't-go-to-Brandeis of the holiday, just so's everyone can follow along with the ranty-bits.
Some time around 150 BCE or so, Antiochus (who, if I recall correctly, was a Hellenic Syrian), invaded Israel, conquered it, and decided to make the Greek religion the national religion. Cut to a village somewhere in Israel. A kohein (member of the priestly family named Mattathais is standing with some of his family, when a this message comes down -- people gotta sacrifice to the Greeks or be killed. A villager comes up to make a sacrifice. Mattathais draws a sword, kills the villager, the soldier standing nearby who's guarding the altar, and the official who's delivered the message, and he and his sons take to the hills, forming a guerilla organization dedicated to taking back their country.
Eventually, they do, recapture The Temple in Jerusalem, and rededicated it to OUR G-d, since it had been used for Greek sacrifice.
We have a holiday based on this.
Okay, that's the capsule summary of the reason for the holiday.
There's a lot about this holiday that bothers me.
The first is it's just basic futility. I mean, so, in 134 BCE, they got the Temple back. In 70 CE, it was destroyed again.
Two hundred years. For the past two thousand years, we've been celebrating a victory which only lasted two hundred years. That's kinda . . . lame.
The second reason is that, well, the Maccabees overthrew a repressive theocracy, and then instituted their own repressive theocracy. And it bothers me to have a holiday based on "OUR repressive theocracy supplanted THEIR repressive theocracy." It should be pointed out that I'm not the first person to feel this way: the Rabbis did not put the books of 1 Maccabees and 2 Maccabees into the Jewish Bible, although they did mandate celebration of the holiday. But in the prayers for the holiday, Mattithaias, the Hasmodeans, and the Maccabees are never mentioned by name -- basically because the Rabbis disapproved of the actions of the Hasmodean dynasty. The only reason I've got copies of those books is that I've got Christian Bibles, too.
So, it bothers me. We've got this holiday -- an unimportant holiday about a fleeting, transitory victory that instituted a repressive theocracy.
And it's one of the only two holidays that most Jews in the United States celebrate.
So, next week, Jews are going to celebrate Hannukah. Lemme give the capsule summary-for-goyim-who-didn't-go-to-Brandeis of the holiday, just so's everyone can follow along with the ranty-bits.
Some time around 150 BCE or so, Antiochus (who, if I recall correctly, was a Hellenic Syrian), invaded Israel, conquered it, and decided to make the Greek religion the national religion. Cut to a village somewhere in Israel. A kohein (member of the priestly family named Mattathais is standing with some of his family, when a this message comes down -- people gotta sacrifice to the Greeks or be killed. A villager comes up to make a sacrifice. Mattathais draws a sword, kills the villager, the soldier standing nearby who's guarding the altar, and the official who's delivered the message, and he and his sons take to the hills, forming a guerilla organization dedicated to taking back their country.
Eventually, they do, recapture The Temple in Jerusalem, and rededicated it to OUR G-d, since it had been used for Greek sacrifice.
We have a holiday based on this.
Okay, that's the capsule summary of the reason for the holiday.
There's a lot about this holiday that bothers me.
The first is it's just basic futility. I mean, so, in 134 BCE, they got the Temple back. In 70 CE, it was destroyed again.
Two hundred years. For the past two thousand years, we've been celebrating a victory which only lasted two hundred years. That's kinda . . . lame.
The second reason is that, well, the Maccabees overthrew a repressive theocracy, and then instituted their own repressive theocracy. And it bothers me to have a holiday based on "OUR repressive theocracy supplanted THEIR repressive theocracy." It should be pointed out that I'm not the first person to feel this way: the Rabbis did not put the books of 1 Maccabees and 2 Maccabees into the Jewish Bible, although they did mandate celebration of the holiday. But in the prayers for the holiday, Mattithaias, the Hasmodeans, and the Maccabees are never mentioned by name -- basically because the Rabbis disapproved of the actions of the Hasmodean dynasty. The only reason I've got copies of those books is that I've got Christian Bibles, too.
So, it bothers me. We've got this holiday -- an unimportant holiday about a fleeting, transitory victory that instituted a repressive theocracy.
And it's one of the only two holidays that most Jews in the United States celebrate.