You probably know this week many Jews are lighting candles for 8
nights and exchanging gifts.
You might not know, Hanukkah
is about a Jewish civil war over assimilation versus loyalty to Jewish monotheism. In 165 B.C.E. the land we know today as
Israel was controlled by the Greek forces of Alexander the Great. Being Greek, with its emphasis on worshipping
nature and the body was in vogue.
Worshipping one God was superstitious nonsense. Many Jews at the time had adapted and assimilated
into Greek culture. They jettisoned
their Jewish commitments. They allowed
the holy temple to be abused and despoiled.
There were other Jews who were loyal to their tradition who decided
to attack their fellow Jews and the Greeks to reclaim the temple, more importantly,
to reassert monotheism.
This civil war and the success of Judah Maccabee and his
compatriots set the tone for the survival of monotheism and the eventual creation
of Christianity and Islam, all of whom stubbornly continue to proclaim the one
God.
The word Hanukkah means rededication. The temple in Jerusalem was rededicated to the
one God Jews believed was at work in this world. The oil to light the menorah, supposed to last
one day, lasted 8 days.
As a skeptical religious
romantic, I light the candles this week to remember and proclaim again our hope
against hope in the one God.
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