A candle is a brief flare of light. A wick dipped in oil burns and then
goes out again. The light of Chanukah appears no different. Briefly there is light and warmth and then darkness again.
Out of the exile of Babylon, the handful that returned to resettle and rebuild the land faced the might of new empires. The Jews who returned from the exile of one evil empire some twenty-six hundred years ago were forced to decide whether they would be a people with their own faith and history, or the colony of another empire, with its history and beliefs.
Jerusalem's wealthy elites threw in their lot with the empire and its ways. But out in the rural heartland where the old ways where still kept, a spark flared to life. Modi'in. Maccabee.
And so war came between the handfuls of Jewish resistance fighters from a small town in the hinterlands and the Hellenized elites of the big city, between those who wished to be Jews and those who wanted to be pawns in an empire, between the tradition of the priests and the progress of a new order, between the Maccabees and the
armies of Antiochus IV’s Selecuid empire. A war that had its echoes in
the past and would have it again in the future as lightly armed and
untrained armies of Jewish soldiers would go on to fight in those same hills and valleys against the Romans and eventually
the armies of six Arab nations.
The Syrian Greek armies were among the
best of their day. The Maccabees were living
in the backwaters of Israel, a nation that had not been
independently ruled since the armies of Babylon had flooded across the
land, destroying everything in their path.
In the wilderness of Judea a band of brothers vowed that they would bow
to no man and let no foreigners rule over their land. Apollonius brought his Samaritan forces against the brothers, and Judah,
first among the Maccabees, killed him, took his sword and wore it for
his own.
General Seron of the army of Coele-Syria, brought together
his soldiers, along with renegade Jewish mercenaries, and was broken at Beit Haran. The Governor of Syria dispatched
two generals, Nicanor, and Gorgias, with forty thousand soldiers and
seven thousand horsemen to conquer Judea, destroy Jerusalem and abolish the whole Jewish
nation forever. So certain were they of victory that they brought with
them merchant caravans to fill with the Hebrew slaves of a destroyed
nation.
Judah walked among his brothers and fellow rebels and spoke to them of
the thing for which they fought; “My fellow soldiers, no other time
remains more opportune than the present for courage and contempt of
dangers; for if you now fight manfully, you may recover your liberty,
which, as it is a thing of itself agreeable to all men, so it proves to
be to us much more desirable, by its affording us the liberty of
worshiping God.
"Since therefore you are in such circumstances at
present, you must either recover that liberty, and so regain a happy and
blessed way of living, which is that according to our laws, and the
customs of our country, or to submit to the most opprobrious sufferings;
nor will any seed of your nation remain if you be beat in this battle.
Fight therefore manfully; and suppose that you must die, though you do
not fight; but believe, that besides such glorious rewards as those of
the liberty of your country, of your laws, of your religion, you shall
then obtain everlasting glory.
"Prepare yourselves, therefore, and put
yourselves into such an agreeable posture, that you may be ready to
fight with the enemy as soon as it is day tomorrow morning."
Though the Maccabees were but three
thousand, starving and dressed in bare rags, the God for whom they
fought and their native wits and courage, gave them victory over
thousands and tens of thousands.
Though, worn from battle,
the Maccabees did not flee back into their Judean wilderness, instead
they went on to Jerusalem and its Temple, to reclaim their land and
their God, only to find the Temple and the capital in ruins.
The Maccabees had fought courageously for the freedom to worship God once
again as their fathers had, but courage alone could not make the
Menorah burn and thus renew the Temple service again. Yet it had not
been mere berserker’s courage that had brought them this far. Like their
ancestors before them who had leaped into furnaces and the raging sea,
they had dared the impossible on faith. Faith in a God who watched over
his nation and intervened in the affairs of men. And so on faith they
poured the oil of that single flask in the Menorah, oil that could only
last for a single day. And then having done all they could, the priests
and sons of priests who had fought through entire armies to reach
this place, accepted that they had done all they could and left the
remainder in the hands of the Almighty.
If they had won by the strength of their hands alone, then the lamps
would burn for a day and then flicker out. But if it had been more than
mere force of arms that had brought them here, if it had been more than
mere happenstance that a small band of ragged and starving rebels had
shattered the armies of an empire, then the flames of the Menorah would
burn on.
The sun rose and set again. The day came to its end and the men watched
the lights of the Menorah to see if they would burn or die out. And if
the flame in their hearts could have kindled the lamps, they would have
burst into bright flame then and there. Darkness fell that night and
still the lamps burned on.
For eight days and nights the Menorah burned
on that single lonely pure flask of oil, until more could be found, and
the men who for a time had been soldiers and had once again become
priests, saw that while it may be men who kindle lamps and hearts, it is
the Almighty who provides them with the fuel of the spirit through
which they burn.
120 years after the Maccabees drove out the foreign invaders and their
collaborators, another foreign invader, Herod, the son of Rome's Arab governor, was placed on the throne by the Roman Empire,
disposing of the last of the Maccabean kings and ending the brief
revival of the Jewish kingdom.
The revived kingdom had been a plaything in the game of empires. Exiled by
Babylon, restored by Persia, conquered by the Greeks, ground under the
heel of the remnants of Alexander's empire, briefly liberated by the
Parthians, tricked into servitude and destroyed by Rome. The victory of
the Maccabean brothers in reclaiming Jerusalem was a brief flare of
light in the dark centuries and even that light was shadowed by the
growing darkness.
The fall of the Roman Republic and the civil wars of the new empire, its uncontrollable
spending and greed made it hopelessly corrupt. Caesar repaid Jewish loyalty by rewarding the Arab-Edomite murderers of Jewish
kings, and his successors saw the Jewish
state as a way to bring in some quick money.
Out went the Jewish kings, in came the son of Rome's tax collector,
Herod.
The promises made by Senate to the Maccabees ceased to
matter. Imperial greed collided with Jewish nationalism in a war that for a
brief shining moment seemed as if it might end in another Chanukah, but ended instead in massacre and atrocity. The exiles went forth once again, some on foot and some in slave ships. Israel became Palestine. Jerusalem was renamed and resettled. The long night had begun.
But no darkness lasts forever.
Two thousand years after the Jews had come to believe that wars were for
other people and miracles meant escaping alive, Jewish armies stood and
held the line against an empire and the would be empires of the region.
And now the flame still burns, though it is flickering. Seventy-one years is a long
time for oil to burn, especially when the black oil next door seems so
much more useful to the empires and republics across the sea. And the
children of many of those who first lit the flame no longer see the
point in that hoary old light.
But that old light is still the light of possibilities. It burns to
remind us of the extraordinary things that our ancestors did and of the
extraordinary assistance that they received. We cannot always expect oil
to burn for eight days, just as we cannot always expect the bullet to
miss or the rocket to fall short. And yet even in those moments of darkness the reminder of the flame is with us for no darkness lasts forever and no exile, whether of the body of the spirit, endures. Sooner or later the spark flares to life again and the oil burns again. Sooner or later the light returns.
It is the miracle that we commemorate because it is a reminder of
possibilities. Each time we light a candle or dip a wick in oil,
we release a flare of light from the darkness comes to remind us of what was, is
and can still be.
Fantastic and inspiring piece Daniel, and well done on the "possibilities" angle (though that may be too sharp a term).
ReplyDeleteA very happy Chanuka to you and yours and may the miracles continue for Israel and for ourselves.
Excellent essay Mr. Greenfield, although I'm surprised you didn't mention the Maccabees beheaded Nicanor and brought his severed head back to Yerushalem. Nicanor Day was celebrated in Israel at least through the times of Yeshua, the carpenter from Nazareth. It's also interesting to note that Israel was allies w/the Roman Republic on at least two occasions against the Seleucids.
ReplyDeleteHappy Hanukkah Mr. Greenfield!
Thank you, Daniel, for sharing your glorious
ReplyDeleteinspiration of benevolent fortitude.
The Jewish People have maintained a steadfast
survival and flourishing in spite of all
opposition.
We can all learn from and respect you.
Charlie
Amen ve-amen ve-amen.
ReplyDelete......."I have tried, unsuccessfully, to suppress my inclination to hate the Jews and to see the world as they do, which however for a Roman proves virtually impossible"........
ReplyDeleteLentulus Silanus, Roman legate.
Howard Fast, My glorious brothers.
I am happy to see someone actually mentioning that Jews fought Jews in the war leading up to Hanukkah. I am also glad that some mentions that the war was against assimilation. But, it was much more than that.... Forgetting the True Story of Hanukkah
ReplyDeleteWhat liberty? The hashmonim were fighting for religious freedom...they were not zionists...
ReplyDeleteA loyal reader
notice he does not identify the elites and collaborators----why not tell the truth???
ReplyDeleteThe Hashomonoim, whose descendants became kings and fought wars of expansion, weren't Zionists?
ReplyDeleteSoon after the miricle of chanuka the hashmonim became tsadukim,usurped the kingship and are not our role models...
ReplyDeleteWhat wars of expasion are you referring to?