Hannukah, O Hannukah, Let's Not Repress Religious Freedom

Hanukkah's placement around the end of the olive harvest celebrates the seasonal production of the oil necessary to light up the lengthening, darkening days of winter ahead.  That alone would be a wonderful purpose to celebrate the holiday, and one I wholly embrace (as someone who revels in sunlight and most certainly suffers from a touch of seasonal depression in these drearily dark days).  As Avi Taranto, writer for this blog, noted, for most Jews Hanukkah's modern incarnation is one of "presents, and latkes, and just eating together with family and friends".  Not everyone shares this sentiment.  A strong cultural current celebrates the Maccabean victory over the Seleucid Greek empire from whence the holiday originated.   

They commend and commemorate the rededication and re-purification of the temple in Jerusalem (חנוכה "Hannukah" means just that-- dedication) and the suppression of Hellenistic culture and society.  They perceive the historic events as a "triumph of light over darkness (in the metaphorical more so than the literal sense), of purity over adulteration, of spirituality over materiality," according to the Chabad website.  Ynet contributor Howie Mischel wrote today: "We have much to be thankful for and to celebrate in our land as we find inspiration in what occurred here more than 2,000 years ago."

What does Mr. Mischel find so inspirational about the Hanukkah story?  Let's take a look.  Jewish day school taught me that the saintly, religiously fastidious Judaeans were all upset about Greek oppression, they revolted, and everyone lived happily ever after once the temple was cleaned of its pagan adornments (check out this vomitrocious modern spin on the story).  Not exactly.  The Maccabees were rabble-rousing religious fundamentalists comprising a small contingent of the Judaean population.  A large portion of Judaeans were contently secularized and enjoying the best of both cultures and they were actively harassed, persecuted, and killed by the Maccabees for embracing Hellenism, emphasizes historian Solomon Zeitlin in The Rise and Fall of the Judaean State. 

Like Mr. Mischel, many of the religiously inclined are juvenilely infatuated with the heroism of the Maccabees and the cause they stood for.  They approve of the "down with Hellenism and assimilation" message interpretable in the holiday and laud Judah Maccabee--a man whose sole accomplishment was leading a ragtag band of armed bandits around the highlands, killing Greeks and those who approved of their culture (which means he's a rare Jewish equivalent of  Tomás de Torquemada, Osama bin Laden, or Henry VIII).  They place radical nationalism and xenophobia on a pedestal and trod on cultural pluralism.  They adhere to the tenet found in the Mishna Torah that claims 

"It is a mitzvah...to eradicate Jewish traitors, minnim, and apikorsim, and to cause them to descend to the pit of destruction, since they cause difficulty to the Jews and sway the people away from God, {as did Jesus of Nazareth and his students, and Tzadok, Baithos, and their students. May the name of the wicked rot.}" 

and celebrate the Maccabees for doing so.  

I may not go so far as Christopher Hitchens to say that "the display of the menorah at this season...has a precise meaning and is an explicit celebration of the original victory of bloody-minded faith over enlightenment and reason", but some certainly view the holiday and its paraphernalia in that manner.  That does not mean we should let them ruin a celebration of illumination and enlightenment--however you prefer it-- in these dark times.  I don't advocate stamping out Hanukkah altogether, but I do agree that the message imparted by modern religious nationalists is detrimental for our diverse society.  Let's keep it to a celebration of luminescence and fatty foods like it should be.

!חג אורות שמח : Happy Festival of Lights!