It’s the third day of the eight day Channuka festival where we celebrate not just a military victory thousands of years ago against the Hellenic Greeks and Syrians who desecrated our holy temple and corrupted our people, but also the miracle of the oil. I would have done a first day post on this subject but I’ve been too busy cooking and eating doughnuts and potato latkes in keeping with the tradition to eat fried food for eight days at this time.
The story is this: The Hellenists, who ran what is now Israel at the time of our tale in 165 BCE, forced the Jews to adopt Greek customs, Greek language and Greek religions. The teaching of the Jewish Torah was banned, idol worship was encouraged and pigs, an animal forbidden to Jews, were sacrificed in the Holy Temple of the Jews in Jerusalem by the Hellenists. Too many of the Jews in the Holy Land adopted the Greek customs and practises and even bowed down to idols, something heavily discouraged by the Jewish faith. The Hellenised Jews became, in modern terms, collaborators with their invaders and oppressors.
Those who kept the faith of Judaism were mightily oppressed and this oppression continued until one day a Greek functionary and a Hellenised Jew tried to force a rural Jewish priest to sacrifice to an idol. The priest, Mattathias ‘The Hammer’ Hasmonean, refused point blank to compromise his beliefs and sacrifice to the idol and instead killed the Greek functionary and the treasonous Hellenised Jew. This kicked off a huge war in which the loyal believing Jews were victorious and ushered in a period of self government for the Jews that lasted until the Romans came and invaded.
When the victorious Jews reached the Holy Temple in Jerusalem they found a mess. They found idols in the Temple and signs that the altar had been desecrated. Also they found that the oil that was used to light the holy lamp in the temple had been tainted. They found only one jar of oil still with its priestly seal on it but it was only enough oil to last one day. But the Jews lit the lamp with the clean oil anyway and prayed for a miracle that did indeed arrive. The oil that was only supposed to last one day lasted for the eight days it took to produce new, fresh and untainted lamp oil. The miracle of the oil is why in modern times Jews eat fried food for the eight days of the Channuka festival and light candles in a special menorah called a Channukia. It’s also why I tend to put on weight at this time of year and why my wife and I have to deal with repeated cries of ‘more doughnuts’ please from our child.
This year’s Channuka is very different from that of previous years. There are no parties, no services at the synagogue and a feeling of great oppression. Like the time prior to the Maccabean revolt in 165BCE we are being overseen by a tyrant although this time it is not a monarch trying to force his beliefs onto Jews, but instead, the overreaction by governments to the Covid virus.
Just like back in those days long long ago there are Jews who go along with the tyrant and those who stand up too him. The Jews of the Left have engaged in all manner of troubling things such as lighting a Chanukkia in the shape of former US Supreme Court Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg and denouncing those Jews from more Orthodox paths in Judaism, who put their trust in the Eternal One rather than politicians.
I was going to write more on this particular issue but the great writer Daniel Greenfield beat me too it and produced what I believe is one of the best Channuka articles that I have ever seen. In this piece, which is published over at Front Page Magazine, Mr Greenfield talked about the origins of Chanukka and it’s parallels with today. He puts the Governor of New York State in the role of a tyrannical Greek king and, quite correctly in my view, the Jewish Left in the role of the Hellenised Jewish collaborators. If you read one link today please read the article by Mr Greenfield as it highlights just how narrow the boundary is between freedom and the modern day Stalinists who hate religion and hate liberty to practise it.
