Hanukah, sans Holy Oil

By JUDITH SEID

Hanukah is rich in meaning. It has six holiday components: primitive, seasonal, historical, religious, national, and ethical. The primitive and seasonal components have to do with the winter solstice. Like many cultures, the Jews make light when the sun is least in evidence. The Yule log, for example, is a primitive Germanic custom that dates from long before the Christianization of that part of Europe. It’s sympathetic magic: By making bright lights, we hope to show the sun what we want it to do. We Jews have a tradition of making more and more light for a whole week, showing that we want the sun to come back and make longer and longer days. Don’t laugh! It has worked so far!

Was this sun magic in the original Hanukah? We don’t know for sure, and scholars have debated the issue. It seems probable that there was a holiday of lights at this time of year—although the ancient Hebrew tradition would have been bonfires, not oil lamps. If such a holiday existed, it was successfully reinterpreted, or Judaized, as many folk traditions have been over the ages.

The historical component, perhaps the most obvious, is the successful war fought by the first guerillas in recorded history. On Hanukah we celebrate the victory of the Maccabees over the Hellenized Syrians in 165 BCE. The contemporaneous record, the first two books of the Maccabees (along with writings by the Greek historian Polybius), tell of a civil war waged by the Hebrews who were allied with their Greek-Syrian rulers and a band of Hebrews who appear to be a combination of nationalists and religious fanatics who demanded that all acculturation to Greek ways be halted. These zealots wanted to stop Hebrews from worshipping Greek gods, wearing Greek clothes, giving children Greek names, and playing Greek sports, as well as studying all secular learning. If we look at this in modern terms, we see that the bad guys of the story—the assimilationists—are a lot like us. It is not clear at all just who are the real bad guys in the story.

Another viewpoint also has some historical truth. Ancient Israel was fought over by two Hellenized kingdoms, one based in Syria and the other in Egypt. It eventually came under rule of the Syrians, who decided, in an effort to unify the empire, to establish the universal worship of their king. This worship was not to the exclusion of other gods, but in addition to the worship of other gods. The king, Antiochus, was said to be the personification of whatever god was being worshipped. This suited the many ancient religions but was an anathema to the Hebrew priests. Finally, a band of zealots led by Mattathias of Modin and his sons (including Judah Maccabee) arose in rebellion—luckily for them, at a time when Syria was otherwise occupied with rebellions all over the empire—and were victorious.

They established the Hasmonean dynasty, which ruled, with the support of Rome, until Rome decided a few generations later that it would just take over. The land of Israel/Judah under the Maccabees (the Hasmoneans) eventually encompassed a huge territory. The Hasmoneans were no better or worse than other ruling powers, though. They were proud of their conquest of the lands of others and even forced conversion—including circumcision—on some who found themselves within their borders.

Throughout the years, the national significance of Hanukah played a large role in the folk mind. Early Eastern European Zionists (in the 1800s) were responsible for reclaiming the holiday as a time of national aspiration rather than celebrating the folk and religious aspects. They began, against the loud protests of the religious establishment, to celebrate the holiday, which had been considered a minor one, as the holiday that embodied their central ideals. They also used it as a day to glorify physical prowess, fighting ability, and sports.

Also in the late 1800s the holiday was used to energize the Jewish militias that fought back against pogromchiks. The Yiddish Hanukah songs from Eastern Europe often contain mournful statements about how hard it was to believe that Jews were once fighters and had their own land. Although the establishment of Israel has made those songs seem like quaint echoes of days gone by, the national longing is clear.

It is because of the national and historical components that the ethical component of Hanukah is so important. We see in the Hanukah story a phenomenon that has been repeated many times in the modern world: a tyrant so strong he can be overthrown only by fanatics. Just as the moderates never spoke out against the shah of Iran, the moderate Jews of the time did not speak out against Antiochus, the Greek-Syrian ruler. As the tyranny tightened, only those who were fanatics were willing to sacrifice all for the cause of overthrowing the tyrant. The fanatics began rebellions, and when it looked like they might win, the moderates joined them. The fanatics ended up taking over the government and becoming tyrants, as fanatics are wont to do. We learn from this that it is necessary to speak out against justice and tyranny immediately and not acquiesce even to the first injustice.

We also learn from the holiday the need of people for their own heritage and culture and the lengths to which they will go to defend their national and cultural rights. We remember how we resented being deprived of our culture, and we speak out against instances in which others are being deprived of their culture. Progressive Jews were among those who protested, for instance, when the Bulgarians forced their ethnic Turkish minority to take Slavic names and give up their own ways, an instance closely related to the example of the Hanukah story. And Jews must also remember the forced removal of Native American children to boarding schools outside their communities, schools in which they were forbidden to speak their own languages and engage in their own traditions.

The religious aspects of the holiday are a later overlay. They are a result of the antipathy of the rabbinic establishment to the idea of Jews acting on their own and to the idea that there could be Jewish kings who were not of the Davidic line. At least two hundred years after the events of 168-165 BCE the rabbis invented the story of the miracle of the oil and gave God, rather than the freedom fighters, the credit for freeing the Jews from outside tyranny. They also succeeded in making the story one about religious rather than cultural oppression. By paying attention to the nonreligious aspects of the holiday, we are returning it to its true historic and ethical roots.