I recently received in the mail a little booklet entitled “Hanukkah Readings for the Believer.” In the very first paragraph it stated, “One very important thing to remember when observing the festival of Hanukkah, is that it is a festival of celebration. It is not necessary to observe all of the festival rituals that are common to the Jewish tradition, but on the other hand, it is certainly not wrong to do so.” I immediately asked myself, “Is that so?” Just what is Hanukkah all about? Where did it originate? Is celebrating it something that I should be doing or even want to be doing? The following information is what I found after only some brief searching on the internet.
Numerous web sites give an account of what supposedly happened and how the festival was established. Here is one account.
“In the fourth century B.C., Alexander the Great with his Greek armies conquered the Near East including Israel. After his death, his empire split apart. The land of Israel, after a period of struggle, came under the control of the Seleucid dynasty, which ruled the region of Syria. In the year 167 B.C., the king Antiochus Epiphanes decided to force all the peoples under his rule to hellenize. The practice of Jewish rituals such as the Sabbath and circumcision was outlawed. The worship of Greek gods and the sacrifice of pigs replaced the traditional worship in the temple. Some Jews eagerly flocked to the gymnasium, symbol of the Greek emphasis on the beauty and strength of the body. Others resisted Hellenism and died as martyrs.
One day the Greeks came to the village of Modi'in and set up an altar. They commanded the Jews to bring a pig as a sacrifice to show obedience to Antiochus's decree. Mattathias, an old priest, was so enraged when he saw a Jew about to do so that he killed him. He and his five sons then fought the Greek detachment, retreated to the mountains, and began a guerrilla war against the Greeks and their Jewish allies. Before he died of old age, Mattathias passed on the leadership to his son Judah the Maccabee. Judah led his forces against a series of armies sent by Antiochus, and through superior strategy and bravery he defeated them all. Finally, he and his followers liberated Jerusalem and reclaimed the temple from its defilement by the Greeks. They could find only one small cruse of oil, enough to last one day, but when they lit the temple menorah with it, a miracle occurred and the menorah burned for eight days. Since then we celebrate Hanukkah to remember the Maccabees and their successful fight for independence against the Greeks, and most of all the miracle of the oil.”
This sounds all good and wonderful but there is more to the story than what is contained in those two paragraphs. As I kept searching and reading other articles I began finding such statements as:
“The celebration lasts for eight nights to commemorate a miracle that Jews believe occurred in the temple.” (Emphasis mine) “According to the Talmud...” (Emphasis mine) “According to Rabbinic tradition...” (Emphasis mine) “According to tradition as recorded in the Talmud...” (Emphasis mine) I could go on but these are representative of many statements I found. One article stated, “Chanukkah (an alternate spelling for Hanukkah) is not mentioned in Jewish scripture, the story is related in the book of Maccabees, which Jews do not accept as scripture.”
Here are a few quotations from some articles written by Rabbi Michael Strassfeld regarding Hanukkah, found at http://www.willoughbyontheweb.com/christmas/hanakkuah.htm
“The earliest versions are found in the First Book of Maccabees and the Second Book of Maccabees. While these books tell the history of the Maccabees, they did not become part of the Hebrew Bible. They were preserved by the church and can be found in collections of Apocrypha literature. Thus Hanukkah is the only major holiday that has no basis in the Bible.
The story found in the First and Second Books of the Maccabees (with some variations between the two books) is fairly similar to the traditional story outlined above except for one major exception--there is no mention of the cruse of oil nor of the miracle. While both books mention the cleansing and rededicating of the temple and even briefly mention the relighting of the lamps in the temple, nothing is said of the miracle. Hanukkah is instituted specifically for eight days not because of the miracle of the menorah but because it is modeled after the holiday of Sukkot, which the Maccabees could not observe while they were still fugitives in the mountains of Judea.
In the next account we have, that of Josephus, the Jewish historian of the first century of the Christian Era, there is again no mention of the miracle, but he does call the holiday ‘Lights.’”
Notice again what he says, “Thus Hanukkah is the only major holiday that has no basis in the Bible.” He states, regarding the story found in the books of Maccabees, “–there is no mention of the cruse of oil nor of the miracle.” He states that in the account of Josephus, “there is again no mention of the miracle,...” I find it very interesting that the holiday was “instituted specifically for eight days not because of the miracle of the menorah but because it is modeled after the holiday of Sukkot,...”
Rabbi Strassfeld has some interesting things to say about the accounts even found in the Jewish rabbinic sources.
“As for rabbinic sources, we would expect to find the laws for the candlelighting in the Mishnah (the early collection of rabbinic material). in fact, we might expect a whole tractate devoted to Hanukkah as there is to Purim (the tractate Megillah ). Instead we find virtual silence in the Mishnah about Hanukkah.
Only in the Gemara (the later rabbinic material that together with the Mishnah makes up the Talmud) do we find our long-lost miracle of Hanukkah. In the tractate Shabbat 21b, the Gemara asks, "What is Hanukkah?" and answers by saying that the Greeks defiled the temple, and when the Hasmonaeans (another name for the Maccabees and their descendants) defeated them, they found only one cruse of oil with its seal unbroken. It contained enough oil for only one day, but a miracle happened and the menorah burned for eight days.”
Isn’t it interesting that “we find virtual silence in the Mishnah about Hanukkah?”
Another comment Rabbi Strassfeld makes I also find interesting.
“At first Hanukkah was celebrated as a reminder of the victory of the Maccabees. It also marked the rededication (Hanukkah means dedication) of the temple. Only later did the miracle of the oil come to dominate the military victory.”
Another web site, Kolel The Adult Centre For Liberal Jewish Learning, contributed a bit more information. http://www.kolel.org/pages/holidays/Chanukah_intro.html
“The rabbis of the Talmud ask a strange question: Mai Chanukah? (Shabbat 21b). Loosely translated, this means, "What the heck is Hanukkah about anyway?" At this point you may be asking: ‘you mean the ancient sages of our tradition didn't know the story about the wicked Antiochus and the flask of oil that lasted eight days and about latkes and dreidels and little chocolate coins?’
Well, except for the latkes and dreidels and little chocolate coins part, the ancient sages did know that story. In fact, they gave it to us. What they were not sure was how to properly celebrate the holiday, or how all the different traditions that had developed fit together.”
The statement he makes regarding the rabbis and the story or Hanukkah is interesting, “In fact, they gave it to us.” Dropping down in this article is another very interesting bit of information.
“When they took over the Temple and cleaned out all the remnants of the idolatrous Greek worship, they rededicated the Temple and then immediately held a late observance of the eight day festival of Sukkot, the most important festival of Temple times. The next year, to commemorate their victory and the rededication of the Temple, a "late Sukkot" was held again, thereby giving birth to our eight-day celebration of Chanukah - which means ‘dedication’.”
Sukkot, or the Feast of Tabernacles, was commanded by God to be kept beginning on the 15th day of the month Tishri, the 7th month of the year. He didn’t leave it up to “men” to decide when to celebrate it and here we find that the Jews celebrated it “late” two years running. It was the eight days of Sukkot that “gave birth to our eight-day celebration of Chanukah...”
It also mentions in this article that the books of Maccabees and Josephus do not tell us of the “miracle of the oil.” Let’s look at what is recorded in this article concerning this.
“So what happened to the story of the oil and the miracle of the lights? Well, that's where the rabbis come in. In the rabbinic sources, we find virtual silence on the topic of Chanukah in the Mishnah. It is only in the Gemara (the later rabbinic material which, along with the Mishna makes up the Talmud) that we find the new story about the oil and the miracle of the lights. By the time of the development of the Talmud, around 200-500 C.E., the Jews were living under Roman rule in Israel and under Persian rule in Babylon. In these circumstances, celebrating stories about military rebellion might not be viewed in too positive a light by the authorities, and the sages also feared that some Jewish hotheads might stir up trouble and cause all kinds of problems for the Jewish community. So the Talmudic sages put a new spin on the established holiday: God wrought a great miracle for the people, enabling the few to triumph over the many, and God showed the people another miracle in the oil, when a flask of ritually pure oil sufficient for one day lasted for all eight days.”
This is SO-O-O telling, “So the Talmudic sages put a new spin on the established holiday:...” And, notice carefully what that spin was, “God wrought a great miracle for the people, enabling the few to triumph over the many, and God showed the people another miracle in the oil, when a flask of ritually pure oil sufficient for one day lasted for all eight days.” The story of the miracle of the oil was fiction, made up by the sages, who were the Pharisees.
To answer my questions at the beginning of this article, the holiday of Hanukkah is not something I want any part of. The dedication of the temple was understandable but to institute a “late Sukkot” and later to invent a story of the miracle of oil by men who knew better is something I don’t want any part of.
November 20, 2010
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