The (real) Hanukkah story and why it still matters
(RNS) — Old debates continue.
People visit a giant Hanukkah menorah during the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah, in Tel Aviv, Nov. 28, 2021. Hanukkah, also known as the Festival of Lights, is an eight-day commemoration of the Jewish uprising in the second century B.C. against the Greek-Syrian kingdom, which had tried to put statues of Greek gods in the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)
December 24, 2024
(RNS) — Listen up, boys and girls.
Once upon a time, there were a lot of Jews living in the Land of Israel. Some of them were up to date with world culture, which is to say they read Greek lit, went to the gym and weren’t all that religious. Others were, well, fundamentalists. The two groups were pretty polarized. After a while, their harsh culture war became a civil war.
As it happened, the Land of Israel in those days was controlled by the king of Syria, a none-too-stable Greek culture guy known as Antiochus Da God. After beating up on the Egyptians, he decided to settle the Jews’ hash, siding (of course) with the liberals.
Seizing Jerusalem, Antiochus decided to outlaw the practice of Judaism altogether, burning copies of the Torah, prohibiting observance of the Sabbath and holidays and forbidding circumcision. He turned the Temple into a Greek religious shrine, complete with a statue of Zeus.
As a result, a country priest named Mattathias and his five sons instigated a revolt. These Maccabees, as they came to be called, used guerrilla tactics to defeat the Syrian army, recaptured Jerusalem and rededicated the Temple.
Many of you have heard that their victory was accompanied by a miracle, in which a one-day supply of undefiled oil kept the Temple menorah burning for eight days. I’m sorry to have to tell you it never happened.
The real deal was that, because of the Temple takeover, the Jews hadn’t been able to observe the weeklong fall pilgrimage festival called Sukkot. The first Hanukkah was designed to make up for that, and it continued annually as the Feast of Dedication. Jesus himself visited the Temple during this feast.
As for the miracle of the oil, that was an old rabbis’ tale, told in the Talmud centuries after the fact to demonstrate that God had a hand in the story. In fact, the rabbis didn’t really like Hanukkah.
How come?
For starters, it was the Maccabean revolt that inspired the revolt against the Romans some 170 years later, which led to the destruction of the Temple and the exile of Jews from Judea. Plus, the descendants of the Maccabees who ruled as the Hasmonean dynasty were deeply flawed characters.
They combined the office of king and high priest in their own persons, violating the separation of religious and political authority established under Moses and Aaron after the Israelites left Egypt. (Talk about Jewish theocracy!) The Hasmonean priest-kings were also intolerant, slaughtering thousands of Jews who didn’t agree with them. And they got into fights with the religious precursors of the rabbis.
At the same time, the Hasmoneans conquered a bunch of territory, leading scholars to debate whether they wanted to restore the Greater Israel of King David and King Solomon. Whether their territorial ambitions were primarily religious or secular is also a matter of debate. They did force people in their territory to have their sons circumcised.
Truth to tell, this period of history has long served as a touchstone for reckoning with control of the land of Israel. Where the rabbis of the Talmud kept the Maccabees at arm’s length, the Zionists happily rehabilitated them as heroes of their new state.
These days, we may wonder whether the deeply flawed Israeli leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, is seeking to restore the Greater Israel of David and Solomon, and whether his government, well supplied with zealots, is motivated by secular or religious goals. As always in the Jewish world, the debates continue.
Happy Hanukkah!
Opinion
How oil burning in a single spoon became a Hanukkah miracle
(RNS) — Taped to the front window of my in-laws’ house was a photocopy of a photograph of a tarnished and bent spoon. Of course, there was a story behind it.
I.I. Cohen, right, shortly after World War II, with an orphan in France. Cohen taught in an orphanage.
Avi Shafran
December 24, 2024
(RNS) — The modest but lovely home in Toronto has been sold. My beloved, widowed mother-in-law has moved in with one of her daughters, who lives nearby.
For years, though, when my in-laws lived in the house, taped to the front window was a piece of paper, a photocopy of a photograph of a tarnished and bent spoon.
Behind it, of course, there is a story.
My father-in-law, I.I. Cohen, of blessed memory, was an alumnus of a number of World War II concentration camps. The spoon in the photograph was one of the items he smuggled out of Auschwitz when the Nazis moved him into “Camp No. 8” — a quarantine camp for those suspected of carrying typhus.
Due to the illness, there were no regular labor teams in this new camp, but healthy inmates were ordered to help in its construction, which was still underway. Having had some experience in the Lodz ghetto as a mechanic, my father-in-law was assigned to assist the electrical technician in installing the camp’s lighting.
Given access to tools, he brought his spoon, his only possession, to work one day and surreptitiously filed down its handle, turning that end of the utensil into a sharp knife, which he used for cutting the chunk of bread he and others were allotted and had to apportion fairly. The knife end became a key to avoiding disputes and maintaining relative peace among the prisoners, while he continued to use the spoon to eat his soup ration.
When winter came, he was transferred to “Camp No. 4” in Kaufering, an installation similar to Auschwitz. Despite terrible deprivations and hardships, my father-in-law and other religious Jews in the camp tried whenever possible to maintain what Jewish law and practices they could, despite all the dangers that involved.
My father-in-law always kept mental track of the Jewish calendar, and he knew when Hanukkah had arrived. During a few minutes’ work break, he and a group of inmates began to reminisce about how, when they were children back home before the war, their fathers would light their menorahs with such fervor and joy. They remembered how they could never get their fill of watching the small flames sparkling like stars, how they basked in the warm, special glow.
And the inmates spoke of the ancient battle that Hanukkah commemorates, the Jewish rebellion against the Seleucid Greek conquerors of the Holy Land, who were intent on erasing Jewish observance from the populace, and Judaism from their hearts. And how, with God’s help, the rebels were able to rout their enemy and resume their fully Jewish lives.
If only, the prisoners wistfully mused, they could light a Hanukkah candle these nights. Although it’s ideal to light an additional candle each night of the eight-day holiday, Jewish tradition’s requirement is satisfied with the lighting of a single candle.
One prisoner offered that he had a bit of margarine saved from his daily ration. That could serve as oil. And wicks? Some of those present began to unravel threads from their uniforms.
But a menorah. They needed a menorah.
With a smile (at least I imagine he smiled; he was a happy person) my father-in-law took out his spoon. Within moments, the small group was lighting their Hanukkah “candle,” reciting the requisite blessings. The prisoners stood transfixed, immersed in their thoughts of Hanukkah gone by.
The small flame also kindled a glimmer of hope. As the prisoners recited the blessing referring to the miracles wrought by God “in those days,” but also “at this time,” they understood that, indeed, “at this time,” what they needed was a miracle.
Nonreligious Jewish inmates, too, stood nearby and watched the luminous moment in the darkness of their concentration camp lives.
My father-in-law merited personal miracles, surviving that dark time — a harrowing story in itself, which he chronicled in his book “Destined to Survive.” And throughout his life, he brimmed with gratitude for having been graced with a postwar life, and for the children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren he was able to see.
The photocopy depicting the spoon is now in a new house, far from where I live. But each year I think of it and am reminded of my father-in-law’s resilience and faith, and of the resilience and faith of the Jewish people.
(Rabbi Avi Shafran writes widely in Jewish and general media and blogs at rabbishafran.com. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of RNS.)
How oil burning in a single spoon became a Hanukkah miracle
(RNS) — Taped to the front window of my in-laws’ house was a photocopy of a photograph of a tarnished and bent spoon. Of course, there was a story behind it.
I.I. Cohen, right, shortly after World War II, with an orphan in France. Cohen taught in an orphanage.
(Photo courtesy of Rabbi Avi Shafran)
Avi Shafran
December 24, 2024
(RNS) — The modest but lovely home in Toronto has been sold. My beloved, widowed mother-in-law has moved in with one of her daughters, who lives nearby.
For years, though, when my in-laws lived in the house, taped to the front window was a piece of paper, a photocopy of a photograph of a tarnished and bent spoon.
Behind it, of course, there is a story.
My father-in-law, I.I. Cohen, of blessed memory, was an alumnus of a number of World War II concentration camps. The spoon in the photograph was one of the items he smuggled out of Auschwitz when the Nazis moved him into “Camp No. 8” — a quarantine camp for those suspected of carrying typhus.
Due to the illness, there were no regular labor teams in this new camp, but healthy inmates were ordered to help in its construction, which was still underway. Having had some experience in the Lodz ghetto as a mechanic, my father-in-law was assigned to assist the electrical technician in installing the camp’s lighting.
Given access to tools, he brought his spoon, his only possession, to work one day and surreptitiously filed down its handle, turning that end of the utensil into a sharp knife, which he used for cutting the chunk of bread he and others were allotted and had to apportion fairly. The knife end became a key to avoiding disputes and maintaining relative peace among the prisoners, while he continued to use the spoon to eat his soup ration.
When winter came, he was transferred to “Camp No. 4” in Kaufering, an installation similar to Auschwitz. Despite terrible deprivations and hardships, my father-in-law and other religious Jews in the camp tried whenever possible to maintain what Jewish law and practices they could, despite all the dangers that involved.
My father-in-law always kept mental track of the Jewish calendar, and he knew when Hanukkah had arrived. During a few minutes’ work break, he and a group of inmates began to reminisce about how, when they were children back home before the war, their fathers would light their menorahs with such fervor and joy. They remembered how they could never get their fill of watching the small flames sparkling like stars, how they basked in the warm, special glow.
And the inmates spoke of the ancient battle that Hanukkah commemorates, the Jewish rebellion against the Seleucid Greek conquerors of the Holy Land, who were intent on erasing Jewish observance from the populace, and Judaism from their hearts. And how, with God’s help, the rebels were able to rout their enemy and resume their fully Jewish lives.
If only, the prisoners wistfully mused, they could light a Hanukkah candle these nights. Although it’s ideal to light an additional candle each night of the eight-day holiday, Jewish tradition’s requirement is satisfied with the lighting of a single candle.
One prisoner offered that he had a bit of margarine saved from his daily ration. That could serve as oil. And wicks? Some of those present began to unravel threads from their uniforms.
But a menorah. They needed a menorah.
With a smile (at least I imagine he smiled; he was a happy person) my father-in-law took out his spoon. Within moments, the small group was lighting their Hanukkah “candle,” reciting the requisite blessings. The prisoners stood transfixed, immersed in their thoughts of Hanukkah gone by.
The small flame also kindled a glimmer of hope. As the prisoners recited the blessing referring to the miracles wrought by God “in those days,” but also “at this time,” they understood that, indeed, “at this time,” what they needed was a miracle.
Nonreligious Jewish inmates, too, stood nearby and watched the luminous moment in the darkness of their concentration camp lives.
My father-in-law merited personal miracles, surviving that dark time — a harrowing story in itself, which he chronicled in his book “Destined to Survive.” And throughout his life, he brimmed with gratitude for having been graced with a postwar life, and for the children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren he was able to see.
The photocopy depicting the spoon is now in a new house, far from where I live. But each year I think of it and am reminded of my father-in-law’s resilience and faith, and of the resilience and faith of the Jewish people.
(Rabbi Avi Shafran writes widely in Jewish and general media and blogs at rabbishafran.com. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of RNS.)
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