Happy Hanukkah! But not too happy…
As you light the third candle on the menorah tonight (as every good Commonweal reader would–no?) I’d direct your attention to this David Brooks column on the Hanukkah of history, which provides a more comprehensive take on the story of the Maccabees than we normally get:
Tonight Jewish kids will light the menorah, spin their dreidels and get their presents, but Hanukkah is the most adult of holidays. It commemorates an event in which the good guys did horrible things, the bad guys did good things and in which everybody is flummoxed by insoluble conflicts that remain with us today. It’s a holiday that accurately reflects how politics is, how history is, how life is.
[snip]
The Jewish civil war raised questions: Who is a Jew? Who gets to define the right level of observance? It also created a spiritual crisis. This was not a battle between tribes. It was a battle between theologies and threw up all sorts of issues about why bad things happen to faithful believers and what happens in the afterlife — issues that would reverberate in the region for centuries, to epic effect.
The Maccabees are best understood as moderate fanatics. They were not in total revolt against Greek culture. They used Greek constitutional language to explain themselves. They created a festival to commemorate their triumph (which is part of Greek, not Jewish, culture). Before long, they were electing their priests.
On the other hand, they were fighting heroically for their traditions and the survival of their faith. If they found uncircumcised Jews, they performed forced circumcisions. They had no interest in religious liberty within the Jewish community and believed religion was a collective regimen, not an individual choice.
They were not the last bunch of angry, bearded religious guys to win an insurgency campaign against a great power in the Middle East, but they may have been among the first. They retook Jerusalem in 164 B.C. and rededicated the temple. Their regime quickly became corrupt, brutal and reactionary. The concept of reform had been discredited by the Hellenizing extremists. Practice stagnated. Scholarship withered. The Maccabees became religious oppressors themselves, fatefully inviting the Romans into Jerusalem.
A very Niebuhrian take, which is characteristic of Brooks–and Obama in Oslo, and elsewhere, I’d argue. And yes, perhaps a lesson on the perils of assimilation, or accommodation, and retrenchment. Oh, and a great story. Whatever happened to Mel Gibson’s movie project on the Maccabees? A “Jewish western,” I believe he called it. Maybe the story line got a tad complex.
Good yontif!
The Roman would have come on the scene sooner or later. The Seleucids–descended from Alexander’s general Seleucus but most named Antiochus–were the main obstacle to Roman expansion in the east and it was natural that the Romans would seek alliances with enemies of their own principal enemies, the Jews being notable among them.
As for Hanukkah it was originally a commemoration of the rededication of the Temple after its desecration by Antiochus Epiphanes (the second name means the god made manifest and Jews punningly called him Antiochus Epimanes = Antiochus the Crazy). The permanent appeal of the feast long after the Temple was destroyed shows the significance of the Temple for Judaism.
Here I am foolishly thinking that Hanukkah was and is all about the Eternal Light of God, rather than something more crucial and important, like geopolitics. But then again, I’m also one of those who stupidly does not understand that Jesus was a political revolutionary Messiah.
Yes, the Romans would have come on the scene, and sooner, rather than later, just as every other major power did. After all, Israel was basically a major thoroughfare. The only way to get to Egypt from the rest of the world, and vice versa, was through that land. Everyone in history has wanted control of that vital route.
“The Maccabees are best understood as moderate fanatics…If they found uncircumcised Jews, they performed forced circumcisions.”
Moderate? Does that mean the mohel only snipped off half as much?
Actually David, it was the night to light the third candle on the Advent wreath, and we did!
Advent–another spiritual gift from the Jews!
Bender, holidays and scriptures can operate on many levels, of course. In your own way you raise an interesting point, in that the Books of the Maccabees are not included in the Jewish canon. Too political, I believe. Indeed, Esther barely made it under the wire–no mention of God, explicitly. Those books have taken on greater meaning, often under the influence of Christians, it seems. Conservative Christians (especially beauty queen types like Sarah Palin and Carrie Prejean) have invested Esther with more religious significance, or perhaps a different religious emphasis, than Jews did or do. It’s an interesting difference perhaps, between Christian views of Scripture and Jewish views of Scripture–Judaism having the Old Testament and its more varied forms of literature and storytelling.
David — it wasn’t Maccabean politics that kept the lamps lit when there was no more oil. Even Jews know that.
Even the Jews. Indeed.
Again, I think one can read scriptures on several levels and they are not necessarily exclusive of each other.
The Judith and Holofernes story seems to be moving closer to the center of the Hanukkah remembrance, just as it was in the middle ages:
“In the Middle Ages Hanukkah festivities celebrated more than just the valiant deeds of the Maccabees. For several centuries there was another hero associated with Hanukkah: Judith.”
http://jwa.org/discover/throughtheyear/december/judith/
In medieval and renaissance art the decapitation of Holofernes scene proved irresistible to sculptors (Donatello) and painters (Botticelli, Caravaggio). More recently feminism no doubt plays a large part in the renewed popularity of Judith, though there is still some Niebuhrian reluctance to acknowledge Judith as a pure and unsullied heroine. Florentines were not so reluctant.
Dante places Judas Maccabaeus among the great warriors in the Heaven of the Sun (Paradiso XVIII, 40) and Judith in the Celestial Rose (Par XXXII, 10).
The French tradition of the Nine Worthies (reflected in a tapestry at the Cloisters Museum in New York) included Maccabaeus among the three Jewish warriors and in many versions of Nine Female Worthies Judith also makes an appearance.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nine_Worthies
Ecumenism “avant la lettre.”
Or perhaps a NeoCon alliance “avant la lettre.”
Fascinating stuff, Patrick Molloy. Thanks.
An inexcusable mistake: I put warriors in the Heaven of the Sun when everyone knows they belong in the Heaven of Mars. It is theologians who reside in the Heaven of the Sun — though I suppose it’s debatable which profession is more warlike.
David:
Thank you for including a ritual sneer at Sarah Palin – it simply confirms what I have repeatedly observed of liberal Catholics: their hipper-than- thou talk of inclusiveness and diversity is a lot of hot air signifying emptiness and venom. And what the hell does Prejean have to do with Palin? And in what way is Palin a “beauty queen” type? Because she’s attractive? Do you prefer Christian women be homely? Are you threatened by beautiful women? Is this a warm and cheery Christmas sneer or just a routine kick in the face for a woman you view with contempt? What is your problem?
Dear Bob Schwartz,
Please get real. Because Sarah Palin made herself a laughingstock in a national political forum doesn’t make her a persecuted minority. You are the one who is sneering.
And exactly at what or at whom am I sneering?
Bob Schwartz: Sneers can be in the eye of the beholder, but in this case I was not relating a criticism of Palin and Prejean (though I think Rita Ferrone gets it pretty spot on–and many conservatives would agree with her). Rather I was relating their own self-identification as women who model themselves on Esther, using their beauty and femininity to gain access to power and to use that power on behalf of their people. Palin was a beauty queen and still deploys her looks to great effect, and quite intentionally. And Palin is a fan of Prejean and vice versa; they see in each other a certain sympathetic counterpart. But above all, they are representative of a very overt adoption by conservative Christian in particular of the Esther story.
So you might do better to ask them what is their problem, or how they manage to be so limber that they can kick themselves in the face. Or maybe they do it to each other? I dunno.
Bob, Bob — get a grip!
“And in what way is Palin a ‘beauty queen’ type? Because she’s attractive?”
SP is the beauty queen type because (are you ready?) she WAS a beauty queen.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=sarah+palin+beauty+pageant+photos&aq=1sx&oq=sarah+pailn+beau&aqi=g-sx10
So being a beauty queen is ipso fact an indication of a worthless person?
Correction: So having been a young being a beauty queen is ipso fact an indication of a worthless person?
Bob, who exactly made that connection?
David: You did, by obvious implication. But given all that, I’ll still wish you, and everyone else on this fractious blog a Blessed Hanukkah and a Holy and Merry Christmas. With that, I am initiating a temporary cessation of all (my own) confrontational hostilities till the new year. Then, all bets are off…