Hanukkah – the Fastest Spin in Jewish History

Vincent van Gogh, The Potato Eaters, 1885. Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

David Brooks is correct, Hanukkah is the archetypal upheaval, the blueprint for the pivotal eruptions, a model casting a long shadow on the historical patterns. As Saddam Hussein would put it – “the mother of all revolutions”.

The plot itself is as old as the world. On one side the urban elites and the rich landowners. On the other side the traditional and poor “Taliban-like” peasants, full with resentment for the aggressive and forceful “westernization”, the revolutionary stirrings infused with the appeal for the national and religious independence. The heretical Hellenized worship is a euphemism for the allegiance to the “westernized”, to the progressive superpower. The armed revolt follows and the Maccaby Modin “team” takes over Jerusalem, the clan starts the Hasmonean dynasty to last almost two centuries.

The Hanukkah is spun, especially in America, as a revolt for freedom; but the Hasmoneans were as far from liberty as they were from the Greek experiment in democracy. Grotesquely the closest analogy to the Hasmonean revolt in our time is the Khomeini revolution in Iran, out with the westernized elites and their allegiance to the superpower and in with the Persian pride and tradition. In fact Khomeini modeled his religious dictatorship Veleyat-e Faqih on the post-democaratic Plato’s Republic.

But the lights, the lights, half kingdom for the lights… The Hasmoneans needed a seal of God’s approval, especially considering the ruthless reign they had in store for the people (note how the story speaks about the oil “sealed with approval” and ” pure”, you know right there we are dealing with some monkey business). So why the mishpoche Maccaby couldn’t come up with a better story, just “here is one light for eight days” basta? Perhaps after the revolt, again as a blueprint for the revolutions to come, there was a “cultural revolution” and all the “hellenized” poets and writers were dead or hiding, no one to decorate the newly powerful with a proper mythology, the “light of the nations” withered and so the Hanukkah story got no shpil. Compare this to Purim and all the attributes of a good plot – sex, jealousy, royal intrigue, revenge, murder, even tabletop dancing and the carnival.

But let’s linger with the flickering lights for a moment. When we speak about a culture of “enlightenment”, especially in the context of the post Bastille western democracies in Europe and America, we understand the “light” as a triumph of education, science and reason, in other words the classical inventions of the Hellenistic ethos. The enlightenment is the victory over the indoctrination and the blind devotion to the ideological totalitarianism inside the hermetically shut Judeo-Islamo-Christian cosmos. In this context to recast Hanukkah as an “enlightenment” is the intergalactic mother of all the saturnalian dreidel spins.

But even if you give the Maccaby brothers the benefit of a doubt. Are we now to celebrate the Bolsheviks despite the ruthless reign, just because originally they had the good intentions? If one is to assume that struggle for the cultural and national independence is just, than we have to face the very Hellenism institutionalized by the Hasmoneans, ironically starting with the introduction of the Greek “festival” format to commemorate the victory itself.

Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus AKA Pompey the Great

Finally, the “what-if” speculations are futile. But still 63 years on the other side of baby Jesus, the Hasmonean princes, the brothers Hyrcanus II and Aristobulus II were fighting each other for the throne. Each of the brothers played the Roman card appealing to the General Pompey in Syria. Pompey sensed the imperial opportunity and marched on Jerusalem. The weakest of the two bothers, Hyrcanus was installed as the King and High Priest, the ambitious and proud Aristobulus was thrown into prison together with his sons. Rome became the de facto power in Judea. The Hasmonean stage was set for the messianic eruption, the enslavement and the yahrzeit licht of the exile.

On a more upbeat note, could you pass another latke please! Wait, wasn’t the potato introduced to Europe after the conquest of America? Aha, now the “freedom”, the “lights”, even the “gifts” make the perfect sense. One of the Jewish skills honed in the diaspora is to define culture as a reaction, response or even an osmosis of the dominant ideas. And there is no better way to commemorate this proud legacy than to have the winter solstice holiday as a response to a neighbor’s yontev. So let’s shop and party hard! The dreidel stops here.