One of the more amazing aspects of the Chanukah Holyday is how unsuccessful the Maccabees were as measured by what is today thought of as the goals of their uprising. We tend to paint the picture of their Hasmonean wars as wars for freedom. To tell the truth, the Hasmoneans would not have fought the Syrian Greeks if the Syrian Greeks would have let them practice their faith as their fathers before them had.


The beginning of the Greek era or as we would call it “the rise of Hellenism” began about 319 B.C.E. The desecration of the holy temple by Antiocus 1 took place in 168 B.C.E. or about 150 years later. In 165 B.C.E., under the Hasmonean priest-warriors, a partial conquest of Judea took place; and the miracle of the oil occurred. From 162 B.C.E. to 140 B.C.E., a period of 22 years, the war continued; until the Syrian Greeks and their Jewish allies were defeated. The Hasmonean dynasty itself only lasted 77 years when internal conflict and lack of common values permitted the Romans, under Pompeii, to achieve the conquest of Judea in a bloodless coup.


Imagine a Holyday whose sole achievement was 77 years of independence! The military triumph by itself was obviously was not sufficient to have established this event as the Holyday it has become.


What the events described did achieve was the abrupt cessation of what seemed to be the inexorable slide of the Jewish people into the sea of assimilation. It is this cessation of the seemingly spiritual end of our people’s odyssey (as it fulfills Hashem’s plan) that marks the Holyday we observe.
The use of candles or olive oil as the chief expression of the Holyday’s core ritual, as opposed to the reading of the Megillah on Purim, points to the distinguishing characteristic of the days.


On Purim, the Megillah is to be read publicly. There is no such concurrent demand of Chanukah. The mitzvah of lighting Chanukah candles does not center in the synagogue or any other public institution. It centers in the Jewish home. There the mitzvah is to be performed and everyone is obligated to perform it. Perhaps it is a reminder, that the battle against assimilation is always a personal battle; and that battle is won or lost at home. I am reminded of what Professor Solomon Schechter (one of the founders of the Conservative Movement) once suggested as a remedy for Judaism’s ills in the U.S. He posited that the best solution for our religious condition would be the closure of all the synagogues. This would force the home to assume its primary function which outside the creation of another generation is the transmission of Jewish tradition. Think of the possibilities of the idea. We would have to educate our children. We would have to teach them mitzvoth by our performing them. We would have to show them by our deeds how important our Judaism is to us. The more I think about it the more merit the suggestion has.


For the truth remains! The celebration surrounding Chanukah (most of it American fashioned) is joyless if the essential lesson is lost. It was the spiritual victory of the Hasmoneans that was important, not the military one that was short-lived and soon reversed.


Their spiritual victory permits our existence to this day. That is the reason Jews continue to celebrate a Holyday 2200 years after the events took place – not for what occurred then, but for what we can learn from it today. And if we fail to learn its lesson; then the Chanukah menorah will stand (as I see it stand all too unfortunately) right next to the Christmas tree – both reminders of a long time event now powerless in today’s secular society.


So enjoy Chanukah! Light the candles, you and each of the members of your families – not one night but every night to remind us that we survive by the light of Hashem’s Torah and our dedication to his faith!