Vampire Weekend's Surprising Jewish Stories
7 min read
The meaning of history’s first ideological war, the shocking denouement of the Maccabees, and why Jews focus on the miracle of the oil, not the battle.
There is a common misconception that Hanukkah was a revolt against the Greek occupation of Israel, but this was not the case. Over a century and a half had passed since Alexander the Great’s arrival in Israel until the Maccabean Revolt in the mid-2nd century B.C.E. Physical occupation wasn’t the core issue of the revolt. Ideology was.
To appreciate this point, we have to understand how totally different Jews were from not only the Greeks, but the entire world.
At this period of time in human history everyone was religious, but all religions were polytheistic. Different cultures and empires worshipped different gods, but they all believed that the world was full of deities. For the Greeks, Zeus was god of the heavens, Poseidon was the god of the sea and so it went for every other force of nature. The ancient Greeks may have worshipped different gods than the Egyptians and may even have considered their gods to be superior, but they never denied another people’s gods.
Judaism was radically different from every other religion, and the Jews refused to recognize or worship any other peoples’ gods.
Into this vast polytheistic world comes the tiny Jewish people with their very unique belief in one God, who was the only God, and the God of everything! Judaism was radically different from every other religion, and the Jews refused to recognize or worship any other peoples’ gods. How strange, arrogant and elitist this seemed to the rest of the world. No wonder it created suspicion and anger toward the Jews, especially amongst the Greeks.
We also have to understand that the Greeks were not only physical imperialists, they were also cultural imperialists. They didn’t just conquer and subjugate other peoples, they exported their culture to the peoples they conquered, many of whom gladly adopted what they viewed as this superior culture. In the vast world of the Greek empires, the Jews were the only outliers. The majority of Jews refused to accept Greek gods and Greek culture.
The Greeks viewed this not only as insulting, but also as treasonous. How can we trust these Jews if they stubbornly reject our culture?
This kulturkampf ultimately led the Seleucid Greek Empire to do something it had never done before: to go after Judaism, the religion of the Jews, in an attempt to forcibly assimilate them.
The Second Book of the Maccabees records:
“Not long after this, the king sent an Athenian senator to compel the Jews to forsake the laws of their fathers and cease to live by the laws of God, and also to pollute the temple in Jerusalem and call it the temple of Olympian Zeus...”1
It was precisely this religious persecution – an attempt to crush Judaism and force Jews into idolatry – that eventually let Mattathias, the father of five Maccabean brothers, to rise up in open defiance of Greek oppression and lead the revolt.
“Even if all the nations that live under the rule of the king obey him, and have chosen to do his commandments, departing each one from the religion of his fathers, yet I and my sons and my brothers will live by the covenant of our fathers...We will not obey the king's word by turning aside from our religion to the right hand or to the left.”2
The story of the Maccabees is one of great heroism and sacrifice, and also one of corruption and tragedy. The five sons of MatisyahuMattathias led a struggle against the Greeks that lasted for 25 years. During this protracted conflict, four of the five brothers either died in battle or were murdered.
The sole surviving brother, Simon, finally gained independence from Greeks and established a dynasty, known as the Hasmonean Dynasty that would last for 103 years. For about a century Israel had independence and Simon’s descendants assumed the roles of high priests and rulers of Israel. As descendants of Moses’s brother, Aaron, they could lay claim to the priesthood, but they had no right to kingship as that position could only be claimed by a descendant of King David.
Internal power struggles within the family eventually degenerated in to civil war which opened the door to the Roman conquest of Israel.
Tragically, later Maccabean rulers not only became corrupted by their power, but ended up persecuting the rabbinic leadership that their ancestors had sacrificed their lives to preserve. Internal power struggles within the family eventually degenerated in to civil war which opened the door to the Roman conquest of Israel in 63BCE and ultimately the end of the Hasmonean in 37BCE when the Romans made Herod the Great the king of Israel.
Coming from non-Jewish ancestry, Herod had even less claim to kingship than the Maccabees. To compensate for his lack of legitimacy, Herod married the last surviving Maccabean female, Miriam. Obsessively paranoid, jealous and impulsive, the historian Josephus writes that Herod eventually had her executed. He also put to death the two children that she bore him as well as Miriam’s brother, the high priest, Aristobulus. The Maccabees ceased to exist.3
The Talmudic account of the end of the Hasmonaeans differs in that it doesn’t mention Herod’s marriage to Miriam or her murder, but rather that the last Maccabean female committed suicide rather than marry Herod.4 Regardless of which version you choose to follow, the family of the Maccabees came to a tragic end over 2,000 years ago.
There is only one very short reference to Hannukah in the Talmud and surprisingly, it focuses much more on the oil than the actual revolt:
“When the Greeks entered the Sanctuary, they defiled all the oils that were in the Sanctuary by touching them. And when the Hasmonean monarchy overcame them and emerged victorious over them, they searched and found only one cruse of oil that was placed with the seal of the High Priest, undisturbed by the Greeks. And there was sufficient oil there to light the candelabrum for only one day. A miracle occurred and they lit the candelabrum from it eight days. The next year the Sages instituted those days and made them holidays with recitation of Hallel and special thanksgiving in prayer and blessings.”5
Now that we appreciate what was really behind the revolt, we understand why this so. The military victory of tiny Israel over superpower Greece was certainly a more impressive physical achievement, but the symbolism of the light of the menorah goes to the heart of the true struggle and the real victory on a much deeper level:
Hanukkah was history’s first religious/ideological war. It was paganism’s battle against humanity’s only monotheistic faith. The Greeks tried to destroy Judaism, not the Jews. Despite the beauty and sophistication of Greek culture, their objective was to snuff out the light of Judaism, and that is why we focus on the oil and refer to the holiday as ‘The Festival of Lights.”
The military victory gained Israel brief independence, but that didn’t last long. What did last – and lasts to this very day – was the spiritual victory. The Hanukkah lights that continue to shine brightly during the darkest time of the year represents the real miracle, the survival of a faith and a people that has transformed humanity and is bringing light to the world.
Enlightening (no subtle pun intended)!
It’s a lovely pun, be proud of it!
Early Jews were polytheistic ("have no other gods before me") as Judaism comes from Canaanite and Babylonian polytheistic religions. Egyptian pharaoh Akhenaten was monotheistic before the Jews became monotheistic. Many early wars were driven by religion (or religion was used as an excuse for another reason).
When did they become monotheistic?
Probably around 700 BCE.