The history of the festival of Chanukkah is recounted in the First and Second Books of Maccabees, apocrypha of the Bible. (...)
During his reign Alexander the Macedonian, Alexander the Great, first subdued Greece, then the regions belonging to the Persian Empire; he then turned his attention to the Mediterranean countries, and since Judea had always been a route of primary importance between east and west both for trade and for military purposes, Alexander conquered it without encountering any resistance from the population since until then it had been under Persian rule.
The various provinces of the empire founded by Alexander, although subject to the central government, enjoy considerable autonomy. The young emperor, enamoured of Greek culture, works to spread it among all the conquered peoples. Indeed, it is he who initiates the era defined as Hellenistic, a time of great cultural and artistic renewal, which ended with the conquest of Greece by the Roman Empire.
Jewish tradition states that Alexander was also deeply struck by the culture of the sages of Israel, with whom he had frequent contact; on this subject the Midrash, always on historical grounds, provides us with extremely interesting accounts. However, many Jews allowed themselves to be influenced by Greek culture, by Hellenism, which at the time had reached the height of its splendour.
Jewish religious and social civilisation, founded on the Torah and prophetic literature, which teach monotheism and the equality of all men, is nevertheless rooted in and distinct from the Greek civilisation, which builds its ideals on strength and physical beauty, its artistic values of idolatry. This cultural distance prevents Hellenism from penetrating deeply, especially among the population strictly linked and faithful to Jewish ideals.
Upon the death of Alexander the Great (the fourth century Before the Common Era), the kingdom is dismembered and the sovereigns of the various states become the Diadochi.
A very confused period of struggles follows, at the end of which most of Alexander’s empire is divided between Egypt under the rule of the Lagids, and Syria under that of the Seleucids.
Judea initially remains under Egypt, upon the throne of which three Lagid kings succeed one another, one of whom, Ptolemy II Philadelphus, commissions the translation of the Bible into Greek: a fact of great significance since from this moment the Bible, which, written in Hebrew, was practically inaccessible to cultures of a different language, can also be read and studied by non-Jews.
This reading exerts a considerable influence on the most culturally prepared classes and on philosophers already seeking a religious and social conception different from that of the era: and thus all subsequent civilisation will be strongly influenced by both Hellenistic and Jewish culture.
A period of struggles between the Lagids and Seleucids follows, which is also reflected in Judea with alternating more or less peaceful moments, and finally Judea passes under Seleucid rule.
Antiochus III, king of Syria, does not exercise excessively oppressive power, but arrogates to himself the right to depose and appoint the Jewish high priests. Under Antiochus IV, a scandalous power struggle takes place between two Jewish personalities who had Hellenised their names into Jason and Menelaus, a struggle that morally and materially involves the entire Jewish population.
Many of the people in Judea instead sympathised with the chassidim, the Jews loyal to the laws of the Torah, because they believed that the excessive influence of Hellenism on Jewish culture could lead to the obliteration of its identity.
Antiochus IV becomes king and finds himself governing peoples of diverse and non-homogeneous cultures; he believes he can remedy this difficult situation by imposing on everyone, including the Jews, a total Hellenisation, which also meant the acceptance of idolatrous worship.
Hellenistic culture had penetrated without difficulty among the Jewish population, fascinated by art, by the love of aesthetics, and by Greek philosophy. The young had grown passionate about gymnastic exercises and frequented the gymnasium, the palaestrae, with enthusiasm.
But none of Antiochus IV’s predecessors had interfered in the Jewish ideological creed, safeguarding, at least in the eyes of the Jews, their very civil freedom, which according to their culture substantially coincided with religious freedom.
The obligation to accept the worship of the Greeks, which implied the recognition of their entire picturesque and colourful Pantheon, had not aroused any resentment among idolatrous peoples, who were always accustomed to adding the gods of the conquerors to their own with the utmost nonchalance; in Judea, however, this imposition provoked a very violent reaction, especially among the chassidim, the faithful, the pious, who, as already mentioned, had always looked upon Hellenism with suspicion and, furthermore, had never been favourable to the Seleucid dynasty, which had meddled too much in Jewish religious matters.
But the powerful Antiochus IV, who calls himself Epiphanes, “God manifest”, but whom the Jews call Epimanes, “the madman”, cannot allow a small people such as the Jews to remain openly faithful to a monotheistic ideology in open contrast with that of the State and completely different from that of the other peoples of his empire.
Faced with the tenacious refusal of the Jews to accept Greek idolatry, he adopts an openly persecutory attitude aimed at striking at the heart of the Jewish faith: on the 25 of Kislev he has an altar to Jupiter erected on the Temple Mount, and prohibits the study of the Torah, the practice of circumcision, and the observance of the Sabbath and the festivals. The Torah scrolls are burned in public squares. A massacre is carried out in Jerusalem among the population faithful to Judaism, and a fortress, the Acra, is built, garrisoned by Syrian troops.
Acts of heroism occur among the Jews: old Eleazar is promised his life is safe provided he performs even just the gesture of eating pork to set an example to the people. Eleazar refuses and is killed.
Hannah, the mother of seven sons, exhorts them to refuse Antiochus’s imposition to bow down to idols, and invites them to openly proclaim their faith in G-d: her sons are tortured and killed before her eyes, shortly preceding her own fate.
But the Jewish people do not surrender: the commandment of circumcision is performed secretly, the festivals celebrated in the privacy of homes, and the Torah taught in hiding.
Antiochus does not tolerate the passive resistance of the population and sends his officials to various towns to erect altars upon which impure animals, particularly pigs, are to be sacrificed to the gods by the Jews themselves. Eminent personalities of the Jewish world are purposely chosen to perform the sacrifice. If they refuse, they are killed. Antiochus hopes that by seeing their leaders openly and publicly desecrate their own creed, the population too will surrender to the Syrian impositions; if this attempt fails, he nevertheless trusts in breaking the will of the people in the face of the martyrdom of their leaders.
Some Syrian officials arrive in Modi’in, a small town where Mattathias of the Hasmonean family, who had been the Kohen Gadol, the High Priest, had taken refuge.
An altar is built there too, and Mattathias is ordered to perform the sacrifice.
Mattathias kills the official, then destroys the altar.
It is the beginning of the revolt.
Mattathias and his five sons, Johanan, Simeon, Judah, Jonathan, and Eleazar, leave Modi’in and take refuge in the rugged mountains of Judea.
The news of this act of courage spreads. A new hope kindles spirits. Gathered around Mattathias and his sons are all those who, intolerant of Syrian oppression, choose the path of rebellion to maintain their freedom. Gathering centres and refuges are formed in the mountains of Judea to live in and to organise actions against the Syrians.
Judah, one of the sons of Mattathias, takes command of the rebels.
Thus the first guerrilla war in history takes place: a guerrilla campaign that gives the Syrian troops no respite, preventing their movements from one city to another, catching patrols in transit by surprise and disarming them, and putting the entire well-organised and powerful Syrian war machine in serious difficulty.
The Jews fight under the banner of improvisation, but they have an excellent knowledge of the terrain and the mountains, and above all faith and an ideal to defend.
For this tactic of continuous hammering against the enemy, Judah earns the title of Maccabee, from maccab, “hammer”, an appellative with which all his brothers are subsequently designated as well, known indeed as the Maccabean brothers.
The guerrilla warfare turns into a full-scale war: the enthusiasm of Judah and his soldiers often gets the better of the powerful enemy army. The attacks carried out by the Jews are preceded by speeches by Judah, prayers, and fasts.
Antiochus sends new generals and new soldiers to Judea, but finds himself in a difficult political situation. Furthermore, a new, dangerous power is appearing on the Mediterranean horizon: Rome, which is fighting the Punic Wars for dominance of the Mediterranean.
The victories achieved put Judah in a position to attack Jerusalem. The Syrian fortress, the Acra, falls; the Temple is liberated, but it is necessary to rededicate it by lighting the Ner Tamid, a lamp that was never, for any reason, to be extinguished as testimony to the vigilant presence and faith of the people in G-d.
But the Syrians had rampaged through the Temple, stealing and destroying everything contained within it, even the consecrated oil necessary to relight the lamp: throughout the Temple a tiny, still-sealed ampoule is found, but its content will only be able to guarantee light for a few hours, and to prepare more takes at least eight days!
A discussion arises among the priests: should the consecration be postponed by eight days, or should the Temple be rededicated immediately, knowing full well that the oil will not last the time necessary to prepare more and that therefore at a certain point it will go out?
Faith prevails, the lamp is lit, and the Temple is rededicated.
And, the Midrash recounts, the miracle happens: the little oil lasts eight days, and the Ner Tamid does not go out.
In the Shabbath tractate of the Mishnah we read:
What does Chanukkah mean? When the Greeks entered the Temple, they desecrated all the oil that was found therein, but when the kings of the Hasmonean house overcame them and were victorious, they searched the Temple and found only a single cruse of oil bearing the seal of the high priest, which contained just enough oil for one day: and a miracle occurred and it lasted for eight days.
Thus the festival of Chanukkah, “inauguration” and therefore “rededication”, was instituted, and the Masters deemed it right that it should last eight days, also in analogy with the observance of Sukkot, the longest of the sacred observances established in the Torah (cf Leviticus 23).
During these eight days, lights are lit in every Jewish home to perpetuate the memory of the miracle of the oil and celebrate the victory of faith.
It is significant that the lights are lit near the window so that passers-by may see them, rejoice, and draw a moral from them: not only is the life of one’s neighbour sacred, but so are their ideals.
Source: Le pietre del tempo by Clara and Elia Kopciowski