Putting an End to Hanukkah

January 9, 2009
Rabbi Seymour Rossel

     Judah Maccabee made two great mistakes. The first put an end to Judean independence even before independence had been won. In 161 BCE, Judah Maccabee concluded an alliance between Judea and Rome. But Rome had no intention of making war on behalf of little Judea. So when the new Seleucid emperor Demetrius sent 20,000 soldiers against Judah and his small Judean army, the Romans failed to appear. Many of Judah's soldiers deserted and they advised him against fighting, but Judah and his loyal band fought and died in 160 BCE.

     Ironically, Judah became a martyr to the cause. His death inspired the Judeans to fight on, led by the two remaining Maccabees, Simon and Jonathan. By now, the Maccabean struggle had gone beyond the cause of religious freedom. It became a campaign for nothing less than restoring the old empire of David and Solomon.

     The second mistake Judah made before his death had to do with the Temple and the High Priest. When the Hellenizing High Priest Menelaus was murdered, the Seleucid emperor Antiochus Eupator appointed a new Hellenizing High Priest named Alcimus, sending him to Jerusalem with an armed escort. But Alcimus was soon driven out of Jerusalem after he brazenly murdered sixty Temple priests. This created the power vacuum destined to change Judaism forever.

     Against all good advice, Judah entrusted the High Priest's office to his own brother Jonathan. While it was true that the Maccabees were kohanim -- authentic priests, the office of High Priest and all the wealth that went along with it had long remained the property of one particular clan of priests. That clan, and their supporters, now emerged as a political party, calling themselves Sadducees, probably to prove their claim that Tzadok, the High Priest under King Solomon, was their direct ancestor. The Sadducees were not opposed to Hellenism. They were anxious to mix with the Greeks -- frequenting the arenas, taking part in Greek sports, and enjoying Greek culture. Their main concern was controlling the wealth of the Temple which had become the central bank of Judean world. The Sadducees opposed the Maccabees for usurping the Temple.

     At the same time, the Maccabees were opposed by a second Jewish group, the voice of the average Judeans. This group called itself Scribes, but others called them Pharisees, which may mean "separatists." The Pharisees opposed having the King and the High Priest come from the same family because that arrangement upset the careful balance of power pictured in the Torah. The Pharisees also opposed further warfare, since the Temple was now restored to Jewish worship. The celebration of Hanukkah was particularly noxious to the Pharisees because it represented a glorification of Maccabean military might.

     There were practical arguments against continuing the fighting. It was obvious that the Seleucid-Greeks had an endless supply of men to send against Judea. The Pharisees also realized that average Judeans were war-weary following ten years of fighting. And, after Judah's death, the Pharisees opposed the new king Jonathan for making treaties with foreign nations. The Pharisees taught that the Torah and the prophets strictly forbade treaties with non-Judeans. In that way, the Pharisees were indeed "separatists."

     At first, the Pharisees were a political force, especially persuasive when they based their arguments on the Torah and the prophets. Before long, they preached that they alone were qualified to interpret the Torah and the prophets. To guarantee their authority, they also taught that prophesy had ended: God no longer spoke directly with prophets. Religious authority was now vested in the Sanhedrin and in the teachings of the Pharisees. Jewish law was what they decided based on their reading of the Torah. And, if the matter at hand was not resolved in the Torah or in the prophets, only the Pharisees were qualified to speak in the name of Moses.

     For a while, the Maccabean revolt gave rise to a miniature Judean kingdom. The Maccabees called themselves Hasmoneans, using the name of their clan. For a while, the wealthier and more worldly Sadducees were the most influential party in the new kingdom. But the Hasmoneans could not protect their kingdom by force. So, before long, it was the Roman Senate that approved the kings of Judea and the kings of Judea became the vassals of Rome. Within a short time, without any real effort at conquest, Rome controlled Judea and finally imposed their will by appointing a half-Jew named Herod as their puppet-king,

     To appear more authentic to his subjects, Herod married a Hasmonean princess. He even sent his grandson Agrippa to Rome to be educated. Agrippa arrived in Rome at the age of three and grew up studying beside other children of Roman nobles, sitting in the same classroom beside the young Caligula and the young Claudius. Later, when the emperor Caligula's excesses led to his murder, Agrippa used his influence in Roman politics to sponsor Claudius as the next Emperor. In return, Claudius restored the title "King" to Agrippa and gave him Judea, even though Agrippa spent most of his life in Rome.

     Like Agrippa, the Sadducees enjoyed their status as citizens of Rome, even though they remained loyal to the Temple, to its cult, and to its wealth. But they were no longer students of Jewish law, so they were forced to defer to the Pharisees even when it came to the laws governing the Temple.

     Under the Hasmonean king, Alexander Jannaeus, the Sadducees were favored and took steps to weaken the Pharisees, even putting some to death. The tables soon turned and the Pharisees came to power for a brief time, so they had some Sadducees put to death. But the tables turned again and the Pharisees now realized that politics was a game without a winner. The people loved the Pharisees for their teaching stories, the Midrash; for their wisdom; and for their interpretations of religious law. So the Pharisees became the Rabbis, placing all their efforts into education, hoping to raise up a new generation of Judeans loyal to the Torah, who would care little or nothing for Rome and Hellenism.

     Despite repeated efforts, the Rabbis could not keep the Judeans from celebrating Hannukah, a popular holiday that happened to coincide with the Saturnalia, the Roman celebration of the dedication of the Temple of Saturn which began each year on December 17 and continued for a week. But the Rabbis sought to undermine Hanukkah's association with war and politics by creating one legend after another to show how Hanukkah was God's victory, not the victory of the Maccabees. In the end, sometime around 300 CE, the Rabbis hit on the best story of all, a Midrash about a cruse of oil that should have lasted only one day but lasted eight. This little piece of fiction ignited the Judeans' imagination, putting God squarely at the center of the Hanukkah festival. Judah and his brothers were all but forgotten. Even the name "Maccabee" was reinterpreted by the Rabbis as an acronym for Mi Chamocha Ba-Eilim, Adonai, "Who is like You among the gods, Adonai?"

     By the time the story of the Hanukkah oil was first recorded by the Rabbis, the Roman empire had destroyed the Temple and the Sadducees had dissolved as a political force; Philo had found a metaphoric path to combine Judaism and Hellenism; Babylonia had emerged as the largest Jewish community in the world; more Jews lived in the Diaspora than in Judea; and the Jewish people were well-launched on the path to a future as a nation living among all the nations of the world.

     Today, due to the efforts of the Rabbis, most Jews celebrate an imaginary miracle of magical oil, not a Hanukkah of Maccabean restoration. The Rabbis even denied the Books of the Maccabees a place in the Bible. The Rabbis had wished to abolish Hanukkah, but since it was so popular, they did the next best thing: undermining its connection to the Hasmonean kings. And that is the real story behind Hanukkah. And let us say, Amen to that!