Most people don't understand Hanukkah's true meaning.
Hanukkah was never meant to be a comfortable holiday, because nothing terrifies the world more than dignified Jews who unapologetically defend themselves. All Jews today must prepare to do the same.
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This is a guest essay by Forest Rain, an American-born Israeli branding expert and storyteller.
You can also listen to the podcast version of this essay on Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, YouTube, and Spotify.
There seems to be a lot of confusion about Hanukkah, to the point where it appears to be deliberate.
Let’s begin with what Hanukkah is not about.
1) It’s not a Jewish Christmas.
In many circles, Hanukkah seems to have become an imitation Christmas — a holiday of food, lights, decorations, and gifts. This is a sad considering that although both holidays fall in December, Hanukkah has nothing to do with Christmas and perhaps even more ironically, without Hanukkah, Christmas would not exist at all.
All Jewish holidays feature food, but the food is only a symbol, a reminder of the miracle of the holiday.
Hanukkah is a holiday of lights but that too is a symbol, to help us remember and proclaim the miracle of the holiday.
Gift-giving on Hanukkah is not a Jewish tradition at all, only a habit adopted by Jews living near Christians so that their children would not become jealous of the gifts Christians receive on their holiday.
Giving children Hanukkah “gelt” (a Yiddish word for money) is a Jewish tradition. There are different explanations for this. The Rambam1 discussed the need to incentivize children to do what will be expected of them as a grown-up; thus it is appropriate to provide children an example of giving in order to teach them to give to those who have less.
Additionally, as the Greek oppressors took Jewish property, giving children money is a symbolic way to celebrate that we have the freedom to choose what to do with what is ours (with an emphasis on using money to support spiritual causes rather than selfish gain).
Another explanation is that, as even the poorest Jew is supposed to have candles to light for the holiday in order to prevent shame from children begging for their families, it became a tradition to give money to all the children in the community.
Whatever explanation is the correct one (and possibly all are correct to some extent), the goal of Hanukkah gelt is the antithesis of the Hellenistic desire towards personal enrichment, but rather being enriched spiritually by using money well.
2) Which miracle?
On Hanukkah, children play with dreidels marked with letters designed to remind them of the miracle of the holiday. This teaching tool differs depending on location. In the Diaspora, the dreidels are marked with four letters that say: “A great miracle happened there.” In Israel the last letter is different, signifying that: “A great miracle happened here.”
As an American child, I didn’t really comprehend the significance. I knew the word “miracle” from storybooks. I knew that “there” meant Israel, a place I had visited as a child. But “there” was far away and had very little to do with my American life.
Without a concrete explanation of what we were commemorating, the symbols of the holiday loomed larger than the message they are designed to convey. This opens the door to many unfortunate misunderstandings.
Of course, the miracle of oil2 is central to Hanukkah, but that could not have occurred without the military victory. From Josephus, we learn that the first years following the victory of the Maccabees there were Hanukkah celebrations that did not include Hanukkah lights.
The celebration was of victory — of the small band of warriors against the powerful Greek army, of the small stubborn tribe who clung to their traditions and religion and did not succumb to the compelling allure of the predominate Hellenistic culture. The Hanukkah miracle is the miracle of warriors of the body and spirit who refused to give up their identity and, in their stubbornness, won. That is glorious!
The miracle of light, the oil that burned for eight days when it only should have sufficed for a single day is a symbol for the miracle of retaining identity against all odds — a physical manifestation of the victory of body and faith over the powers of assimilation.
When the light of our People should have died out, through faith and hard work, determination and willingness to suffer for a greater good, it did not. The light is important because it is a testament to Jewish faith and that, in return, God grants us miracles. Light without faith would not exist. Light without the military victory would only be a dramatic folk story, easily dismissed and quickly forgotten.
It is the combination of light and victory that makes the miraculous story of Hanukkah complete.
3) Without God, there is no victory.
Matityahu, father of the Maccabees, was a Cohen, a priest in the Temple. He was also a warrior, as were his sons.
In an attempt to erase Jewish culture and ensure the dominance of Greek culture, Antiochus erected a statue to Zeus in the Temple in Jerusalem and demanded the sacrifice of pigs on the altar. It was Matitiyahu, the priest, who set the standard of unwavering Jewish faith.
When the Seleucid Greek government demanded the sacrifice to the Greek gods, Matityahu not only refused to do so, but slew with his own hand the Jew who had stepped forward to do so. He then killed the government official that required the act. It was his sons who led the revolt against the oppressing government and — against all odds — regained Jewish sovereignty and religious freedom.
Faith is not a sentiment that can remain in the realm of theory; it calls for action. Similarly, victory does not occur due to the actions of man, alone.
In the Torah, before battle, the priest is supposed to tell the Nation (Deuteronomy – Chapter 20):
“Hear, O Israel, today you are approaching the battle against your enemies. Let your hearts not be faint; you shall not be afraid, and you shall not be alarmed, and you shall not be terrified because of them.”
“For the Lord, your God, is the One Who goes with you, to fight for you against your enemies, to save you.”
Jewish faith says that God walks with us into battle, to fight for us and save us. This is not a figurative description; it is a very literal one. The Maccabees must have heard this prayer before battle, as do IDF soldiers today.
The Hanukkah song, Maoz Tzur (“Rock of Ages”), acknowledges this truth as it appears over and over throughout Jewish history. In the time of the Maccabees, the exile to Babylon, from Haman’s attempt at genocide and slavery under Pharaoh — each time the Jewish People were in danger of being wiped out, physically or through cultural extermination (assimilation), each time, in different ways, God saved us from our enemies.
Without God, there is no victory. Miracles are not a thing of religious fantasy; they are a tangible experience, the deciding factor between life and death, a nation victorious or a nation lost.
4) A Holiday, Not a Holy Day
Part of the confusion surrounding Hanukkah is that it is a holiday, but not a holy day. The story of Hanukkah is that of an event in Jewish history, not part of the Torah. The ritualistic elements of Hanukkah center around the Hanukkah lights, how they are lit, what prayers are said, not working during the time they are burning and not doing actions connected with mourning.
Hanukkah is a celebration of Jewish nationalism (which does not exist without God) and not a holiday of religious holiness, although there are some prayers that are specifically associated with Hanukkah.
It similar to celebrating Israel’s Independence Day which also commemorates the victory of a tiny group of stubborn Jews fighting for sovereignty and freedom against an enemy much more powerful and well-equipped — and, by the grace of God, winning.
5) The Fight for Judea
King Arthur and Camelot are part of a glorious but fictitious story about a king creating a better, kinder reality for England.
In contrast, the Maccabees were real people who fought for Jewish freedom and the sanctity of the Temple on the Temple Mount in the heart of Jerusalem.
The Maccabees lived and died in the land which gave the Jewish People our name — Judea.
Today the Jewish fight for Judea continues; it is only the methodology and field of battle that have changed. It is no longer a conquering army but a battle fought with terminology designed to create a new reality, attempting to influence public perception in order to affect political policy.
International organizations, companies like Airbnb, the BDS movement, and individual Jew-haters call Judea the “West Bank” — a term that is not geographical but political in nature. (It would be similar to calling Texas “North Mexico.”) Such terminology is designed to associate that area of land with Jordan, disconnecting Judea from Zion, as if Zion would exist without Judea.
Modern-day fiction cannot change Jewish history, however it can change the Jewish future. Forgetting our roots enables the fictitious to root itself and become “alternative facts” which are already being used to wipe us off the map — literally.
Jews are from Judea (and Arabs are from Arabia). It really is that simple.
6) A Two-Front War
The Maccabees fought a battle on two fronts:
The physical battle against the army of Antiochus who tried, by force, to eliminate Jewish identity — occupying the land, refusing its occupants the right to live and worship as Jews, defiling the Temple in the heart of Jerusalem.
The spiritual battle against assimilation, necessitating confrontation even with other Jews who found Hellenistic culture alluring and were willing to give up Judaism, to assimilate with the Greeks, forgetting Jewish uniqueness for the ease of becoming like everyone else.
What difference is there between the battle of the Maccabees and the fight of Jews today, particularly Israeli Jews?
Today, as in the time of the Maccabees, it seems it would take a miracle to retain Jewish identity and freedom in the face of the modern forces hellbent on eliminating the Jewish state and Jewish willingness to assimilate in the hope of becoming “like everyone else.”
In a time when many view nationalism, borders, and uniqueness to be evils that must be expunged from the world, it is convenient to forget what Hanukkah is all about. It is less threatening when Hanukkah becomes a trivial imitation of Christmas, a holiday of lights and jelly donuts.
Over the centuries, fear has led Jews to put their heads down and weather the storm of whatever discrimination or violence was directed at Jewish communities. For instance, we say: “We survived Pharaoh, this too shall pass.”
Living under oppression led Jews to turn within — to focus on spirituality, rituals, and theories. Destruction of the Temple, exile, and separation from the land which gave us our name led Jews to set aside the physicality of Jewish life.
We forgot that we come from a nation of warriors.
The re-establishment of the Jewish state in 1948 led Jews around the world to once again raise their heads in pride. In theory, this was pride in prophecy actualized. In actuality, this was pride in Jewish identity once again becoming complete. The spiritual Jew, reconnected with the physical Jew. The warrior once again, free in the land from which our people sprang.
This, of course, revived an even greater wave of Jew-hate and subsequent Jewish fear. It is easy for the world to accept the meek Jew, to go through the motions of sympathy for the dead Jew.
Strong Jews who can reach their arm across the globe to pluck Jews out of the hands of their enemies are a completely different story. Warrior Jews who refuse to give up, refuse to die, and refuse to become like everyone else are a threat to a world that demands that all nations relinquish identity, uniqueness, and borders.
Frightened Jews still believe that returning to meekness will appease the haters. If only the Jewish state was less Jewish, maybe the hate would die down. If only individual Jews would set aside their Jewish identity, they could become like everyone else and no longer be hated. Fear makes people irrational and unable to learn from the past.
Hanukkah is the story of Jewish nationalism: an indigenous people, fighting for their ancestral homeland and tribal rights, and winning.
This is the same Jewish nationalism that was objected to when the modern Jewish state was declared in 1948. The same nationalism that was recently defined by Israel’s Nation-State Law, defining that the Jewish People are the only people who have the right to self-determination as a nation within the State of Israel. All citizens have the right to individual self-determination, but only the Jewish Nation has a right to the Jewish state.
No wonder Hanukkah is being minimized and trivialized. Nothing is scarier than a Maccabee.
A Sephardic rabbi and philosopher who became one of the most prolific and influential Torah scholars of the Middle Ages
The “miracle of oil” on Hanukkah refers to the story where, after the Maccabees recaptured the Temple in Jerusalem, they found only enough consecrated olive oil to light the menorah for one day, but miraculously it burned for eight days, allowing them to produce more pure oil to keep the light burning continuously; this is why Hanukkah is celebrated for eight nights, each night adding a new candle to the menorah.
Whenever I read the word "warrior" regarding the ancient Hebrews and present day Israelites/Jews I think of the many times the words "mighty men" are used in what Christians call the Old Testament. As a former US Army infantryman what always strikes me in those stories of battle is that the Hebrews were always vastly outnumbered, as I understand it, and they'd prevail because they had God defending them. Since 1948 Israel has been in the same situation many times but has always prevailed and I believe it's because the Lord keeps His hand ON the Jewish State.
Great read. Meticulous and true.
The miracle in the Hannukah story itself of the lasting oil is not historical, but the birth of the State of Israel is , and as a statistical miracle, one of utmost improbability, is what miracles can be said to be today, with full scientific background.
The history of Hannukah is uncontroversial :the Hasmoneans vanquished the Greeks and ruled for decades until Rome took over. This was also exceptional and improbable, situated between three huge Jewish defeats and exiles: Assyria, Babylon, Rome.
The Maccabees, led by a warrior priest, echo the ancient Levites, fanatical loyal Hebrews who likely gave Israel the sacred name of God and taught the Israelites their religion.
Warrior priests are indeed frightening. They can make the wrath of God palpable in human terms.
The world fears the Jews because they do appear supernatural, in the over-abundance of individual genius, the way this genius shaped the world ( Moses, Jesus, Marx, Freud, Einstein), and in the miraculous resilience and survival of the People, also eternal.
The moral genius of Israel guided an entire civilisation, but also created the burden of conscience that so many are discarding today in favour of new barbaric or demented tyrannies. Israel set a very high bar, which demoting Hannukah to food and gifts doesn't do justice to. But the hope and the light - it is indeed a Festival of Lights-appropriately celebrates Israel's chosennes for such an inspired role in History .