Thursday, January 02, 2025
Elder of ZiyonFor the last day of Chanukah, JVP's rabbis engage in a little revisionism of two millennia of rabbinic writings.
Mai Hanukkah – “What is Hanukkah?” asked the rabbis of the Talmud. In answer to their own rhetorical question, they chose not to tell the story of the Maccabean victory over the Seleucid empire in 160 BCE. Rather, they offered the famous story of the rededication of the Temple and the miracle of the oil that burned for eight days. For the rabbis, the oil of the menorah symbolized hope and faith in the face of overwhelming odds, not the spoils of war.The phrase "Mai Chanukah" in the Talmud (Shabbat 21b) comes after a discussion of the mitzvah of lighting the menorah - including the famous argument between Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai on the number of candles to be lit each night. It is not the introduction to the topic. Which means that the phrase "Mai Chanukah" is asking what is the reason for the lighting of the candles, not what Chanukah is about.
The answer mentioning the cruse of oil also notes the military victory: "When the Hasmonean monarchy overcame them and emerged victorious over them, they searched and found only one cruse of oil..."
But JVP then says that celebrating the military victory is a Zionist invention that Jews didn't consider before the 19th century.
This inspiring sacred message of Hanukkah lasted centuries, until it was subverted and overturned by political Zionism.Tragically, the Zionist movement chose to put its faith in human power and national territorial sovereignty, seeking to create a “Third Jewish Commonwealth” in historic Palestine. In so doing, it forged a wholly new Jewish identity: an internalization and inversion of European antisemitic themes of Jewish feebleness. This ideal prioritized physical strength and militarism, and was often exemplified by the revival of the Maccabees as Jewish heroes, forsaking the miracle of the oil for a focus on violent militarism.
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| Al Hanissim in 1642 siddur |
Wow. The authors of the Al Hanissim prayer (found in prayerbooks from the 9th century) who spelled out the miracles of Chanukah didn't know that. The prayer thanks God for the military victory - and doesn't mention the miracle of the oil at all!
Zionists!
Similarly, Maimonides (Rambam) in his Mishneh Torah (12th century) discusses the military victory before the miracle of the oil. (The 17th century Pri Chadash explains that, according to the Rambam, the first day of the celebration was instituted in appreciation of the military victories, and the remaining days to commemorate the miracle of the oil. This is one of hundreds of answers to the age-old question of why Chanukah is eight days long, not seven.)
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| "HaNeirot Halalu" from a 1684 prayerbook |
The song sung during the lighting of the candles, HaNeitor Halalu, which is centuries old, also calls out the military victory.
It is true that early Zionists emphasized the military victory and downplayed the miracle of the oil. That was a fairly temporary phenomenon. But the JVP "rabbis" are truly the modern Hellenists, doing everything they can to replace Jewish concepts like celebrating God's help in a military victory of the "few against the many" with their own false gods of anti-Zionism and the pretense of caring about human rights.
And to justify their Jewishly indefensible position, they have no problem twisting and rewriting 2,000 years of Jewish history.
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"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024) PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022) |
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