Chanukah: A celebration of religious freedom or religious dominance?

Overview: The history of Chanukah and what the celebration is really all about. The civil war, religious oppression, and the victories.

Nowadays, the holiday of Chanukah is often celebrated as a symbol of religious freedom. It is the victory of the Jews, led by the Maccabees, against the Hellenist oppressors of the Seleucid (Greco-Syrian) empire. While this portrayal is true to some extent, it would be historically inaccurate to present the Maccabees as freedom fighters fighting for their right to serve their religion in peace. The reality is a much uglier one, yet still celebratory for Jews who value Jewish values and the perseverance of Jewish life.

The history

To better understand this, let us delve into the second-century BCE. At this time, the Seleucid Empire had firmly established its dominance over Judea, after many years of back-and-forth battles between the Ptolemaic (Greco-Egyptian) Empire and the Seleucids. Originally, the kings had minimal interference with the religious activity of the Jews in Judea. However, by the time of Antiochus IV, a clash of cultures was brewing in Jerusalem and the Judean countryside. Two distinct Jewish camps fought for the Jerusalem priesthood and domestic policy. The Hassidim were the conservative branch of Judaism that opposed Greek culture, such as the worship of foreign gods like Zeus. They mainly resided in the countryside and were later to branch into the Pharisees and eventually the Rabbis. Opposing them were the Hellenistic urbanites, situated mainly in Jerusalem and often from the elite strata in Jewish society, who were heavily influenced by Greek culture and were later in history to branch into the Sadducees (deniers of the Oral Law). The two sides fought for political control and at times small armed conflicts broke out between them.

As the two sides fought for control of the Temple priesthood, Antiochus raided Jerusalem, plundered its Temple and erected a statue of Zeus in the Temple of YHWH. To further antagonize the anti-Hellenists, he decreed against circumcision, Sabbath, and other Jewish holidays. He also began a policy of forced worship of Greek gods in the countryside villages. It is not clear why Antiochus was motivated to fight the Jewish religion, though some speculate it was because he feared a nationalist rebellion.

In the town of Modi’in, just 20 miles Northwest of Jerusalem, the king’s commissioner attempted to force the town-priest Matisyahu to sacrifice to the Greek gods. After he refused, a Hellenized Jew stepped forward to sacrifice to the gods. In a rage, Matisyahu slayed both the worshiper and the king’s commissioner. He and his five sons then escaped to the Judean wilderness, where they gathered together a band of several hundred (and later several thousand) guerilla fighters who raided Hellenist altars and Greek defenses throughout the countryside.

After the death of his father, Judah the Maccabee (the “hammer”) took the lead of this zealous fighting force. He was a brilliant military strategist who pioneered new guerilla tactics warfare to win battles against the more powerful Greek force. After initial losses and several years of battles, the conservative sect of Jews were surprisingly able to recapture Jerusalem and rededicate the Temple to YHWH. It seems that the cause of retreat by the main Greek army, allowing for the Maccabean capture of Jerusalem, was internal strife and problems elsewhere in the empire to which the troops were diverted. After the rededication of the Temple (alternatively, many years later), a festival was established to commemorate the miraculous/surprising military victory. Later legend was to associate the holiday with a jug of oil that miraculously burnt for eight days. However, the earliest historical records cast strong doubt on the historicity of this legend (see here for more).

Despite the Seleucids relenting on their religious oppression, the Maccabees fought on, aiming for complete independence. After forging military ties with the newly emerging Roman Republic, the Maccabees fortified their independent position and established the Hasmonean dynasty that would stand for almost one hundred years. Later on in its history, the Hasmoneans would sometimes side with the Hellenists/Sadducees and sometimes with the Hasidim/Pharisees, until the Roman Empire took control of Judea and a new era began.

Freedom of religion or religious dominance

Matisyahu spearheaded the revolt by attacking a Jew who wished to worship the Greek gods. He had no freedom of religion and was instead murdered by a zealous fanatic. The Maccabees later went on to destroy places of worship, where many innocent Jews were executing their right to worship the gods they believed in. But the Maccabees would take nothing of it. During the Hasmonean rule, Idomea was forcibly converted to Judaism after being conquered. The same fate lie for many other peoples conquered by the Hasmoneans. This was the sad and ugly reality of Judea under Hasmonean rule.

Yet, the same was true under Greek rule. Innocent observant Jews were often forced to worship the Greek gods and the Temple treasure for the Israelite God was repeatedly plundered to fund Greek gymnasiums.

There was no freedom of religion at that point in history, no widely-accepted tolerance for each individual to worship the gods they deem to be true. Instead, cultures and religions fought for dominance over the other, and whoever came out on top – forced their way of life on its subjects. There were many exceptions to this, in which superior kings tolerated other religions and even added those religion’s deities to their divine pantheon. But this was not the case with Antiochus IV as well as the Hasmoneans.

The Maccabees, as well as the Hellenists, did not have the Western values of today’s society. They owned slaves, they granted no freedom of religion, and were not the perfect morality-fighter we may think of them to be.

The celebration of Chanukah is not a celebration of freedom of religion; it is not a celebration of the rights for each individual to practice their own religion. It is rather the celebration of the triumph of Judaism in Judea over Hellenism. It’s a celebration of survival of the Jewish religion that was to persevere through millennia of persecution by other dominant cultures and religions. The celebration of Chanukah is for those who value Judaism over the Hellenistic culture. If not for the Maccabees, the world’s oldest monotheistic religion may have evaporated out of existence to become just another Hellenistic culture in Judea.

This Chanukah, I will celebrate the resilience of Judaism, and on July 4th I will celebrate Independence Day that also marks a new page for the Freedom of Religion that was mostly absent in the ancient world and in ancient Judea.