Israel Agonistes
Manoa (father of Samson): Of ruin indeed methought I heard the noise/ Oh it continues, they have slain my son. - Chorus: Thy son is rather slaying them; that outcry/ From slaughter of one foe could not ascend.
–from John Milton’s Samson Agonistes, wherein Samson in Gaza kills his enemies and himself in the process.
The conflict in Gaza and Israel right now is painful to consider. Marty Kaplan’s essay sums up that pain quite rightly when he writes, “I wish I didn’t believe that the events now unfolding in the Middle East are too complicated for unalloyed outrage.”
I did read an inspiring bit of commentary by Rabbi Mike Rothbaum’s “Drash on Miketz, Chanukah, and War” from Shomer Shalom Institute for Jewish Nonviolence, which I’ll excerpt here:
…Meanwhile, at this time of year, the Hebrew calendar brings another generational struggle….let’s review. As many of us know, about 2200 years ago, a ragtag group of insurgents known as the Maccabees defeated what was then the strongest military force in the known world, the Greek Empire.
The family strife enters the picture in deciding how to tell this story. It is the Maccabees’ grandkids – our rabbis of blessed memory – who made this decision. As it turns out, the rabbis did a funny thing.
They changed it.
He goes on to describe how the festival of Chanukah came to have nothing to do with war:
The story of the Maccabean revolt? It’s found nowhere in Jewish scripture. The books of the Maccabees? Banished from the Tanakh. All that war business? They it took out. In their encyclopedic Talmud, the rabbis dedicate an entire tractate to just about every holiday: Rosh HaShanah, Yoma for Yom Kippur, Psachim for Passover, Megillah for Purim, and so on. About Chanukah, the best the rabbis can manage is a paragraph – not about war, but about a jar of oil.
Why the cover-up? Why not show pride in their warrior ancestors? The rabbis, one might argue, had learned the lessons of history. By the time of the Talmud, the Maccabees are long gone. The Romans have conquered Jerusalem. Some Jews – particularly young Jewish men and boys – won’t stand for it. They carry out guerilla attacks against the Romans. Sometimes, these young people die. And sometimes, like the Maccabees, they attack other Jews who are not patriotic enough for them. Family strife of the worst kind.
Our sages cry, “ENOUGH! The Jewish people have lost enough young men! And picking up a weapon is not the only way to be a patriot.â€
Refusing to describe the miracle in military terms, the rabbis instead name the holiday Chanukah, a Hebrew word meaning “dedication.†They focus their attention on the rededication of the Temple the Greeks had despoiled. They teach that the Maccabeans rebels, finding their home a physical and spiritual wreck, sought oil to light the ner tamid – G-d’s eternal flame.
We are not the first generation, it seems, to face an oil shortage. The Maccabees find only that little jar. But as the rabbis tell the story, they discover that, focusing on the needs of the entire community, there is indeed enough sustenance for everyone to celebrate. And so a celebration of war is transformed into a celebration of G-d – and a celebration of our power to make our ransacked communities whole again.
And make no mistake about it – it takes Talmudic genius to save this holiday. The history of Chanukah provides us with precious few “good guys.†On the one hand, we are troubled by our Hellenized ancestors, all too willing to heed the siren call of assimilation. But what of the Maccabees? Would that cave-dwelling band of zealots have any truck with us, and our embrace of contemporary culture and its secular pursuits and diversions? Probably not.
Sadly, the Maccabees were far from the model of inclusive pluralism and benevolent rule. Given the blessing of hindsight, the rabbis saw that the Hashmonean dynasty – the Jewish kingdom that arose from the Maccabean insurgency – became unspeakably brutal, the only Jewish regime in recorded history that practiced forced conversion of non-Jews. Born in violence, it became addicted to violence.
The war addict, of course, can’t help himself. Needing a fix, he can always come up with a good reason – just one last time. Our sages will have none of it. And so they make us read the prophet Zachariah on Shabbat Chanukah: Lo b’chayil, v’lo b’choach, ki im b’ruchi. “’Not by might, not by power,’†the prophet reports G-d’s message to us, “’but by My Spirit.’â€
Of course, we do feel some kinship with our Maccabean ancestors. We understand our oppressed forbears taking up arms. Under Antiochus IV, Jews were ordered to forsake circumcision, forgo Torah, forget Shabbat, and forfeit the Temple – in essence, to go away. A tiny minority resisted, refused to be extinguished. Jews are like that. We’re inconvenient. (It’s annoying to some people.) Even today, a lot of folks would just as soon not have Jews around.
But it is so tragic when Jews replace faith in G-d with faith in arms.
If possible, our Chanukiot, our Chanukah menorahs, are supposed to be displayed in a window. So people can see them. So people can see us. Our light is a public-service announcement. We are still here. Miracles happen. No matter how tiny in number, we survive. No matter how many times Yosef is sent underground – in the blindness of a pit, in a forlorn Egyptian dungeon – still, he rises. The continued existence of Jews, against absurd odds, is remarkable.
But existence itself is not enough. It has never been enough. Our continued survival is not for us alone. Rather, it implies a Force more powerful than weapons and money and things.
Our lives, when we get them right, are witnesses to that Force. And so, on Chanukah, each night we add another light. Greater blessing. More witness. “In matters of holiness,†Rabbi Hillel teaches, “we do not decrease. We increase!â€
Yosef, suffering brutal injustice instigated by his father and brothers, could have chosen to spurn the light, to remain in darkness. He could have held a lifetime grudge against his father, or used his newfound power to permanently subjugate his brothers. He could have become a rabid war-monger.
But he doesn’t. At all times, he remains discreet and strikingly principled. And he leaves the door open for reconciliation. Having escaped the physical dungeon, he also unlocks the door to his spirit, leaving space for G-d’s holiness and light to enter.
As did our rabbis. In taking the radical and revolutionary step of rewriting Jewish history, they turned a story of fevered militarism into a blessing of Divine light.
Finding that light – breaking the destructive patterns, both personal and national – is such a struggle. For us, living in a world of rancor and violence, the ability to call forth such blessing hardly seems possible. But it is real nonetheless. Yosef’s brothers are shocked to find that – despite the fact that they have purchased food – their money remains in their sack. Yosef’s steward comforts them: Natan lachem matmon b’amtechoteichem. “G-d has given you treasure in those worn-out sacks of yours.†We too have treasures we just barely perceive.
When the Maccabees entered the Beit HaMikdash, they discovered our sacred temple had been rendered a scarred temple. They found it defiled, its holiness violated, its treasures betrayed. They purified it and rededicated it to the service of the Eternal One. And when our rabbis looked upon the history of the Maccabees, they too found the scars of defilement. They found our highest principles defiled, our morals violated, our ethical core betrayed. They rededicated Judaism to the path of peace and blessing. They pulled treasure out of world of tsuris and hurt.
The story of the miracle oil may be fiction. But it expresses the deepest truths that our people represent. Rather than the fire of anger or the glow of burning villages, the rabbis gave us the blessed glow of Chanukah fire – the flames of peace – lighting the way to the love of G-d. Each night. Another light.
And Rabbi Rothbaum ends his commentary with an urgent appeal, one not heard from many of the policy experts and Jewish organizations all over the news right now, and one that has done more to ensure Jewish survival over the last 3,000 years than any single military campaign (save perhaps the defeat of Nazi Germany, which was not a campaign done for or by the Jewish people).
Can we – you and I – dedicate ourselves to our people’s ancient, sacred purpose: to join together, share our flames with one another, and light the way to peace?
