December 7, 2007

Happy Hanukkah

Via Sharon Cobb, an old Saturday Night Live clip featuring Adam Sandler singing a Hanukkah song.

Tonight is the third night of the eight nights of Hannukah, the Festival of Lights, a wonderful celebration of a miracle that also celebrates God's faithfulness to His people, based on events that happened about 2074 years ago at a time when Greek civilization controlled Judea...

A Greek ruler, Antiochus Epiphanes, sought to make Jerusalem a Greek city. He banned the Jewish religion, Sabbath observance and study of the Torah, and built an altar in the Temple to Jupiter and forced the Jews to make sacrifices to the Greek gods. The Greeks erected altars to their gods in the streets of Jerusalem. They banned Jewish sacrifices, Temple service, and the observance of the Sabbath and of Jewish feast days, and sought out and destroyed copies of Jewish scriptures. And, in a final insult, they slaughtered a pig on the Temple's sacrificial altar.

By the year Jews today call 167 BCE - that means "Before the Common Era" and coincides with the Christian BC calendar - the Jews had had enough.

Led by a man named Matityahu, they rebelled and begain a campaign of guerilla warfare against Antiochus and his powerful armies. Matityahu, also called Mattathias, sparked the revolt by killing a Greek soldier who had tried to sacrifice pigs on the altar in the village that was meant for sacrifices to Jehovah God.

Mattathias died before victory was achieved. His son, Judas the Macabee, lead the Jews to that victory, defeating Antiochus' army though badly outnumbered and overmatched, evicting the Greeks and liberating Jerusalem.

Macabee, also spelled Maccabee, is, in Hebrew, an acrostic for the words "mi kamocha ba'elim hashem," which translates to the rhetorical question "Who is like you among the gods, O Lord."

The Jews then purified the Temple and re-instituted sacrifices. When the temple was re-opened, the festival lasted eight days and they lit oil lamps as a symbol that they understood their victory was due to Divine providence rather than their own military might. Thought they lacked sufficient oil for more than one day, the lamps burned for eight. Hence, Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights, in which Jews celebrate the miracle and the faithfulness of God by lighting eight lamps over eight nights.

Happy Hanukkah.