Page 7 - Issue 9

Chanukah – הכונח

As Chanukah approaches, we offer some background materials for you to use. We trace the
development of the festival, and compare two specific narratives that have influenced our
understanding of Chanukah and ask, does Habonim Dror have it’s own message for the Jewish
people?

THE HISTORY OF CHANUKAH
The Festival celebrates an event in history that is well documented.
After Alexander the Great's conquests in Asia around 332 BCE,
Palestine came under Greek control and remained so for more than
150 years. Eventually when Antiochus Epiphanes was ruling the
country, he aroused such strong feelings that the Jewish population
rose in revolt. Antiochus wanted to unify all the various peoples under
his control and tried to do this by making them speak Greek, observe
Greek customs and by forbidding the practice of the Jewish religion.
He took over the Temple and ordered pagan sacrifices to be offered
there.

In 167 BCE, the revolt began in a small town called Modin. It was led by an elderly priest called
Mattathias assisted by his five sons. When he died about a year later, his son Judah Maccabee became
leader. He carried out a very successful campaign of guerilla warfare. The small band of ill-trained and
ill-equipped Jews, although greatly outnumbered, miraculously managed to defeat the highly trained
armies of professional soldiers sent against them on several occasions. They eventually liberated
Jerusalem and rededicated the Temple. And it is this rededication that is commemorated and gave the
name Chanukah.
THE EARLIEST ACCOUNTS

The earliest account of the event, possibly by an eye witness, was written about 30 years after the event
and says simply:

They made new holy vessels, and brought the lamp stand, the alter of incense and the table into the
temple. Then they offered incense on the altar and lit the lights on the lamp stand and these gave light
in the temple... they dedicated it on the very day that it had been profaned, it was dedicated with songs
1.
and harps and lutes and cymbals ... They celebrated the dedication of the altar for eight days.
In this initial account, the lamp does not appear to play a more important part than the incense altar or
the table for the shewbread. The only special thing about it, was that it provided light inside the temple.

The next account is thought to have been written about 50 or so years after the event added some extra
details:

The sanctuary was purified on the twenty-fifth of Kislev, the same day of the same month as that on
which the foreigners had profaned it. The joyful celebration lasted for eight days; it was like the Feast
of Tabernacles, for they recalled how, only a short time before, they had kept that feast while they were
living like wild animals in the mountains and caves; and so they carried garlanded wands and
branches with their fruits, as well as palm fronds, and they chanted hymns to the One who had so
triumphantly had achieved the purification of His own temple.
2.
(1.) 1 Macc 4, vs. 49, 54 and 59 (2.) 2 Macc. 10, 5 - 7.