If the Maccabees were around today, Netanyahu would stand up on national television and declare them to be public enemy #1. Forget about Hamas, Hezbollah, Syria, or even Iran for that matter. Certainly not Fatah. Netanyahu and Ehud Barak would declare total war and send an army of Yassamnikim capos and border police to destroy them. No tactic would be considered too dirty in the war against the Maccabees. The Shabak would have an entire division devoted to infiltrating the movement.
The leftists would scream hysterically for Maccabee blood, and applaud the most brutal crackdowns. The media and academia would soak the minds of the masses in rabid anti-Maccabee propaganda. Across th world secular Jewish organizations and their self-appointed leaders would revile the Maccabees. The Anti- Defamation League would jump into the fray and volunteer their assistance to various U.S. and Israeli government agencies, in the war against the Maccabees.
Mainstream religious Jewish organizations would condemn them. Respected Rabbis would declare that their actions were a chillul Hashem and contrary to Halachah. Respectable "modern-orthodoxy" would unanimously blacklist them. Representatives of the Maccabee movement would be banned from speaking in most religious institutions. In Israel, the state worshiping mamlachtim would similarly condemn them with the harshest terminology.The chareidim would have no part of them. "This is the way of the goyim", they would declare. "Draft deferments and child allowances are the only to defeat the chilonim."
Only a small group of Jews would openly join the Maccabees. But in private, a great many more would sympathize with them. Some things never change.
Why do I write these things? Isn't Chanukah universally enjoyed by Jews across the religious divide? It is. But Jews celebrate a false Chanukah that has nothing in common with the historical reality. Here's a reminder to those who haven't absorbed the lesson of Chanukah. Chanukah isn't a universal "festival of lights" for Jews to share with the gentile world. The Maccabees weren't multiculturalists fighting for religious freedom. They were Jewish zealots who waged a brutal war against the Greek swine who tried to destroy the Jewish soul.
And it wasn't just the Greeks. Let's be honest for a moment. The Maccabees fought violently against Jewish hellenists, who were trying to contaminate the Torah. When Matityahu saw a Jew publicly defiling The Almighty's name in the town of Modiin, he didn't respect the man's ability "to worship as he saw fit." He slaughtered the gentilized Jew with his sword and started a revolutionary inferno. And Yahadut lionizes him and his sons for sanctifying the Almighty's name and saving Judaism from extinction. Of course history is for the victors. So we celebrate Chanukah because Judaism survived. The irony is that Hellenists revised history, and Chanukah is considered parve today.
Is Chanukah for you?
The legacy of the true Maccabees lives on. And the day will come when Jews embrace it and incorporate the Maccabee model as the solution to destroying the Arab enemy and sanctifying the State of Israel. In the meantime, continue to learn Torah and perform mitzvot. But take care of your Jewish body. Strengthen it, so that you can be a good Jew. Don't worship it. Sanctify it for Kiddush Hashem. Forge it with iron and stone. Take a walk with an 80 pound sandbag on your back. Practice stick fighting, sword fighting, whatever your game. Go to the range and become a crack shot that would make Matityahu proud. One day soon, a new generation of Maccabees will arise.Good Jews will want to join them. Prepare yourself now.
The leftists would scream hysterically for Maccabee blood, and applaud the most brutal crackdowns. The media and academia would soak the minds of the masses in rabid anti-Maccabee propaganda. Across th world secular Jewish organizations and their self-appointed leaders would revile the Maccabees. The Anti- Defamation League would jump into the fray and volunteer their assistance to various U.S. and Israeli government agencies, in the war against the Maccabees.
Mainstream religious Jewish organizations would condemn them. Respected Rabbis would declare that their actions were a chillul Hashem and contrary to Halachah. Respectable "modern-orthodoxy" would unanimously blacklist them. Representatives of the Maccabee movement would be banned from speaking in most religious institutions. In Israel, the state worshiping mamlachtim would similarly condemn them with the harshest terminology.The chareidim would have no part of them. "This is the way of the goyim", they would declare. "Draft deferments and child allowances are the only to defeat the chilonim."
Only a small group of Jews would openly join the Maccabees. But in private, a great many more would sympathize with them. Some things never change.
Why do I write these things? Isn't Chanukah universally enjoyed by Jews across the religious divide? It is. But Jews celebrate a false Chanukah that has nothing in common with the historical reality. Here's a reminder to those who haven't absorbed the lesson of Chanukah. Chanukah isn't a universal "festival of lights" for Jews to share with the gentile world. The Maccabees weren't multiculturalists fighting for religious freedom. They were Jewish zealots who waged a brutal war against the Greek swine who tried to destroy the Jewish soul.
And it wasn't just the Greeks. Let's be honest for a moment. The Maccabees fought violently against Jewish hellenists, who were trying to contaminate the Torah. When Matityahu saw a Jew publicly defiling The Almighty's name in the town of Modiin, he didn't respect the man's ability "to worship as he saw fit." He slaughtered the gentilized Jew with his sword and started a revolutionary inferno. And Yahadut lionizes him and his sons for sanctifying the Almighty's name and saving Judaism from extinction. Of course history is for the victors. So we celebrate Chanukah because Judaism survived. The irony is that Hellenists revised history, and Chanukah is considered parve today.
Is Chanukah for you?
- If you support the concept of interfaith-dialogue with x-tians and taking money from evangelicals, then Chanukah really isn't the chag for you.
- If you proudly declare that Israel grants equal rights to its citizens and allows all faiths to worship, you should boycott Chanukah. Were he alive, Matityahu would burn down every mosque, church, and Bahai temple that defiles the Holy Land. Forget about spitting at "messianic Jews". He would've slaughtered them. If the image of burning mosques and churches upsets you, then yours is a different Chanukah than the one that was originally celebrated by the Maccabees.
- If you support a woman's right to abort a fully formed fetus on the altar of free choice, you're a Hellenist, not a Maccabee. Feminists should protest Chanukah.
- If you believe that homosexuals have the right to prance through the streets of Jerusalem, Chanukah is not your cup of tea. The rampant homosexuality of the Greeks was another virus that the Maccabees warred against. The sanctity of the Jewish family and the holy expression of permitted sexuality is central to Jewish thinking. Be honest about Chanukah instead of perverting it.
The legacy of the true Maccabees lives on. And the day will come when Jews embrace it and incorporate the Maccabee model as the solution to destroying the Arab enemy and sanctifying the State of Israel. In the meantime, continue to learn Torah and perform mitzvot. But take care of your Jewish body. Strengthen it, so that you can be a good Jew. Don't worship it. Sanctify it for Kiddush Hashem. Forge it with iron and stone. Take a walk with an 80 pound sandbag on your back. Practice stick fighting, sword fighting, whatever your game. Go to the range and become a crack shot that would make Matityahu proud. One day soon, a new generation of Maccabees will arise.Good Jews will want to join them. Prepare yourself now.
Yep, sound like Chanukah to me. Unfortunately, the great historic lesson is lost on most people. The war went on long after the Beit HaMikdash was cleansed, and the continued dependence on foreign power, particularly in regard to the ensuing civil war, led directly to Judea's annexation by Rome. Until we get it together as a people we will continue to be preyed upon by foreign influence.
ReplyDeleteToday, Bibi continues to put Israel at risk to the same forces that ended Jewish sovereignty in Eretz Yisrael. America is the new Edom and Bibi thinks he needs the White House's say so just to take a dump.
http://neandershort.blogspot.com/2010/12/hanukkah-missed-opportunity-and-seized.html
ReplyDeletehttp://neandershort.blogspot.com/2010/10/in-memoriam-rabbi-meir-kahane.html