Originally written during Chanukah 2014.
Happy Chanukah, Hanukah, Hannukkah, Chanukka, Hanuka, Channukah, Hanukah, Chanukkah, Hannukah, Chanuka or Hanaka
I’ve always loved this holiday–fighting for political and religious freedom chimed with so much I believed in.
And then I learned that the Maccabees were not just fighting against the Seleucids but the Hellenistic Jews whose syncretic practices conflicted with what they took to be a more pure form of Jewish practice.
That complicated things since I’m a Hellenistic Jew, myself, for whom syncretism (which is a fancy way of saying mash-ups) are deeply attractive. My work in political philosophy draws on and attempts to weave together ideas from Jewish (especially as they have influenced modern liberalism) and Greek sources. So I’m loathe to identify with a moment in Jewish history which attacked those Jews whose ideas prefigure my own.
I’m not quite done figuring out how to reinterpret the holiday so it works for me. But we’ve adopted a slightly different practice that breaks enough with tradition that I’m pleased by it.
We light the candles in both the traditional fashion put forward by Hillel who said that we should start with one candle and add a candle each night so that we are always adding light to the world. Shammai, on the other hand, said it was more realistic to start with eight candles and take one away.
For the last ten or so years, we’ve lit the Chanukah candles according to the rules of both Hillel and Shammai. Hillel’s rules are the traditional. They require that we add one candle each day, going from 1 the first night to 8 the last night of Chanukah. Shammai’s rules require that we start with 8 candles and remove one for each night of Chanukah.
Shammai’s rules are in some way more realistic. As the oil ran out in the Temple, the light should have dimmed over eight days. Hillel’s rules become the majority opinion of the sages on the principle that we should always bring more light into the world.
In the past, our reason for following both both traditions is that we are committed to keeping minority opinion and dissent alive. But last year we adopted another interpretation. (There always is another interpretation!) By following both practices as the light shifts from one menorah to another, we are exemplifying the Greek cyclical view of world history as well as the Jewish / liberal linear view. So that makes this a fitting practice for Jewish Hellenists like ourselves.
PS 2022
Pretty much all Judaism today is a syncretic combination of Greek philosophy and early Jewish thought. But there are different varieties depending on how you read Greek philosophy, especially Plato.
If you read Plato as Philo did, you get one connection, where God takes the place of the good. And that is one in which influences Christianity since it entered some varieties of Judaism three or four centuries before Jesus (and Philo). Those varieties of Judaism shape Christianity. The doctrines that come into Judaism at that time are the idea of original sin or, the more moderate notion that human nature has an evil yeter or drive (often associate with sexuality) as well as a good one and the notion of an afterlife in which human beings are purified and the injustice of this world is redeemed. This is the version of Judaism that veers uncomfortably toward the universalism of Christianity which, in turn, can empower intolerance.
If you can read Plato without those lenses, you get a totally different connection. Because then Plato looks more like a zetetic skeptic who does not have a doctrine as much as practice, which elevates the search for wisdom or understanding of God’s law as the highest form of life and you get an ethics that is similar to Pirke Avot. This is the version of Judaism that embraces a diversity of opinion and a plurality of ways of life.
The first version is heavily dualistic–and probably as owes much to the zoroastrian views as Greek philosophy. Some of the Rabbis understood who the two yetzer / good drive and bad drive idea was problematic because it leads to dualism and despair about this world that is not in keeping with what they thought of as the core of Jewish thought. So they reinterpreted it dialectically to talk about two sides of one yetzer as Daniel Boyarin has shown.
PS 2023
There are going to be some post tomorrow that associate Chanukah with Zionism. I remain a Zionist, but highly critical, cultural Zionists who like Buber thinks that the ultimate ideal settlement would be a binational state with some issues devolved to national communities.
It may well be that the traditional understanding of Chanukah fits with Zionism especially in ultra-nationalist and ultra-militant form I totally oppose.
If so, that’s one more reason to keep re-thinking the holiday along the lines suggested above, one that welcomes syncreticism and the pluralism and tolerance that goes along with it.
Where that leaves the Maccabees, I’m not sure. Perhaps it means thinking of the legitimate fight as one that allows Jews to practice their own religion and everyone else to do so as well.
Which I guess makes me a Lockean Hellenistic Jew. (BTW, I’ve long thought, but have not been able to find evidence to support, that Locke’s critique of Christian intolerance was influenced by a positive view of Judaism.