4. The beginning of the Jewish rebellion

THE BEGINNING OF THE JEWISH REBELLION

In 167 BCE, Matitiyahu and his sons Eleazar, Yehuda, Shimon, Yochanan, and Yehonatan led a rebellion known as the Mered HaHashmonayim against the Seleucid Greek army of Antiochus Epiphanes, who had been executing those who practiced Judaism since 175BCE. The Jewish fighters, though courageous, were vastly outnumbered by the Greeks and lacked proper weapons and military training. Their strategy was to surprise smaller groups of Seleucid soldiers and then retreat to the mountains or desert, as a price had been placed on their heads.

FROM MATITIYAHU TO YEHUDA

After his father’s death, Yehuda, the third son of Matitiyahu, took command of the rebellion and began planning a more organized revolt to liberate Jerusalem and reclaim the Bet haMiqdash, the great Temple of Yerushalayim. Yehuda recruited as many Tora-faithful Jews as possible to join his army and primarily carried out attacks at night. In his first battle, Yehuda ambushed the Greek forces led by Apollonius, who had been sent by Antiochus with orders to suppress the rebellion and leave no survivors. However, Yehuda’s surprise attack proved successful, and the Greeks were easily defeated. It is said that Yehuda took Apollonius’s sword and used it for the rest of his life, much like King David did with the sword of Goliath.

THE BATTLE OF BET HORON

The Battle of Bet Horon began when Antiochus, learning of Apollonius’s defeat, sent General Seron and his significantly larger army to capture Yehudah and defeat the Jewish rebels. The men of Yehudah were initially frightened by the size of the Seleucid army, but Yehudah encouraged them to have faith in God and fight with courage. He reminded them that they were fighting for their people and their Law, while the Seleucids were motivated only by greed and pride. Inspired by Yehudah’s words, the Jewish soldiers fought with great bravery and defeated Seron, killing around 800 of his soldiers.

THE BATTLE OF EMAUS

The Battle of Emmaus took place after Seron’s defeat, when Antiochus Epiphanes sent Lysias and his massive army, consisting of 40,000 soldiers and 7,000 horsemen, to destroy Judea. The Seleucid army included three top generals: Nicanor, Ptolemy, and Gorgias. Nicanor, showing his arrogance, brought along slave traders to capture and sell the women and children of the Jews once the men had been killed. The Seleucids camped at Emmaus while the Jews hid in Mitzpah, fasting, reading the Tora, blowing the Shofar, and praying. Yehudah received important information from his spies that Gorgias had left the camp with 5,000 soldiers and 1,000 horsemen to try to capture Yehudah and his men, leaving the camp with fewer soldiers. Yehudah saw this as the perfect opportunity to attack by surprise and gathered his 3,000 men, dividing them into four battalions. At dawn, they attacked the Seleucids from all four sides, catching them off guard and causing panic. The Jews were able to defeat around 9,000 soldiers, and the survivors fled to the cities. Gorgias returned to find his camp destroyed and on fire, escaping with his soldiers.

BEST SHABBAT EVER

After this victory, the Jews returned to their desert hideouts, where they celebrated the best Shabbat ever, filled with prayers and songs of thanks to God for their miraculous victory. Everyone present expressed their gratitude and begged God to help them achieve their next goal: to liberate Jerusalem and rededicate the Bet haMiqdash to Divine service.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

HASIDIM RISHONIM

It is important to note that the Jewish soldiers were extremely pious. Historical sources call them “Hasidim” because they were willing to sacrifice their lives in order to keep their religious principles. I will quote from the Book of the Maccabees to show how this battle is described, and I want you to see the acts of Tsedaqa the soldiers of Yehuda performed with the war booty, which they distributed among the poor, the orphans, and the widows—something completely unprecedented in the pagan military world.

TEXT FROM HASHMONAYIM

וא–ל ש–די היה להם לעזר, ויכו מן האויבים יותר מתשעת אלפים, וגם פצועים ומושחתים היו ברוב חיל ניקנור, ואת כלם הניסו ואת הבאים לקנותם לקחו מהם את כספם, וירדפו אחריהם דרך רב, וישובו, כי השעה דחקתם. כי ערב שבת היה, ולא יכלו לרדף אחריהם עוד, וכאספם את הנשק, וכפשטם את השלל מעל האויבים, ויקבילו את השבת ויודו וישבחו לה‘ אשר הושיעם ביום ההוא, ויראם ראשית חסדו. ואחר השבת חילקו מן השלל לפצועים ולאלמנות וליתומים, ואת השאר חילקו ביניהם ובין בניהם, ואחרי עשותם הדבר הזה התפללו בציבור, ויתחננו אל א-להי הרחמים להתנחם על עבדיו עד הסוף

English Translation

“And God Almighty helped them, and they struck down more than nine thousand of the enemy… many of Nicanor’s soldiers were wounded and disabled, and they put them all to flight. Those who had come to buy them [as slaves]—they took their money from them. They chased the enemy for a long distance, but they had to return because time was pressing them. It was the eve of Shabbat, and they could not continue the pursuit.

They gathered the weapons and took the spoil from the enemies. They then welcomed the Shabbat, praising and giving thanks to the Lord, who had saved them that day and shown them the beginning of His kindness.

After Shabbat, they distributed part of the booty to the wounded, the widows, and the orphans, and the rest they divided among themselves and their children. After doing this, they prayed together and begged the God of mercy to grant comfort to His servants until the end.”
(Maccabees II, 8:8–25)

3. How do You Provoke a Jewish Rebellion?

כתבו על קרן השור אין לנו חלק באלוקי ישראל

“Write on the ox horn that we have no part in the God of Israel.” (Jerusalem Talmud, Hagiga 2: 2).

HORNS AND BABY BOTTLES

Antiochus, the Greek (Seleucid) Monarch obsessed with Jews practicing Judaism, issued a decree: Jews must “write on the horns of their oxen ‘We have no part in (that is,” we no longer belong to”) the God of Israel.'” I confess that for years I did not understand the logic of this decree: Why was it essential to the Greeks that the Jews wrote that statement specifically on the horns of their animals? A couple of years ago, I found an excellent explanation attributed to Rabbi Yechezkel Abramski (z”l), that clarified the nature of this cruel decree. In ancient times, horns were used as baby bottles! The hollow horn was filled with milk and used to feed the babies who drank through the small hole at the narrow end of the horn, covered with leather to make it more comfortable for the baby to drink. Horns were used for this purpose at least until the end of the Middle Ages. Now we can better appreciate the nature of this edict. The Greeks demanded that the Jews “decorate” their baby’s bottles with the explicit declaration that they rejected the God of Israel and affirmed their “exclusive” loyalty to Antiochus.

BRAINWASHING BABIES?

In this utterly brutal way, the Greeks expected Jews to be re-educated from the cradle to leave the Tora and adopt the Hellenic culture and religion. Why was Antiochus so obsessed with the Jews and God? Because Jewish monotheism was an impediment for the Jews to recognize Antiochus as the supreme authority and a god. Antiochus called himself “Epiphanes”, a deity, a man in whom Divinity is manifested. That helps explain why Antiochus obsessively insisted that Jews renounce their God from their infancy, under threat of death. For a long time, the Jews passively resisted Antiochus. They tried to observe the Tora in secret and discreetly, and many escaped to the desert and other unpopulated areas where they could serve God in hiding. Thousands chose death instead of worshiping idols, like Hanna, a widow tortured and executed with her seven children because she refused to abandon the God of Israel and His Tora. Jews believed that rebelling against the mighty Greeks was useless and that all they could do was to pray and wait for the death of Antiochus because in those times when the Monarch died, all his decrees were canceled.

THE END OF PASSIVE RESISTANCE

But Antiochus remained alive for many years, and the Jewish people’s history might have ended in the middle of the 2nd century BCE. But B”H the unthinkable happened: the Jews rebelled “militarily” against the Greeks.

This is how it all began: In 167 BCE, a delegation of gentile officers and Hellenistic Jews arrived at Modi’in and ordered Matitiyahu, the city’s leader, to show loyalty to Antiochus by offering a sacrifice to a pagan idol. These officers knew that once the Jewish leader obeyed these orders, all the other inhabitants of the city would follow his example. And if the Jewish leader refused to carry out these commands, they would kill him and appoint another leader who was more flexible to their demands. The Greek officers had already done this, city by city and village after village. And the result so far was that numberless Jews chose death (על קידוש השם) before worshiping idols. But in Modi’in, something different happened. Instead of giving up his life, Matitiyahu decided to fight. He took up arms and killed the Seleucid delegation and his five sons. This radical and heroic act, spontaneously led by Matitiyahu and his children, inspired the armed rebellion of the Jews against the mighty Greek Empire.

MISSION IMPOSSIBLE

Matitiyahu and his children called on their Jewish brothers to fight. But the Jews were not warriors like other peoples. They were peasants, farmers, or scholars with no experience in battle. And at that time, the army of Antiochus and his allies was the largest and most powerful in the world. From a rational point of view, the Jewish armed resistance against the Greeks was nonsense—a desperate and suicidal effort. No one thought that a small group of Jewish rebels without weapons or experience in battle had any chance of surviving when facing Antiochus’ army. Matitiyahu’s courage to fight and his unbreakable will to face enemies far more numerous and powerful than him eventually culminated in the miraculous Jewish victory we remember and celebrate on Hanukka.

It was the first time in history that people fought not to preserve their lives but to keep their values alive.

2. A War Against God

HELLENIZATION and ANTIOCHUS
After the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BCE, the Greek empire set out to impose its Hellenic culture peacefully and persuasively, not by force. They succeeded and caused most religions of antiquity to disappear, and this universal acculturation process became known as Hellenization. The spread of Greek cultural and religious ideas also affected the Jews. For example, those who lived outside Israel, in Alexandria, were the fastest to assimilate. It reached the point that some historians described it as “Hellenic Judaism,” a sort of syncretism between Jewish ideas and Hellenic culture practiced by many Jews of the diaspora. The Jews of Israel, however, still maintained their traditions and religion. However the rule of a new Hellenistic king, Antiochus Epiphanes, in 215 BCE worsened the situation for the Jews living in Israel. Antiochus was much more aggressive than his predecessors in his attempts to Hellenize all his subjects. Submitting to Antiochus’ pressure, some Jews completely assimilated into Hellenism and abandoned their parents’ religion. Others, especially those who lived in the big cities alongside non-Jews, began to practice Hellenized Judaism, one shaped in light of Greek values.
As it happened many times, the desire of these assimilated Jews was to be entirely accepted by the Gentiles, whom they looked up to with admiration. For example, the strict religious dietary rules observed by the Jews (Kashrut), created many obstacles to integrating assimilated Jews with Greek citizens. If a Jew could not share the table with his Gentile neighbors, the Gentiles would never accept Jews as their peers. The practice of Kashrut had to be eliminated because, in this new Hellenic world, barriers to integration with the hegemonic Greek culture were intolerable. Shabbat and circumcision were considered outdated and seen as rites that caused division between Jews and non-Jews. In addition to these rationales, many Hellenistic Jews justified their abandonment of Judaism by claiming that to survive, Judaism had to modernize itself. While all this was happening in the cities, many of the poorest Jews, peasants who lived in small villages isolated from Hellenized influence, remained faithful to the Tora.

THE REFORMS OF HASON AND MENELAO
King Antiochus Epiphanes knew that some Jews were still reluctant to abandon their old practices, and he set out to Hellenize them at any price. Why? Because although they were relatively few, the Jews who still observed the Tora were practically the only citizens of the empire who openly rejected Hellenism. Antiochus sought allies among the Jews to fight Jewish resistance to Hellenization, finding them among those who had Hellenized voluntarily. He was appointed High Priest for the Temple in Jerusalem, an assimilated and easily corruptible Jew, Hason (175 BCE). Hason was later on replaced with another fake High Priest, who turned out even worse for the Jews, Menelao (171 BCE). These “High Priests” in charge of the Jerusalem Temple led the reform to Hellenize Judaism and openly confronted the Jews who resisted it. Hason, for example, headed a delegation of assimilated Jews who, on Shabbat, went to the Olympic stadium to watch and participate in the games. These false priests overturned Jewish practices and religious principles and beliefs, such as Jewish monotheism. The doctrine of believing in one God was adapted to become more open: Hellenistic Jews recognized the Greek gods and accepted that the Greeks worshiped their gods in the Bet haMiqdash. Otherwise, the corrupt priests argued, the monotheistic “fanaticism” of the ancient Jews would offend the sensitivity of the Greeks. The Jews also had to be more “tolerant” and worship the Jewish God in a Greek fashion. This led to Menelaus desecrating the Jewish Altar in 170 BCE by offering a pig as a sacrifice in the Bet haMiqdash.

PROVOKING THE REBELLION
Although many Jews remained loyal to their faith, more and more Jews followed the path of the Greeks. But in 169 BCE, a providential event changed the course of history. Antiochus Epiphanes lost his patience with the few Jews who rejected assimilation and decided to cease attempting to Hellenize them gently. Instead, Antiochus officially forbade Jewish practice and imposed the death penalty for those who disobeyed him. Antiochus’ decrees had an effect contrary to what he wanted to achieve. The cruel rulings awakened the Jewish pride of even those slowly inclined towards assimilation. Jews across the country became shocked and angered. Unwittingly, Antiochus provoked what became known as the armed rebellion of the Hasmoneans, who fought against the Greeks and the Hellenized Jews. If Antiochus Epiphanes had not lost his patience, the assimilation of the Jews would have continued without resistance. Without this impetus, the Jewish people could have disappeared forever, integrating within the other nations of the Greek empire, as happened with most other civilizations of antiquity.
The impatience of Antiochus was providential and should be considered one of the miracles of Hanukka, which produced a wake-up call to the Jewish soul.

1. The Greek Emperor and the Jewish Priest

This coming Sunday night, December 18, we will celebrate Hanukka. This holiday reminds us of what happened over 2,000 years ago when the Greek-Seleucid empire was in control of the land of Israel and decided to end Judaism. The Jews rose against the Greeks, fought against them, and miraculously defeated them. It was the first time a people rebelled, not to preserve their lives but their religious values. When the Jews recovered the Bet haMiqdash, (the great Temple of Jerusalem), they saw that it had been converted into a pagan sanctuary to worship the Greek gods. Then, they purified the Temple and proceeded to re-inaugurate it, that is, to rededicate it to Divine service. The word “Hanukka” literally means “inauguration.” (or, in this case, re-inauguration)

THE OIL AND THE SWORD

When they recovered the Temple, the Jews only found a small vessel of pure oil necessary to light the Menorah, the candelabrum, which indicated that the temple was functioning normally. This small amount of oil lasted longer than expected until new oil could be obtained. And for this reason, we celebrate Hanukka by lighting candles, one each night of the holiday, to remember the epic reopening of the Temple –the fruit of human effort– was accompanied by the miracle of the Menora candles, a sign of God’s intervention. All this is well known. But it’s only a tiny part of the whole Hanukka story. The meaning of this holiday is profound and relevant to our times. It reminds us that our ancestors had to fight and sacrifice their lives to preserve their religious freedom and the survival of our Torah at a time when Judaism was about to disappear.

EIGHT NIGHTS

The heroic armed rebellion of Matitiyahu and his sons, their triumphs, their defeats, how they rose from the ashes, and all the miracles our people experienced when faced with a superior enemy is perhaps not taught in our communities and schools in a proper way. Even though our rabbis, as can be seen in the ‘al hanisim’ prayer that we mention in our Chanukah Tefillah, saw Divine intervention in all these military victories in a direct way.

I will tell the story of Chanukah in eight chapters, which I will call “The Eight Miracles of Chanukah.”

I recommend reading one chapter every night after lighting the candles so that our hearts fill with pride and inspire us to thank the Creator ‘al hanisim, for the miracles he did for our ancestors and that he continues to do for us.

THE EMPEROR AND THE PRIEST

In his early 30s, Alexander the Great became one of the greatest conquerors in human history. Around 330 BCE (before the Common Era), the armies of Greece and Macedonia under his command defeated the forces of the mighty Persian Empire, with which they had been at war since the time of Achashverosh (Xerxes, 480 BCE). Alexander’s domains stretched from Greece to India, occupying the entire Middle East. When Alexander the Great visited the land of Israel, he arrived in Jerusalem. He demanded what was then considered a standard gesture of submission from the peoples who were now part of his new empire: the erection of the statue of Zeus, the highest god of the Greeks, in the main sanctuary of the city, the Bet HaMiqdash or Great Temple of Jerusalem. For the polytheistic peoples, honoring the gods who granted the triumph was an act of recognition to the winner. And refusing to acknowledge those gods was a sign of rebellion and insurrection against the victor. All the peoples under Alexander’s reign followed the traditional practice without problem: they adopted the gods of the new emperor without resistance. There was only one exception: the Jews.

YOU WILL NOT TOLERATE ANOTHER GOD…

Our ancestors refused to serve and worship idols. And they rejected the request of the young Greek emperor to place the statue of a pagan idol in the Bet haMiqdash. Monotheism is not just the claim that we believe in “one God.” Jewish monotheism also includes the denial of other gods: the non-tolerance of paganism. As the second commandment says: “You shall not have [believe in] no other god…before Me” (that is, while the Jew will not make international crusades to destroy idols or pagan religions, “within Israel”, which is Divine territory, will not tolerate or accept the worship of other gods). To try to convince the emperor that refusing to worship his idols did not amount to rejecting his kingship, a delegation of Jews, headed by the High Priest Shimon haTsadiq, arranged to meet him. The Jews explained to Alexander that Jewish monotheism requires “cult exclusivity,” something very difficult for ancient people to understand. The Jews also said to Alexander that if he wanted to take action against them, the Jews would not offer any armed resistance: they accepted the new emperor. They were willing to sacrifice their lives peacefully (‘al Qiddush HaShem), not to carry out the demand to worship other gods or introduce an idol into the Temple. Furthermore, according to a famous legend, the Jews offered, as a sign of submission, recognition, and affection to the new emperor, that all Jewish children born that year be named “Alexander” in his honor.

MONOTHEISM AND ANTISEMITISM

Alexander’s generals and advisers interpreted the Jews’ rejection of the Greek gods not religiously but politically. And they demanded that the emperor destroy Jerusalem and annihilate the Jews.

Their arguments were the following:

1. They found it incomprehensible that the Jews did not tolerate the coexistence of their God with other gods. “What is wrong with our god being together with the God of the Jews in His sanctuary?”, they reasoned, knowing that no pagan god ever demanded exclusiveness! Why accept that the Jews behaved in this way? The Jews’ refusal to accept other gods was interpreted as a sign of rebellion or, at best, as a gesture of arrogance. Both attitudes deserved punishment.

2. The generals also found it impossible to conceive that the Jews believed in an invisible God. “What cannot be seen does not exist”, thought the rest of the world at that time. And as powerful as the God of the Jews was, now the Jews should abandon Him or put Him in second place. Why? Because in the pagan mind, when a people are defeated, it means that their gods are less powerful than the gods of the victors. Those defeated in battle had to accept the superiority of the victorious gods. Therefore, Alexander’s advisers reasoned, the Jews rejected the Greek gods not out of religious principles but because they refused to accept their defeat.

3. What bothered Alexander’s advisers the most was that the Jews wanted to continue obeying the laws of their invisible God and refused to obey the laws of the sovereign and conqueror. In pagan cultures, the gods were consulted to divine the future or offered sacrifices to appease them. But the gods did not issue laws or commandments. Making the law was the prerogative of the political sovereign, not a god! The Jews, the advisers insisted, follow the rules of their God as if he were a monarch (and they were right), superior to Alexander! For this reason, they said, the sword had to be used to convince the Jews that they should obey Alexander and abandon his other Law. This was also the reasoning that Antiochus Epiphanes made 140 years later when he decided to end the Jewish practice by decree.

PROTECTOR OF THE JEWS

Alexander the Great miraculously did not listen to his advisers. He accepted the explanation of the Jews and did not punish them for their disobedience. On the contrary, the Greek monarch was interested in Judaism, the Tora, monotheism, and the Bet haMiqdash. And far from seeking to persuade Jews to give up their religion, he gave them additional rights so that they could continue to respect their faith. Alexander the Great practically became the protector of our people.

Some examples.

1. Like all emperors, Alexander required each nation under his empire to send military reinforcements to serve in his armies. But Alexander ensured that the Jewish soldiers had their own battalion in the Greek army ranks. And he ordered that the Jewish soldiers be allowed to practice their religion regarding their food (Kashrut) and the observance of the Shabbat rest

2. A letter was found in which Alexander the Great requested that a special oil, “kosher”, be delivered to the Jewish soldiers in Antioch; since they could not consume standard oil (considered at that time impure or tame).

3. Documentation was also found where Alexander instructed his generals to exempt Jewish soldiers from participating in the construction of a pagan temple in Babylon (E. Bickerman).

Rabbi Yosef Bitton