Purely Commentary

Hanukah has so many lessons for Jewry to share with his readers a famous story
by Judah Leib Peretz, written in Yiddish
--and for mankind!
It teaches loyalty to faith and the right ! perhaps 50 or more years ago. The title
to be different. It admonishes us that people of the story is "Not a Golden Lamp," and,
can live within a world of many faiths with- regrettably, the translator's name is miss-
out abandoning •their own creed. As a ing. But the story retains a lesson for all
reminder of Maccabaean valor, it assures time. Here it is:
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us that we can live our own lives in dignity,
Well. well It's Hanukah. today. I think
sharing the bounties of the world with man-
then I had better tell you the story of a
kind, without an escape from realit y.
Jew who had come down in the world —
The Menorah has become an important may such a thing never happen to you —
symbol in our people's existence—and sym-
and was saved from poverty by, what do you
bols are not to be mocked! And when our think? By a Hanukah lamp!
children and grandchildren cherish the
Of course you are saying to yourselves:
Menorah. they justify our faith and revive "Hie, a solid gold lamp it was!" Nonsense.
the courage that was that of the sword in It wasn't even a silver lamp. Just a plain
the time of the Maccabees and of the Spirit brass lamp. A. bit broken, too. An heirloom,
that craved and attained survival through- you understand. that had been in the family
out the ages during which an entire world for 1 don't know how many generations.
was fused in a conspiracy to deny us the Bent it was and lopsided and one of the
heritage we had clung to.
branches was split halfway down.
- A distinguished Zionist leader. in the •
Now this Jew had been a plain business
trying days that preceded Israel's emer- man. All of a sudden he grew rich. He be-
came
a millionaire. How did he become
gence into statehood, had occasion to debate
the issue of Jewish survival with an eminent rich? Don't 6k me. for it has nothing to do
non-Jew who invited him and all Jews to with the story. But one thing I can tell you.
forget nationalism and to merge with the No sooner had he ?node his money than he •
peoples among whom we live, and the Zion- began turning the world upside down. Ber-
ist replied: "I am sure. you'd love us a lin fashions for him—fine Paris fashions for
great deal if we vanished. Think, what a his wife. He took his two boys from the
marvelous object we would be in a museum, Hebrew school and sent them to the public
in a glass case, to be admired as a group school.
He had a cupboard full of Hebrew books.
that once gave birth to great ideas and can
he admired by all only for its past! But What was the good of them to him now?
we choose to live and we refuse to be He gave them all to the Hebrew library—
as a present! His old "stick" he sold for a
encased as a museum piece!"
SOU and bought in their place Louis Quatorze.
Hanukah reminds of this very principle: Such fine chairs he had made that it was
vanish!
that the Maccabeans refused to
almost a pity to sit on them.
They in ,,isted on an independent existence!
But fortune is uncertain. the sly: jade.
The modern Maccabaeans repeated that His two sons were abroad but he could not
of
an
invitation
for
Jewry
to
be-
defiance
gfford to send them any money. Bills be-
come a museum piece. Is it any wonder that came due and could. not be met. In short
Hanukah remains as one of the evidences his position went from bad to worse. And
of our survival, and that the Menorah is its the worse it got the more he thought of his
smbol?
Jewishness. His wife occasionally borrowed a
There is nothing like a parable to illus- prayer book from her neighbor. Mr. Sullivan
t•ate a point, and this Commentator wishes again used his old name Shlomo Zalman,

Hanukah ... Assimilation ... the Les-
son of a Broken Menorah . . . Survival
versus an Element in a Museum . . .

By Philip
Slomovitz

Which ever it was. the money the Eng-
lishman paid brought luck. Once more the
Zalmans became rich. Once more they be-
came Mr. and Mrs. Sullivan, and once more
the world smiled upon them. Good letters
fraysc their children abroad. They have made
good. One is in London—a famous architect.
Married already. Why don't father and moth-
er come to visit them?
. . . Why not? So they snake the trip.
And in London they see everything.
Shops, houses, factories, theaters. concerts.
. . . One day they go and see an Arts and
Crafts exhibition. And what's this? What's
this? Under a glass case, with a label under-
neath? Why! if it isn't their old Hanukah
lamp, bent and broken, with one branch
split right down the middle.
"Goodness me! That Engli.shman wasn't
mod at all!" said Mr. Sullivan.
"Nor was he Elijah the Prophet," inter-
jected Mrs. Sullivan.
But to talk about this lamp aloud—or to
"What can I do for you?" said Shlomo ask about it—well, it would hardly be good
Zalman. The visitor split his sides with taste with their young daughter-in-law there.
And perhaps you are also thinking, .
laughter as he unfolded his tale: "An Eng-
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•
lishman has come here. Quite mad. He wants
Indeed. perhaps many of us often are
old rubbish. old lumber. as you might say.
Pays handsomely for it. He's out in the hall thinking—about the valuable sacred objects
we abandon, about the books . we either
now. Would you like to see him?"
The agent went out to fetch him and the destroy or dispose of about the names we
old man racked his brains. What could he change. . . .
It happens that some of the abandoned
sell to the Englishman, the mad English-
man? In came the Englishman, removed his objects find a place in a museum. . .. Often
hat. sniffed around until his eyes fell upon the Sullivans, the .Shlomo Zalmans, place
them there . .. But there is a child around,
the Hanukah lamp.
"A nice piece that," said the English- there is a grandchild, there is that daughter-
in-law in the Peretz story. . . . A sense of
nwn to himself.
"When an Englishman goes mad . . ." shame accompanies rejection of faith and of
our heritage and sacred treasures. . . .
whispered the agent.
"How much do you want for this?" the Comes Hanukah and the young recapture
the treasuers. . . .
Englishman asked in a broken German.
The menorahs are not all golden lamps.
To cut a long story short—they sold him
their Hanukah lamp at a very handsome But they shine forth with a spirit that has
price. The Englishman and the commission strengthened our faith—and our faith has
agent went away, and Shlomo Zalman ex- been passed on as heritage to humanity.
These are the glories of a festival we
claimed: "Mad — and no mistake!"
"How do you know it wasn't Elijah the are about to usher in with joy to be shared
by
the
entire family—by the entire people.
Prophet?" put in Mrs. Zalman.

was occassionafly seen in the synagogue, and
when Hanukah came around, he felt that
he would like to light his lights.
His wife went to the kitchen to find
some candles. Norte in the house. And. of a
sudden , he remembered his old crooked
Hanukah lamp. the heirloom . . . he had
put it behind the oven. He moved a table
up to the oven, put a chair on the table,
climbed up on top of it, and with a "pfoo!
pfoo!" blew off clouds of dust from the
neglected lamp.
It was dusted and polished and he chanted
"Blessed art Thou. O God. who had com-
manded us to light the Hanukah lights."
And so it was for eight nights.
At the end of that time they were sitting
having supper, wondering where their next
meal would come from, when they heard a
loud knocking at the door. The Jew. trem
bling. opened the door, and there stood one
of their friends. A commission merchant—
a roan who bought or sold everything!

Two Sanhedrins: Key to Crucifixion Story

Jewish Ansiver to Challenging Question: 'Who Killed Jesus?'

(Second installment of condensation of scholarly work 'Who Crucified Jesus?'

By SOLOMON ZEITLIN

were predestined and determined.
They believed in the absolute rule
of Fate, and denied that men had
in their judgments: They had no free will. They held all rulers in
followers among the populace, high esteem and obeyed them, be-
though some officials and wealthy cause, believing in Fate. they be-
Jews were influenced by their lieved that no man could attain to
any office save by the will of God.
teachings.
The beliefs of the Pharisees. ran Their rule of life was love. For
diametrically opposite to those them, love of God, love of virtue,
of the Sadducees. The Pharisees and love of their fellow man was
laid great importance upon the the motto by which they lived.
oral -law. They held that Divine It is quite likely that John the
Providence governed all the acts Baptist was either a member of
of a man, though they also be- the Essenes or else was greatly
lieved that free choice was man's influenced by this monastic order.
also, for his is the power to choose
Josephus in describing the vari-
the good or the evil. They believed ous sects and parties. writes about
in reward and punishment in the two other groups that were, in
future world, and in resurrection. reality, offshoots of the Pharisees.
They regarded the soul as im- One, Josephus named the "Fourth
mortal. The Pharisees exerted Philosophy" because this group
great and wide influence over the came forth after the Pharisees,
masses of the people because they the Sadducees and the Essenes.
were lenient in their judgments There was still another group
and its concerns into the wider This procedure was recognized by , predestination and divine influ- and never applied to those who which Josephus permits to remain
religious life of the people, such the Roman authorities even out- ence on men's acts, whether they ran athwart the law any severe nameless, but which might well be
he good or bad. They believed only punishment.
called the "Apocalyptic-Pharisees."
as religious law.
side of Judea.

Previous to the Maccabean peri- priest. for offense against the and it tried its cases any time,
od. the high priest held complete state or the Temple. But these day or night, Saturdays, holidays
civil and religious authority. He were merely theoretical. constitu- or weekdays.
In a people religiously nurtured
was the pontifical head of both re- tional rights of the Sanhedrin,
and
ligion and state. He derived his which had never actually been ex- as were the Jews, theological
religious conceptions provided the
religious authority from sanctions ercised.
A Sanhedrin composed of 23 forms and instruments for vital
within the Pentateuch. And his
high position was considered he- members tried cases involving re- : forces of challenge to the exist-
reditary. His civil authority he re- ligious offenses such as homicide, ing social order, and for change
•eived at first from the Persian incest and profanation of the Sab- and revolt. The heavy oppression
kings and later from the Ptole- bath publicly, for which punish-; of Rome. worked through her
ment incurring death was meted , greedy and shortsighted procura-
mean and Seleucidean rulers.
After the Maccabean revolt. with out. The Sanhedrin which tried tors, and the sharp social and
the emergence of the Common-1 capital punishment cases held economic tensions within Jewish
wealth, the position . of the high their sessions every day of the life inevitably gave birth to dif-
priest was radically transformed. • week, except Saturdays and hon.; ferent political parties, philoso-
Simon was elected the first ruler days and on the days preceding phical faiths and religious sects.
with full authority over the Jews. them. They never conducted ses- In the time of Jesus, these grow-
lie also was elected to the high . sions at night. A person who stood ing forces came to their maturity
priesthood by the Groat Syna- trial could be acquitted by the and met in open and violent con-
gogue, although he was not of the court on the same day. but the law flict.
About the Sadducees,• Josephus
high priestly family. He was given forbade that a conviction should
authority, however, only over the take place on the day the trial be- (who is the primary source of
differ-
Temple and its services. His power gan. A verdict of guilty must be ' our information about the
did not extend beyond the Temple Postponed until the following day. ent sects) wrote that they denied

,

To deal with matters of reli-
gious law. an independent institu-
lion was created. a court of just-
ice. called in the Hebrew Bei Din,
but better known by its Greek
name Sunedrion—Sanhedrin.
The religious Sanhedrin w a s
made up of different branches.
One was composed of 71 (or 72)
judges and was a legislative body
whose function was to interpret

the Biblical law and fix the Hala-
kah (the law). This Sanhedrin
held its session in the Hall of
Hewn Stone (a compartment in
the Temple.)
The Sanhedrin of 71 never tried
cases which involved capital pun- '

ishment, since it was only a legis-
lative body. In certain cases, how-
ever, the Sanhedrin acted as a trial

court, in such cases as the trial of
the head of the state, the high

While the Sanhedrin of 23 had in the Torah, the written law, and
the authority to inflict either cor- they denied the validity and
poral punishment or death upon binding power of the tradition of
the offenders, the Bible permits the sages, the oral law. Justice and
the employment of only four modes punishment, they held, must be ad-
of capital punishment: stoning. ministered in this world, since
burning, decapitation and strang-
(This series is being serialized
ling.
Besides the religious Sanhedrin, by the Jewish News by special ar-
there was another Sanhedrin whose rangement with the author and his
main function was to try offenders publishers. "Who Crucified Jes-
against the state. The political us?", first published in 1942 by
Sanhedrin did not have to have Harper & Bros., has just been is-
scholars as its members. The state, sued in a fourth revised edition
through its rulers, appointed the by Bloch Publishing Co. Ruth L.
members of the court. And the Cassel, former city editor of the
head of the state. it may be pre- Jewish News, prepared the con-
sumed, appointed such men as densation of the book. It is copy-
members who he believed would righted by Bloch Publishing Co.,
render verdicts according to his New York).
wishes. Since the political San-
hedrin was not guided by statutes, THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
it had no definite place to meet, 2—Friday, November 27, 1964
•

they did not believe in reward
and punishment in the world be-
yond the grave. They were harsh

Undoubtedly the first appear-
The Essenes appear to have
been the successors of the early ance of the Fourth Philosophy
Hassidim. Like them, the Essenes was made when Augustus Caesar
were highly individualistic in their annexed Judea and declared it
attitude toward Jewish life. The a province of Rome in the year
Essenes refused to send any sacri- 6 C.E. At that time Quirinius was
fice to the Temple. They appointed sent to take a census of Judea
priests of their own, and for the with a view to levying taxes upon
Temple altar substituted their own the people. Against the imposition
table. Before every meal they and collection of these taxes Judas
bathed their bodies in cold water, of Galilee inveighed, and he in-
and before parbaking of food a cited the Jews to revolt against
priest said grace. They were strict the Romans and urged them not to
in the observance of the laws of pay taxes. The followers of Judas
the Bible, and since they could not from time to time committed sedi-
observe the laws in the cities tious acts against the Romans.
where the Pharisees had modified Being a small minority, they were
the Halakhot (laws), they formed easily suppressed. The members of
communities of their own. In these this Fourth Philosophy, however,
communities they found it possible were not entirely destroyed; they
to live in accordance with their continued to fight against the
Romans, and were especially hos-
own customs.
(Continued on Page 3)
The Essenes held that all things

