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•

CID

TH E D E TR OI T

*

* *

ingness to resort to armed revolt.
The Maccabees' acculturation
of elements of Hellenistic culture
(without assimilating) enabled
them both to rule and to reach
out and engage other Jews who
were drawn into the orbit of Hel-
lenism.
The Maccabee coalition —
Hasmoneans in alliance with
some activist Chasidim, some ac-
culturating Jews and some re-
claimed Hellenizers — won the
battle for supremacy in Judea.
Nevertheless, the coalition
could not close the religious gap
between the Maccabees and the
Chasidim. The Chasidim "went
home" after the rededication of
the Temple, satisfied to live their
religion and fearful of the cor-
ruption in exercising political
rule.
This separation weakened Ju-
dah and his a associates. The
Greeks and their Hellenizing
Jewish allies looked for support
among the divided Jews. In 160
B.C.E., the shrunken Maccabee
forces were crushed by a resur-
gent Greek army and Judah was
killed.
Over the course of the next
decades, the Maccabees came
back. In their victories, they had
the advantage of rallying Jews
against military invasion and on
behalf of self-rule and lower tax-
ation.
But this limited coalition could
not cure the religious split of the
Jewish people. The Hasmonean
dynasty was weakened by reli-
gious isolationism and critique
from the right, and by assimila-
tion to Hellenism and the loss of
values that plagued its own
ranks.
The inability to raise Has-
monean royal families fortified
by Jewish faith and practices suf-
ficient to resist the corruptions of
international politics and the
temptations of Hellenism con-
tinuously weakened the later
generations. Religion was some-
times used to justify the family's
factional fighting over power and
Irving Greenberg is president of
place. Polarization prevented ef-
CLAL — The National Jewish
fective employment of Torah to
Center for Learning and
check the lusting after Greek —
Leadership and author of The
then Roman — assimilation. The
Jewish Way (New York:
eventual outcome was civil war
Summit Books). This article
and a Roman takeover.
was supplied by the Jewish
Only in dependency and exile,
Telegraphic Agency.
did a renewed Jewish religion

0

&ea& Yam

•

Behind the fable of miracle oil lies a struggle
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n Oct. 16, in the year

164 B.C.E.,
B.C.E. the victo-
rious
rededicated the puri-
fied Jerusalem Temple, thus
launching the checkered history
of Chanukah, the Feast of Dedi-
cation.
Ironically, three or four years
earlier, the widespread Jewish
unrest seemed to be an ineffec-
tive rebellion going nowhere. And
in less than four years, the tri-
umphant reversal of 164 itself
seemed to have petered out into
a failed revolution. Judah was
dead and the Hasmoneans were
retreating into crushed passivi-
ty.
Seventeen years later, the
Maccabees were back in the sad-
dle, ruling a virtually indepen-
dent Judea. Judah's brother,
Simon, was in full command as
prince and high priest. Sixty
years later, the expanded Has-
monean empire was racked by
internal distress and civil war.
During the next century, a cas-
cade of religious conflict, assimi-
lating sovereigns and failed
power politics set the Hasmonean
line on its final downswing. The
situation culminated in a Roman
takeover. A futile Jewish upris-
ing led to a crushing destruction
of Temple and kingdom in the
year 70 C.E.
The lessons of the up-and-
down career of Chanukah and
the Maccabees are worth pon-
dering.
The uprising was begun by
traditional Jews who rebelled
against the growing Helleniza-
tion of Judea, both voluntary and
imposed.
But the revolt was going
nowhere because the Chasidim
of those days were reluctant to
fight or engage in political action.
They were also culturally sepa-
rated from the majority of Jews
who were Hellenizing, more or
less.
The Maccabees changed the
balance of power by their will-