The BiG Story
Who Was Judah
Maccabee?
The man behind the famous revolt.
Chanuka begins on the 24th of Kislev, which
this year falls on Friday, Dec. 3. Be sure to light
the first night's candle in your menora before the
Shabbat candles.
the Hasmonean. From an early age,
Judah Maccabee evinced extraordi-
1 nary military skills. So it's not surprising
i that his father, even as he lay dying,
asked Judah to lead a revolt against
Antiochus.
Antiochus IV Epiphanes was one
people and extinguishes their flame.
of 13 Seleucid kings who ruled
They find a source in the book of Isa-
over Syria for more than 2-1/2
iah 43:17. "... They are extinct, they
centuries, each of whom bore some
are quenched (chavu) as a wick."
version of the name "Antiochus."
A less scholarly, but more homileti-
(Which, incidentally, is pronounced
cal, explanation comes from those
An
Tlocus, not AntiOcus.)
who say Maccabee is an acronym of
Some of these leaders were good
the phrase sung while Moses led the
to
the kingdom's Jewish population,
(Exodus
Jews through the Red Sea
including Antiochus III the Great, who
1 5: 1 1 ): Mi chamocha ba-elim
was,
unfortunately, followed by his
hashem ("Who is like you among the
son, Antiochus IV Ephihanes.
heavenly powers, God").
Antiochus IV Epiphanes was an
Ultimately, we do not know the
extraordinarily ambitious and brutal
exact meaning of the word, but it has
leader. Falsely believing Jews were
served as a source of strength to gen-
about to revolt against him, he killed
erations of Jews. Even gentiles were
thousands — then turned much of the
inspired by the name, and in the late
remaining Jewish population into
18005, founded a fraternal. society
slaves.
He then directed all Jews to
called the Maccabees. One of the
abandon Judaism and turned the Holy
main benefits of this organization was
Temple into a shrine to Zeus, the
the life insurance offered to members.
Greek god. Antiochus was so commit-
By the mid- to late 1900s, the associ-
ted to this plan that, rather than
ation slowly withered away. The insur-
appoint someone else to be in
ance benefit remained and evolved
charge, he himself oversaw all action
into the Maccabees Mutual Insurance
against the Jews.
Company, at one time one of the
(Incidentally, it wasn't only the Jews
largest in the industry.
who feared Antiochus. His contempo-
Of the military leader, we know a
raries referred to him as Epimanes, or
great deal.
madman.")
He was the third son of Mattathias
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On his deathbed, Judah
Maccabee's father
directed him to lead the
fight against Antiochus.
Elizabeth Applebaum
AppleTree Editor
is name is integral to the story
of Chanuka. Ask any Jewish
child what the holiday is
about and you'll hear: Judah Mac-
cabee led a revolt against Antiochus.
But what do we really know about
Judah Maccabee?
Scholars have advanced a number
of ideas regarding his name. Some
believe that Maccabee is derived
from the word makava ("hammer")
and point to the story of Yael in the
book of Judges 4:21. "Then Yael, the
wife of Chever, took a tent pin, and
took a hammer ..."
Others see the name as stemming
from machbi ("quencher"), that is, he
who vanquishes the enemies of his
12/3
1999
42
So who would dare to fight such a
man? Judah Maccabee.
As Judah prepared for battle, he
became committed to a military strate-
-
gy that can be summed up in one
word: ambush.
One of his first victories was against
Apollonius. Judah attackec and killec
the Syrian leader, then took his sword
which Judah always kept with him,
and usec in battles, until his death.
Judah's second battle was
against Seron, and his third was
against Gorgias.
The year was 165 BCE when Gor-
gias began his fight against Judah.
Working with 40,000-foot soldiers
and a cavalry of 7,000, Gorgias
hoped for a sneak attack at night.
Gorgias answered directly to
Lysias, whom Antiochus had placed
in charge of the western section of
his kingdom.
To avoid the enemy, Judah led a
secret march at night. Then he
launched a successful surprise attack
on Gorgias, who had no option but
to withdraw.
To put it mildly, Lysias was not
happy. He had never regarded Judah
Maccabee as a serious enemy; now
he had to reconsider.
What he needed, Lysias decided,
was a larger army. So he increased
his forces and began to prepare for
another battle. The odds certainly