Chanukah and the Secret to Victory in Life

Unlike many of the other malicious forces that have battled against the Jewish nation throughout history, Antiochus and the Greeks were not interested in the destruction of the Jewish body, but rather the Jewish soul. Not only were the Greeks willing to allow the Jews to live, they were even open to the notion of Jews maintaining their Jewish customs and practices and learning the wisdom of their ancient scriptures.

Culture and philosophy, to the Greeks, were of the highest importance, and they recognized the beauty and value of the Jewish way of life and the intelligence of the Torah. What they objected to was the idea that these rituals and teachings were Divine. They wanted the Jews to be Greeks with Jewish trappings rather than Jews with Greek citizenship. Their battle was with God and the entire notion of the Divine, for they worshipped the human body and intellect and all of the worldly drives and appetites that these bred.

The difference between culture and spirituality, the sages teach, is that the former is about me and the latter is about the transcendence of me. Culture is the adornment of life in order to maximize one’s experience and pleasure. Even “high culture” like literature, philosophy, and the arts is simply a feast for the mind and the eyes, i.e. gluttony, when it is not tied to a spiritual source. Spiritual service, on the contrary, leads one to a connection with the limitless. A mitzvah is not simply a custom, but an avenue for Divine awareness and personal transcendence.

The rituals of Judaism are meaningless without God, for they are reduced to self-service and simple aestheticism. Thus the “life” that the Greeks offered us was no life at all. The Maccabees recognized this, and therefore, despite the probability of their complete annihilation, they warred against the great Greek army with the conviction that physical death was preferable to spiritual death. This self-sacrifice inspired great compassion from above and led to our miraculous victory.

Happy Chanukah!

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