Happy Second Day of Chanukkah!
Today is the second day of Chanukkah (also spelled Hanukkah). Are you a non-Jew who knows nothing about this Jewish Holiday?
Don't feel bad. A number of Christians do not know anything about the Jewish Holidays. But it's important to know about 'The Festival of Lights', especially since Roman 1:16 tells us the Gospel was given first to the Jews and then to the rest of us. We were 'grafted in' much like a peach is grafted into an apple tree.
The story of Chanukkah (The Festival of Lights) begins in the reign of Alexander the Great. Alexander conquered Syria, Egypt and Palestine, but allowed the lands under his control to continue observing their own religions and retain a certain degree of autonomy.
Under this relatively benevolent rule, many Jews assimilated much of Hellenistic culture, adopting the language, the customs and the dress of the Greeks, in much the same way that Jews in America today blend into the secular American society.
More than a century later, a successor of Alexander, Antiochus IV was in control of the region. He began to oppress the Jews severely, placing a Hellenistic priest in the Temple, massacring Jews, prohibiting the practice of the Jewish religion, and desecrating the Temple by requiring the sacrifice of pigs (a non-kosher animal) on the altar.
Two groups opposed Antiochus: a basically nationalistic group led by Mattathias the Hasmonean and his son Judah Maccabee, and a religious traditionalist group known as the Chasidim, the forerunners of the Pharisees (no direct connection to the modern movement known as Chasidism). They joined forces in a revolt against both the assimilation of the Hellenistic Jews and oppression by the Seleucid Greek government. The revolution succeeded and the Temple was rededicated.
According to tradition as recorded in the Talmud, at the time of the re-dedication, there was very little oil left that had not been defiled by the Greeks. Oil was needed for the menorah (candelabrum) in the Temple, which was supposed to burn throughout the night every night. There was only enough oil to burn for one day, yet miraculously, it burned for eight days, the time needed to prepare a fresh supply of oil for the menorah.
An eight-day festival was declared to commemorate this miracle. Note that the holiday commemorates the miracle of the oil, not the military victory: Jews do not glorify war.
To all of my Jewish friends, Happy Chanukkah!
2009-2011 April Lorier Perspective
APRIL LORIER - So. California. An award-winning poet, inspirational author and speaker. A survivor of both child abuse and adult domestic abuse, April inspires women to be all that God designed them to be! She first gained recognition as a children's rights crusader while successfully fighting for the passage of the Child Abuse and Neglect Reporting Act (CANRA), which was signed into law by Ronald Reagan. Her book God's Battered Child: Journey From Abuse to Leader
