Judah to Jesus: After the Maccabees

Woodcut of Judah Maccabee at the gates of Jerusalem

Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld (1794–1872)The Bible in Pictures

The rabbis of the Talmud asked the question, Mai Hanukkah? What’s this Hanukkah business? I was equally confused when I was a kid. In fact, when I first heard of it, I told my mom, “a girl in my kindergarten class says she’s getting a harmonica. Can I have one, too?”

Mom felt so guilty about my lack of Jewish knowledge that she junked the Christmas tree and enrolled me in Hebrew school the next fall. But I was still confused. Were we fighting the Syrians or the Greeks? Who were the meanies? It turns out that is a complicated question.

Alexander the Great was a Macedonian, but in love with Greek culture. His tutor had been Aristotle. When Alexander  conquered the Mediterranean world, he planted Greek-speaking Macedonian colonies and Greek (Hellenistic) culture everywhere he went. By the time of the Maccabees, everybody who was anybody in the Mediterranean world had become Hellenized, adopting Greek dress, Greek language, Greek customs.

DECIRCUMCISION and other acts of self-betrayal

High Priests of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem took Greek names (Jason in 175 BCE and Menelaus in 172). They built a Greek city (the Acra) next to the Jewish Holy Temple, complete with a gymnasium where Jewish priests and nobles exercised in the nude, a la Grecque. Some even went through the painful cosmetic surgery of de-circumcision — creating an artificial foreskin out of the flesh of the penis. Menelaus declared the pig an approved sacrificial animal and celebrated the festival of Dionysus, the Greek god of wine.

Mattathias and his sons the Maccabees fought a guerrilla war against the Syrian-Hellenist king, Antiochus IV Epiphanes, who had forbidden Jewish worship in the province of Judea. But the Maccabees also targeted the Jewish priests and nobles who were trying to Greekify the Jewish religion.

Hanukkah celebrates the cleansing and re-dedication of the Temple. But the Judean civil war did not end when Judah and his soldiers re-conquered Jerusalem in 164 BCE. Now came a power struggle. As soon as their right to practice their religion had been restored, the pious Hasidim, who had backed Judah, wanted to end the war. Judah kept fighting, to drive out the Syrians and the collaborators among his own people and to consolidate his power. His former allies became his enemies. Jews massacred Jews. Judah was killed by the Syrians when many of his troops deserted. His brother Jonathan took over leadership of the remaining rebels.

After a period of living in hiding and obscurity, Jonathan saw his opportunity during a struggle between rival claimants to the Syrian throne.  He became general of a brigade of tough seasoned Jewish soldiers. He sold their services to the highest Syrian bidder, changing sides more than once. This army enabled him to re-conquer Jerusalem. He had himself named High Priest and governor of Judea by one of the Syrian contenders for the throne.

When Jonathan was killed, his brother Simon took over and was able to secure a measure of independence. Judea no longer paid tribute to Syria. The Jewish elders and leaders, by acclamation, appointed Simon High Priest and prince.

Here’s the paradox: Though the Maccabees restored religious freedom and political independence for the Jews, as leaders Jonathan, Simon, and later Simon’s son, John Hyrcanus, took on the trappings of Hellenistic rulers: cloaks of purple, golden ornaments. Each generation adopted more of the luxuries of the dominant world culture – Hellenism. Sound familiar? Just substitute American culture for Hellenism.

The tension between rulership of the Jewish people and preservation of the Jewish religion persisted when the sons of John Hyrcanus — Aristobolus and then Alexander Janneus — came to power. Shalom-Zion was married first to one of those sons and then to the other. That tension between power and faith defined her life and her rule.

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