At the risk of being accused of pedantry I should like to point out that the Maccabees DID NOT fight the Greek army. They were fighting the Seleucid empire, an indigenous neighboring power that had been Hellenized. The irony is that the Seleucids had once been under the control of the late Alexander the Great who had been so tolerant and friendly to our ancestors that some Jewish boys continue to be named after him. Our battle was not with Greece proper or with "Greeks;" it was with Grecian culture and the Seleucid's obsessive desire to destroy our Torah-based lifestyle and replace it with their Hellenistic ways.
Furthermore, it was as much a civil war as a war with invading foreigners, as there were any number of Jews who were attracted to Hellenistic modes as more up-to-date and sophisticated than our Torah ways. Does that sound familiar?
Do we celebrate the Hanukkat HaBayit and rekindling of the Menorah to downplay the internecine strife that occurred? To avoid having to deal with the embarassment that there were so many Jews eager to give up Torah observance and "be like everyone else?" The Maccabees were battling those traitors as much as Antiochus's armies. In fact, one might suggest that this battle was the more difficult, and one that still confronts us.
I think it's legitimate to refer to them as the Greeks (better, Seleucid Greeks). First of all, the actual Greeks were the nucleus of the empire. Second, since the rest of the empire was Hellenized, they were essentially Greek converts.
Keep the war tower on the elephant for Sukkot as an example of a kosher portable sukkah
זה מדהים איך החרדים לגמרי נלהבים מהתרגשותו של רב חיים שהמאמץ הרוחני הזה הוא. שמ
At the risk of being accused of pedantry I should like to point out that the Maccabees DID NOT fight the Greek army. They were fighting the Seleucid empire, an indigenous neighboring power that had been Hellenized. The irony is that the Seleucids had once been under the control of the late Alexander the Great who had been so tolerant and friendly to our ancestors that some Jewish boys continue to be named after him. Our battle was not with Greece proper or with "Greeks;" it was with Grecian culture and the Seleucid's obsessive desire to destroy our Torah-based lifestyle and replace it with their Hellenistic ways.
Furthermore, it was as much a civil war as a war with invading foreigners, as there were any number of Jews who were attracted to Hellenistic modes as more up-to-date and sophisticated than our Torah ways. Does that sound familiar?
Do we celebrate the Hanukkat HaBayit and rekindling of the Menorah to downplay the internecine strife that occurred? To avoid having to deal with the embarassment that there were so many Jews eager to give up Torah observance and "be like everyone else?" The Maccabees were battling those traitors as much as Antiochus's armies. In fact, one might suggest that this battle was the more difficult, and one that still confronts us.
I think it's legitimate to refer to them as the Greeks (better, Seleucid Greeks). First of all, the actual Greeks were the nucleus of the empire. Second, since the rest of the empire was Hellenized, they were essentially Greek converts.
שמקיים העולם בלא שום מאמצים רגילים.