Difficult Questions about Chanukah
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Difficult Questions about Chanukah
A charedi father tries to explain Chanukah to his son
This has been going around, and aside from being very funny, it reveals the ridiculousness of a popular perspective:
Q. Tattie, how did we defeat the Yevanim?
A. With Hashem’s help!
Q. So why did we need the Maccabim?
A. They were just soldiers, Hashem helped them and Baruch Hashem we won.
Q. The Maccabim were soldiers?!
A. Yes, they were soldiers in the army of Hashem.
Q. So they were Chabdniks?
A. No, no! Chas v'shalom! They were yeshivish.
Q. Did Yehuda Hamaccabi fight? With a weapon?
A. Yes.
Q. So Yehuda Hamacabi was a goy or not religious?
A. Chas v'shalom, why would you think he was a goy or not religious?
Q. Because only goyim or non-religious Jews go to the army.
A. No, no, in the past religious people also went to the army.
Q. So why did the Maccabim go to the army and we don't?
A. Because today our Torah protects us.
Q. And then their Torah didn't protect them?
A. I think it’s time for you to go learn with Moishie.
Q. Did the Maccabim learn Torah?
A. Of course! They learned Torah all the time!
Q. They didn't work for a living?
A. Chas v'shalom!
Q. So how did they have money?
A. Well they worked a very little teeny bit.
Q. Off the books in secret like Uncle Yanky?
A. No!
Q. So what did Mattisyahu do?
A. He was a farmer.
Q. So how did he work in the fields with his white shirt?
A. How do you know he wore a white shirt?
Q. Moishie told me that a real Jew only wears white shirts.
A. You spend too much time with Moishie, but he is right.
Q. What did the Maccabim want?
A. They wanted an independent Jewish state that they would run.
Q. Is this what we want?
A. That is something that Zionists want.
Q. Tattie, I want to be a soldier, a farmer and a Zionist!
A. Gevalt!!! What happened to you?!
Difficult Questions about Chanukah
My problem with the original article that someone linked to is that it sounds like the Maccabees were Religious-Zionist; if you are Haredi or Secular, celebrating Chanukah shows that there is something wrong with your belief system.
Of course history is much more nuanced. Haredim, Chabadnikim, Socialist-Zionists, Modern Orthodox, Religious-Zionists and other Jewish ideological camps all claim to be the true followers of the Maccabim, and laugh at others for not seeing how obvious it is that their ideology is the only correct viewpoint.
The beauty of Chanukah is exactly the opposite - that there is something in the story that appeals to the vast majority of Jews. Lighting Chanukah Candles is one of the most widely observed Jewish practices in both Israel and in the Diaspora. The fact that these small candles are relevant to a Hassid in Williamsburg, a secular Kibbutznik in Israel, an assimilated Jew in Virginia, or a Hesder soldier on the border with Lebanon is the true beauty of Chanukah.
To use it as an opportunity to laugh at Jews who think differently from us, undermines the whole unifying story that those small candles represent.
The real irony is that Slifkin would have been fighting with the Hellenists, not the Maccabees.