Answered by three rabbis, translated and adapted by Hillel Fendel
The holiday of Hanuka commemorates both military and spiritual victories, of a national nature, during the Second Temple period. On the one hand, the one-day supply of oil in the Holy Temple miraculously lasted for eight days. On the other hand, the greatly outnumbered Jews also won incredible military victories over their Greek enemies, thus preserving the State of Judea for over 200 years. The war was fought also against the Hellenists [Greek sympathizers, mostly Jews], who sought to secularize the Jewish Nation.
Do the Hellenists of then have a parallel today?
By way of example, let's consider this story: A yeshiva boy named Ariel met his friend Shlomo rushing outside with a menorah, candles, and Hanuka donuts in hand, and asked him where he was headed. "I'm taking part in the 'Light up Tel Aviv' project! You know, we knock on doors, offer to light Hanuka candles with the families, sing Hanuka songs, and bring some G-dliness and Torah into their lives." Ariel was skeptical: "You're going to secular families to celebrate Hanuka?! They're precisely the Hellenists we fought against over 2,000 years ago!"
Is this true? Three rabbis weigh in.
1. Rabbi Shmuel Yaniv, author and speaker
It is a great mistake, and even insulting, to think that secular Jews are Hellenist, for two reasons. For one thing, the Hellenists hated the Maccabees fighting for the liberation of the Land of Israel from the yoke of Greece – whereas today's secular Jews endanger their lives to fight for Israeli sovereignty over the Land. This means that practically speaking, the secular Jews are doing exactly what the students of the saintly scholar Gaon of Vilna did: fighting for the Holy Land. [Ed. note: "Exactly" might be an exaggeration, as the latter strove and labored chiefly for a religious society in the Land.]
In addition, the Hellenists demonstrated their disinterest in Jewish nationhood by attempting to undo their circumcisions. Secular Jews of today, on the other hand, observe the commandment of Brit Milah faithfully, and also identify with the Maccabees on Hanuka – thus expressing their strong connection to the Jewish Nation.
True, the Hellenists placed on a pedestal the concepts of physical beauty and strength, and today's seculars also promote a G-dless culture. Neither of these are very Jewish; the Torah way is to regard the holy as beautiful, and not the beautiful as (necessarily) holy. But the comparison is not quite "on all fours," in that as opposed to the Greek culture, secular Jews today bury their dead with honor, fast on Yom Kippur, and attest in other ways to their belief of sorts of a G-dly or spiritual soul.
We may thus conclude that equating secular Jews with Hellenists is meant merely to offend, and not to bring Jews closer to G-d and traditional Judaism.
Yes, if the Beit HaMikdash were standing today, most secular Jews would not be very enthusiastic. But to be honest, regarding the subject of the Holy Temple, many religious Jews also require encouragement and increased light in their souls. Secular Western society – as foreign to Jewish spirit as was Hellenism – has taken its toll upon all sectors, whether they be hareidi Jews who behave like non-Jews, Orthodox Jews who enjoy the pleasures of the Diaspora instead of coming to Israel to connect with their Jewish roots and vitality, or others. We face a perpetual struggle to adhere closely to the ways of the Patriarch Abraham, King David and the Vilna Gaon – up until the day when "the kingdom will be G-d's" (Ovadiah 1).
We must buttress ourselves with the light of the Maccabees who rose up with great self-sacrifice on behalf of Shabbat and mitzvot, the purification of the Holy Temple, and the Jewish People. May we be like them! [Author's note: Matityahu and Beit HaMikdash have the same gematriya value.]
2. Rabbi Mordechai Greenberg, Rosh Yeshivat Kerem B'Yavneh
We must first define the Hellenists according to their own actions, and see if today's secular Jews measure up. In the Book of the Maccabees (1,1), we read that they "incited many, saying, 'Let us go and forge a covenant with the gentiles around us… They built a Gymnasium [from an ancient Greek term meaning "naked;" it was a training facility for competitors in public games] like those of the gentiles, undid their circumcisions, adhered to the non-Jews and sold themselves to do evil." Thus, the ancient Hellenists were people who betrayed their nation and their Torah, and joined up with the worst of our enemies.
The vast majority of those termed "secular" today participate in a Passover Seder, fast on Yom Kippur, and never consider declaring, as did the Hellenists, "we have no part or parcel with the G-d of Israel."
It's true that they brazenly violate many of the Torah's commandments, but we judge them to be as Jewish children who were captured by gentiles, and who therefore have no sense of obligation to the Torah (see Chazon Ish, Even HaEzer, 118,6). We may thus not condemn them, but "merely strive to return them with bonds of love" (Chazon Ish, Yoreh Deah, 12).
But beyond that, we have to know that the period we are living through is very different, spiritually, than that of 2,000 years ago. Rav Kook, attempting to mollify a father whose son had abandoned traditional Judaism, encouraged him that his son might well yet return. This, because the Torah has had a great influence over mankind over the millennia and centuries, and that therefore "the heresy of today is no longer the accursed heresy [of yesteryear] about which can be said, 'All who go to her do not return' (Proverbs 2,19)."
Rav Kook further explained that though the current generations are in worse spiritual shape than previous ones, this is only in terms of their behavior as individuals. In terms of their inner aspects, however, in which they actually comprise the "Knesset Yisrael" – every generation is actually greater than its predecessor. This is because the sanctity of Israel is cumulative over time, "and many [of this generation] are very attached to the nation as a whole and take pride in the name of Israel, even if they don't know exactly why."
In addition, Rav Kook continues elsewhere [Maamor HaDor], "a generation like this that [is willing even] to be killed for goals that they view as exalted… cannot be lowly, even if they are totally mistaken; their spirit is greatly lofty and grand."
As such, it is clear that there is no comparison between the secularity of our generation and the Hellenism of yore.
3. by Rabbi Yitzchak HaLevi, Rabbi of Karnei Shomron
The answer to our question depends on how we punctuate it. There are four options:
1) With a question mark: Are the seculars Hellenists?
2) With an exclamation point, implying incredulity: Are the secular Hellenists?! How can you think so?!
3) With an exclamation point, but after relocating the word "are": The seculars are Hellenists!
4) Reading it as a secular Jew would read it…
Allow me to propose some contextual punctuation marks: We must recall that though the heroes in the Hanuka story were great warriors, they were actually led by an old man from Modiin named Mattathias. It was he who killed a Hellenist himself for having dared to offer up a public sacrifice for idol worship. The battle thus started out as purely a religious one, on behalf of the nation's spiritual character.
The Maccabees were very "religious," meticulous in their observance of the Torah and its commandments. It was their zeal to fulfill every jot and tittle of the mitzvot that imbued them with the fire of rebellion! It was that which took them out of the Beit Midrash to the battlefield! Jews then, and very often since then, knew to offer up their lives so as not to violate the Torah.
When a nation loses its spiritual identity, its physical independence is often sure to follow. It was their strong Jewish identity that gave the Maccabees the impetus to fight for the values that that identity stands for. Rav Shimshon Raphael Hirsch writes that what gives Israel its ability to stand strong is not its material relief, but rather its trust in G-d Who carries him on eagles' wings.
The Ramban (Nachmanides, in his commentary to B'reshit 49,10) emphasizes that the Hasmoneans, descendants of the Maccabees, were greatly righteous people without whom the Torah would have been forgotten from Israel.
What this tells us is a true Jew is not one who zig-zags. As such, every Jew can look himself in the mirror and decide, in sincerity and truth, how to enunciate and punctuate the question with which we began.
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