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Pag* Twain
THE SOUTHERN ISRAMJTE
Friday, Dec. 12, 1969
x
V
Panorama .... By David Schwartz
The Hanuka Story
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By DAVID SCHWARTZ
Hanuka is not a major holi
day, but it is beloved and
abreast of modern times. It even
reaches out in a humble way
symbolically in the Menora
to the worlds of outer space. It
was Josephus who wrote 2,000
years ago that the seven
branches of the Menora stand
for the seven planets.
Everyone has his favorite
holiday. The cantor and choir
put on their supreme perform
ances on Rosh Hashana and
Yom Kippur and some like that.
But who can say which is the
more important? Simhat Torah,
one of the so called lesser holi
days, has become a great fav
orite lately in Russia. Jews there
who apparently had forgotten
they were Jews somehow seem
to gather in Moscow and other
Russian cities on that joyful day
and dance in the streets to honor
the Torah. It may be that
Simhat Torah will prove the
savior of Judaism in Russia. The
press dancing? Such is the power
of joy.
The movie star, Edward G.
Robinson once told the present
writer that Hanuka is his fav
orite Jewish holiday. He has a
clause in his contract that no
matter how he may be employ
ed, he must be released to par
ticipate in the annual Israel
Bond Hanuka festival in Mad
ison Square Garden.
Hanuka is a joyful holiday.
So is Purim, but Hanuka is bet
ter than Purim because it is
eight days long and Purim is
only one day.
We are on a diet, so we can’t
eat much Hanuka latkes, but the
joy of the Hanuka of child
hood lingers. I remember how
my father told the story of Judas
Maccabeus entering the temple
after his victory. He found a
cruse of oil sufficient only to
light the Menora for a day,
but it miraculously lasted for
eight days.
Then father gave me a penny.
I said, “that is good for only a
day. Make it last for eight.”
The Hanuka story has its great
appeal not because it is so un
usual but because it is so usual.
It could have happened as it
did 2,100 years ago or 100 years
ago and it could happen tomor
row.
It’s the old story of one of
those dictator guys with the
God complex. The Book of Mac
cabees says of Antiochus that
he had no regard for God and
regarded himself as God.
No civilized person likes a dic
tator. We don’t even like the
so-called benevolent dictators,
if there are such things.
It recalls to us a Yiddish story
about a young fellow who was
in financial trouble. He wrote
his father asking for help, wind
ing up the letter with the sen
tence, “Send me a hundred dol
lars.”
The father couldn’t read, so
an acquaintance read the son’s
letter to the father with the
concluding sentence, “send me a
hundred dollars,” in an unsym
pathetic, cold tone.
The father was indignant.
“What nerve! Just tells me to
send him one hundred dollars.
I won’t!”
The father went about “boil
ing” about his son’s letter for
a week, then showed it to
another friend, who read the
words, “send me a hundred dol
lars,” in a soft, pleading, agon
ized tone.
“Well,” said the father, "now
that he talks that way, I’ll send
him the money.”
What all of this comes to is
we don’t ever like the dictator
ial tone.
In the case of Antiochus, it
was far more than tone: He
set out arrogantly, tyrannously,
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to remove every vestige of Ju
daism. He forbade Jewish wor
ship, set up idols and even a
pig in the temple and he had
a huge army support him and
a whole belt of victories to give
him courage. How can you go
against a force like that?
It took a weak old man to do
the job! In a little obscure
farming town named Modin, an
old man named Mattathias said
he would be darned if he would
worship the idol set up by An
tiochus, and he raised a banner
of resistance, and young and old,
forgetting the generation gap,
joined and the fight of the old
man won out.
And so we light the Hanuka
candles!
Copyright, 1969—JTA
Soviet can suppress fasting and
praying but how can they sup-
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