THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, December 22, 1995 TAG: 9512210005
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A14 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Short : 47 lines
Just as Christmas is not the highest holy day of Christianity (Easter is) Hanukkah - the eight-day Feast of Dedication or Festival of Lights - is among Judaism's lesser holy days (Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, is the holiest).
But Hanukkah commemorates a proud moment in Jewish history: the triumph of Judas Maccabaeaus' resistance forces over the Syrians after a three-year struggle and rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem in 165 B.C. Clearing the temple of Syrian idols, Jewish celebrants found a small cruse of oil with which to light the temple lamps. The lamps burned for eight days. The lighting of eight candles in a menorah (candelabra) - one candle each day until all eight candles are lighted - recalls the eight days of lamplight in the temple.
The Festival of Lights celebrates freedom after years of oppression by the Selucid Empire, a fragment of Alexander the Great's empire. Antiochus IV (called Epiphanes), the Selucid king, ruthlessly insisted that the Jews he ruled embrace Greek custom and culture, including their Gods.
Some Jews did. Many did not. Antiochus' armies rolled over the dissenters, slaughtering many of them, and looted and defiled the Temple. Judas Maccabaeus took up his sword against the enemy after the Syrians tried unsuccessfuly to compel his father, a priest, to offer a sacrifice to a Greek god.
Centuries later, Spain would compel Jews to choose to become Christians or die painfully. Many chose Christianity, which proved to be no protection for many converts when the Inquisition set about bloodily rooting out heresies real and imaginary.
Freedom to practice one's religion or no religion without fear of punishment by government is a value enshrined in the Bill of Rights. It is the value at the core of pleas for religious tolerance. In Bosnia, Northern Ireland and other places where subscribers to different religious creeds are ever at dagger points, we see the dreadful toll that religious intolerance too often exacts. Life in these United States - in Hampton Roads - is blighted by religious bigotry leading occasionally to vandalism and other hate crimes.
Hanukkah is a Jewish festival. But the festival honors truths relevant to all faiths, all peoples, all times. by CNB