Rabbi Joshua Heller’s Chanukah Message for 2024
For our Chanukah holiday issue, we invited members of our community to share their responses.
Rabbi Joshua Heller is the senior rabbi at Congregation B’nai Torah.
The Hanukkah story starts with the Maccabees, one family that became a movement. The Syrian Greeks imposed their will on the Jews to stamp out Jewish practice and Jewish pride. Our most essential traditions were banned by law and social pressure. The Greeks even found allies in the Jewish community who were willing to betray their heritage for the sake of acceptance in cosmopolitan society. “We don’t hate Jews as people,” the message went, “just change who you are and what you stand for and you are more than welcome!”
The patriarch Mattathias stood up with a simple act of resistance, and his children formed a movement that led to the rededication of the temple, and the miracle of the oil.
Who are today’s Maccabees? Who are today’s children of Mattathias? In a literal sense, they are those who leave lives and families behind to serve in the IDF, and fight for the physical survival of our people. But the battle of the Maccabees was not only a military one, it was a spiritual one as well. Who are the people who are willing to stand up in the face of pressure to conform, to condemn their heritage?
Today’s children of Mattathias are also students on college campuses, willing to stand up as Jews in the face of masked protestors. They are young people, just starting out in adulthood, who have to decide whether to stay silent about their identity, or be cancelled in the virtual realm and the real one for being Zionists. They are people of all ages who are not afraid to stand up and speak out.
In too many places, wearing a kippah or a Jewish star, or carrying a Jewish name carries risk. Simply putting a menorah in the window is an act of courage and resistance like that of Judah Maccabee and his brothers. This Hanukkah, as we light our candles, let’s remember that one of the essential meanings of this holiday is having pride in the face of those who want to extinguish our light, but never will. This year we are all children of the Maccabees.
Rabbi Joshua Heller is the Senior Rabbi at Congregation B’nai Torah.
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