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DOWN WITH HANUKAH
http://www.freeman.org/m_online/jan01/kahane.htm ^ | Rabbi Meir Kahane

Posted on 12/01/2010 7:37:08 PM PST by ventanax5

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1 posted on 12/01/2010 7:37:09 PM PST by ventanax5
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To: ventanax5; Alouette; hlmencken3; rmlew; Nachum; dervish; Yehuda; Ancesthntr; TorahTrueJew; ...
Not only is Chanukah really a foolish and unnecessary holiday, it is also one that is dangerously fanatical and illiberal. The first act of rebellion, the first enemy who fell at the hands of the brave Jewish heroes whom our delightful children portray so cleverly in their Sunday and religious school pageants, was not a Greek. He was a Jew. When the enemy sent his troops into Modin to set up an idol and demand its worship, it was a Jew who decided to exercise his freedom of pagan worship and who approached the altar to worship Zeus (after all, what business was it of anyone what this fellow worshiped?) And it was this Jew, this apostate, this religious traitor who was struck down by the brave, glorious, courageous, (are these not the words all our Sunday schools use to describe him?) Mattathias, as he shouted: "Whoever is for G-d, follow me!"

What have we here? What kind of religious intolerance and bigotry? What kind of a man is this for the anti-religious Ha'shomer Ha'tzair, the graceful temples of suburbia, the sophisticated intellectuals, the liberal, open-minded Jews and all the drones who have wearied us unto death with the concept of Judaism as a humanistic, open-minded, undogmatic, liberal, universalist (if not Marxist) religion, to honor?

Another home run by Rabbi Kahana' (zt"l; Hy"d)!

The Maccabees were not forerunners of the American Civil Liberties Union and did not fight for the "enlightenment" concept of the "right" to worship any and ever "gxd," idol, and abomination out there. They were actually much closer to (lehavdil) right wing Roman Catholics who reject Vatican II. Now ain't that irony???

The only true religious freedom is the freedom to obey the True G-d!

'Amen!

2 posted on 12/01/2010 7:49:07 PM PST by Zionist Conspirator (Vayo'mer Par`oh 'el-`avadayv; "Hanimtza' khazeh, 'ish 'asher ruach 'Eloqim bo?")
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To: ventanax5

That Channukah this year occurs at the beginning of December rather than at the end (and Christmas time) is a blessing, because it allows Jews to reflect more on what is the true meaning of the holiday (note that it is not so much a holyday).
It is (a) a celebration of miracles and the success of independence and religious freedom over forced assimilation;
and (b) the celebration of the salvation of a religion as opposed to the beginning of a savior and his religion.


3 posted on 12/01/2010 7:50:28 PM PST by Optimist (I think I'm beginning to see a pattern here.)
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To: Zionist Conspirator

+1

Another FReeper tonight put it very succinctly, Hanukkah is a holiday about fighting for your freedom.


4 posted on 12/01/2010 7:54:14 PM PST by mnehring
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To: Mears

bfl


5 posted on 12/01/2010 7:54:17 PM PST by Mears
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To: ventanax5

I don’t know how you could read 1 and 2 Maccabees and not know this. But Christmas has often been twisted, too, I suppose.


6 posted on 12/01/2010 8:03:05 PM PST by Cicero (Marcus Tullius.)
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To: mnehring
Another FReeper tonight put it very succinctly, Hanukkah is a holiday about fighting for your freedom.

Apparently you didn't read the article at the head of this thread.

The whole point is that Chanukkah isn't about political liberty at all. And it's not about "religious liberty" in the modern sense. It was a triumph of the immemorial Divine Tradition Israel had received at Sinai over liberal innovators and updaters.

Chanukkah doesn't commemorate winning Jewish independence at all. It commemorates the rededication and purification of the holy altar after it had been ceremonially defiled. That's a very pre-modern thing.

7 posted on 12/01/2010 8:03:10 PM PST by Zionist Conspirator (Vayo'mer Par`oh 'el-`avadayv; "Hanimtza' khazeh, 'ish 'asher ruach 'Eloqim bo?")
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To: ventanax5

We cannot let the lights go out.


8 posted on 12/01/2010 8:03:22 PM PST by Nepeta
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To: Zionist Conspirator

Maybe it is semantics, but to me, that is liberty and freedom. The sacred is your soul, to not have that is to not have the purest form of freedom.


9 posted on 12/01/2010 8:06:36 PM PST by mnehring
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To: Cicero
I don’t know how you could read 1 and 2 Maccabees and not know this. But Christmas has often been twisted, too, I suppose.

The American rabbis (and left wing Israeli politicians) Rabbi Kahana' (zt"l; Hy"d) criticized in this wonderful article probably never read the Books of the Maccabees in their lives.

The American Jewish "mainstream" literally believes that Yehudah HaMaqqavi was a forerunner of the ACLU, fighting for "religious freedom" when a bunch of "religious fanatics" "discriminated" against them. They have no understanding or knowledge of ancient, Divinely-mandated, unalterable, supra-rational, cultic religion.

Go to any public Chanukkah celebration and see what you'll hear!

10 posted on 12/01/2010 8:07:30 PM PST by Zionist Conspirator (Vayo'mer Par`oh 'el-`avadayv; "Hanimtza' khazeh, 'ish 'asher ruach 'Eloqim bo?")
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To: mnehring
Maybe it is semantics, but to me, that is liberty and freedom.

Would you please consider going back and re-reading the article?

Did you see where the Maccabeean revolt began when Mattityahu killed a fellow-Jew for simply "exercising his right to worship as he pleased" rather than the way he was supposed to???

Get these eighteenth century enlightenment notions out of your head! "Freedom of conscience" (as understood by enlightenment liberals) did not exist then and in actual fact does not exist now in the eyes of G-d.

11 posted on 12/01/2010 8:10:28 PM PST by Zionist Conspirator (Vayo'mer Par`oh 'el-`avadayv; "Hanimtza' khazeh, 'ish 'asher ruach 'Eloqim bo?")
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To: Zionist Conspirator

Kahane Chai!


12 posted on 12/01/2010 8:13:08 PM PST by blasater1960 (Deut 30, Psalm 111...the Torah and the Law, is attainable past, present and forever.)
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To: Zionist Conspirator

It seems like I have a lot of studying to do. I have always read and heard that the villager that Mattathias killed was basically surrendering to Antiochus’ order. He wasn’t doing something out of freedom but out of fear.


13 posted on 12/01/2010 8:13:59 PM PST by mnehring
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To: Zionist Conspirator

..also, please don’t take my questioning/comments as disrespect, I really am interested in this. I mostly had read the original article snip posted here, not the full one, which I did now. I have really just been exposed to Reformed understanding and that, along with my very Objectivist belief system made me filter through that.

I do see that I have a lot to learn (which, of course, is the fun part).


14 posted on 12/01/2010 8:28:47 PM PST by mnehring
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To: Cicero
I don’t know how you could read 1 and 2 Maccabees and not know this. But Christmas has often been twisted, too, I suppose.

Ironically, 1 and 2 Maccabees are not part of the canon of the Jewish Bible (Tanakh).

As we know, Christianity uses books that were preserved by Jews but, in the case of Chanukah, Jews have made use of knowledge in books that were preserved by Christians.

15 posted on 12/01/2010 8:40:20 PM PST by Inyokern
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To: Zionist Conspirator

I saw Kahane in Boston not long before he was assassinated. The meeting was small, but I was struck by the intensity of his followers. Is there aything left of his movement?


16 posted on 12/01/2010 8:55:07 PM PST by achilles2000 ("I'll agree to save the whales as long as we can deport the liberals")
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To: Zionist Conspirator

One Day All will follow his will and bow to his worship!


17 posted on 12/01/2010 9:00:33 PM PST by KC_Lion (Lord help our Armed Service members that they not become pawns in Hussein's quest to destroy America)
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To: Inyokern

>Ironically, 1 and 2 Maccabees are not part of the canon of the Jewish Bible (Tanakh).

>As we know, Christianity uses books that were preserved by Jews but, in the case of Chanukah, Jews have made use of knowledge in books that were preserved by Christians.

Which raises the question (which I am sure has been answered in Jewish intellectual circles) “Does the absence of Maccabees in the Jewish Bible reflect tha,t although historical, it does not rise to the level of ‘inspired by God’?” And if so, why then does it reach that level in the Christian Bible?

just wondering


18 posted on 12/01/2010 9:00:45 PM PST by Optimist (I think I'm beginning to see a pattern here.)
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To: ventanax5; Zionist Conspirator

Rabbi Kahane was a great man, ahead of his time.


19 posted on 12/01/2010 9:02:17 PM PST by dervish (I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself)
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To: Inyokern
There is also some material on the Maccabees in Josephus (I don't have his text handy to check it at the moment)--but I think Josephus survives mainly because Christians were interested in reading him.

There is mention of the feast of the rededication of the temple in the New Testament at John 10.22 (where it is called enkainia or renewal--immediately followed by the information that "it was winter").

20 posted on 12/01/2010 9:02:51 PM PST by Verginius Rufus
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