Judah the Maccabee at West Point [“Whoever trusts God; join me!”]

The legacy of Chanukah – faith, patriotism, defiance of extreme odds and tenacity in the battle of liberty against tyranny – has underlined the American spirit since the early Pilgrims, enhancing the unique foundation of the US-Israel covenant: shared values.

For instance, the statue of Judah the Maccabee, the hero of the Jewish rebellion against the Syrian-Seleucid Empire, is displayed at the West Point Military Academy, the most prestigious US military academy, founded in 1802. The statue of Judah the Maccabee, known for his principle-driven leadership and daring battle tactics, is displayed along with the statues of Joshua, David, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Hector, King Arthur, Charlemagne and Godfrey of Bouillon – “the Nine Worthies.”

George Washington became acquainted with the spirit of the Maccabees, upon settling, in December (Chanukah) 1777, at his new headquarters at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, with ill-equipped, weary troops. Faced with a super-power, George III of Britain, Washington concluded that only a dramatic change could avoid a defeat. According to the diary entries of Louisa Hart, Washington told the Harts about a Jewish solider at Valley Forge who lit a Chanukah candle and explained its significance. Washington’s reaction was: “Perhaps we are not as lost as our enemies would have us believe. I rejoice in the Maccabees’ success, though it is long past…It pleases me to think that miracles still happen.” Six months later, on June 19, 1778, the Continental Army implemented the battle tactics of Judah the Maccabee, leaving Valley Forge in pursuit of the British, who were moving towards New York. Although the war would linger for five more years, Washington won a decisive victory.

Benjamin Franklin, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were inspired by the Maccabees, proposing “Rebellion against Tyrants is obedience to God” as the American official seal. Just like the Founding Fathers, the Maccabees were a tiny minority of “rebels” – condemned by the “loyalist/pragmatist” Jewish establishment – rebelling against an oppressive super-power. They prevailed due to their conviction-driven determination. They knew that swimming against the stream gets one closer to the source. The Maccabees were a role-model for Paul Revere, who was referred to as “a modern day Maccabee” and the organizers of the Boston Tea Party, who realized that there were no free lunches for freedom-seeking nations.

“In God We Trust” was inspired, also, by the Maccabees’ battle cry, which adopted Moses’ battle cry against the builders of the Golden Calf. A literal translation of the battle cry is “Whoever trusts God; join me!” The Maccabees’ sacrifice and political-incorrectness, also, inspired Patrick Henry’s “Give me liberty or give me death.”

In 2011, Chanukah is still a living experience in the US. For example, the residents of Billings, Montana celebrate Chanukah in solidarity with the Jewish community of forty families, and in protest of the 1993 vandals who broke windows of Jewish homes that displayed Chanukah menorahs. In response, more than 10,000 of the city’s residents put make-shift menorahs in their own windows. They persist, annually, in this ritual.

Chanukah and the Maccabees have become an integral part of the American way of life, culturally and politically. Americans respect the legacy of the Maccabees, who fought the Syrian-Seleucid super-power, mostly, in the mountains of Judea and Samaria, in the Judean Desert and in Jerusalem. Judah the Maccabee’s own Valley Forge was at Beit El; his capital was Jerusalem; he scored dramatic victories in Beit Horon (over Seron), Hadashah (over Nicanor), Beit Zur (over Lysias) and Ma’aleh Levona (over Apolonius); he was defeated at Elazar and killed at Ba’al Hatzor – all are located beyond the “1967 Lines.”

The descendants of the Maccabees are not “occupiers” in the cradle of their own history. Chanukah is not a holiday of “occupation,” but a holiday of deliverance. Chanukah is a holiday which highlights the moral-high-ground of Jews in their ancestral homeland.

Shimon the Maccabee – who succeeded Judah and Yonatan the Maccabees – articulated the Jewish territorial case, when responding to an ultimatum by Antiochus, who demanded an end to the Jewish “occupation” of Jerusalem, Jaffa, Gaza, Gezer and Ekron: “We have not occupied a foreign land; we have not ruled a foreign land; we have liberated the land of our forefathers from foreign occupation.”

Pressuring the Jewish State to withdraw from the mountain ridges of Judea and Samaria defies the American story. Either you are with George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and other defenders of liberty, or you provide – inadvertently – a tailwind to the forces of tyranny.

Americans owe a lot more than most of us suspect to the tradition of the Macabees.

Their story can be found in the “Deuterocannaonical” books of the Bible, AKA the “Apocrypha”. Regardless of how one feels about their Scriptural / inspired legitimacy, they do make for some interesting reading, and help to fill in the history of the Nation of Israel in between the leaving off of the Law and Prophets (Old Testement) and the New Testament or “Common era”.

I remember one part of Macabees where the enemy (Greeks?) came to slaughter the People of Israel (they have been trying to do that for as long as anyone seems to remember), one village decided that it being unlawful to resist on the Shabbat (when the enemy conveniently attacked) they would be obedient and remain passivel sitting in their tents. Of course they were butchered to the last man, woman and child.

When the bad guys came for the next village on another Shabbat (which seemed to be working out pretty well for them), people weren’t sure what to do, so they asked Judas Macabee, who apparently told them that If it was the Divine will that they continue to live, they would win despite the odds, and if their destiny was to die, they would lose and die anyway.

They would never know the will of G*d, however, if they didn’t at least put up a fight. So they did, and the rest is history.

History having a habit of repeating itself, we may once again be faced with an overwhelmingly formidable enemy force, and a similar dilemma; to submit to slavery (at best) and possible slaughter / genocide as most of the European Jews did from 1930 to 1945 or so, or to resist against all odds and rationale, trusting in G*d alone for an irrational, miraculous deliverance for at least a remnant.

History seems to have established a pretty clear pattern at this point; ...

A passive Jew is a dead Jew.

That same pattern applies nearly as well to Christians, it seems.

I for one am quite encouraged that monuments to the heroes of ancient Israel are still to be found on the grounds of our Military Academy, and that CAIR, the Supreme Court and their PC toadies within our ruling regime have not (at least yet) managed to have them blown up or bulldozed as intolerably “offensive” to certain perpetually indignant factions within our society, as they have done to monuments to the Ten Commandments at our Courthouses.

Upon our current course, however, it may only be a matter of time. Have you seen where all traces of ancient Egypt’s past are being systematically destroyed now that the Islamists have gained their precious “Democracy”?

Should the “Muslim Brotherhood” achieve their goals for America, we can kiss all relics of our past, our Liberty, and the Faith of our Forebearers goodbye as well.

Where is that unwavering voice of courage and conviction crying in our wilderness once again;

“Ye who trust in G*d; Follow Me!” ?

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