Posted on 12/01/2010 7:37:08 PM PST by ventanax5
. If I were a Reform rabbi; if I were a leader of the establishment whose money and prestige have succeeded in capturing for himself the leadership and voice of American Jewry; if I were one of the members of the Israeli Government's ruling group; if I were an enlightened sophisticated, modern Jewish intellectual, I would climb the barricades and join in battle against that most dangerous of all Jewish holidays - Chanukah.
It is a measure of the total ignorance of the world Jewish community that there is no holiday that is more universally celebrated than the "Festival of Lights," and it is an equal measure of the intellectual dishonesty and hypocrisy of Jewish leadership that it plays along with the lie. For if ever there was a holiday that stands for everything that stands for everything that the masses of world Jewry and their leadership has rejected - it is this one. If one would find an event that is truly rooted in everything that Jews of our times and their leaders have rejected and, indeed, attacked - it is this one. If there is any holiday that is more "un-Jewish" in the sense of our modern beliefs and practices - I do not know of it.
The Chanukah that has erupted unto the world Jewish scene in all its childishness, asininity, shallowness, ignorance and fraud is not the Chanukah of reality. The Hanukah that came into vogue because Jewish parents - in their vapidness needed something to counteract Christmas; that exploded in a show of "we-have-lights-just-as-our-goyisha-neighbors"
(Excerpt) Read more at freeman.org ...
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!
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.
+1
Another FReeper tonight put it very succinctly, Hanukkah is a holiday about fighting for your freedom.
bfl
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.
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.
We cannot let the lights go out.
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.
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!
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.
Kahane Chai!
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.
..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).
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.
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?
One Day All will follow his will and bow to his worship!
>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
Rabbi Kahane was a great man, ahead of his time.
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").
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.