Yesterday' post told the story of Hanukkah as one of liberation. The story of Hanukkah, is also told as one of civil war between Jews living in the land of Israel, some so-called "traditionalists" and others "assimilationists" who wanted to follow the ways of their gentile neighbors. According to this story, which includes miraculous intervention by God in the form of unimaginable military victories, the Jews who fought for the purity of both the temple and Jewish tradition were victorious.
This was a bitter war which pitted brother against brother and family against family. Ironically, this story of the fight against assimilation includes some rather incredible novelties on the part of the supposed traditionalists. They wrote the story, at least Second Maccabees, in Greek! So much for their opposition to Helenic culture.
Those fighting in the name of the tradition, the ones designated at Hasidim - literally, pious ones - are the first Jews we know of to fight on the Sabbath. In the name of the tradition, they violated the tradition! Or more accurately, they redefined fidelity to the tradition in new ways. If that is not a creative understanding of tradition, I don't know what is. And it's surely worthy of celebration, even if the idea of a civil war is not.
Where do you see people needlessly fighting over the definition of who is traditional and who is assimilated? Where do you see the most exciting new uses of the Jewish tradition, uses that you believe will add vitality to either the Jewish people or to the world?
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Author, radio and TV talk show host, and President of CLAL-The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership, Brad Hirschfield is the author of 
What Edgar Bronfman is advocating is the antithesis of why most Jewish people came to America, which was to avoid anti-Semiticism, pogroms, discrimination and the ghettoes and to have a better and prosperous life. His Judaism is of the past generation of the 30's, 40's, 50's brought up in a rigidly sectarion religious environment. Jews came to America to prosper and in the free and modern US society they can maintain any part of their identity that they wish to. They also wanted to avoid arranged marriages and to be free to marry the spouse of the opposite sex whatever religion, nationality or race that that sapouse may have been. They wanted to marry out of love. Bronfman wants a refurbished and updated version of the old east European ghettoes, but this time in the golden-gated communities of the suburbs. Judaism is already integrated in modern society by its presence in the Judaeo-Christian values, but also in the modern secular world of free inquiry and scientific approach to knowledge and science. In Israel there are about 300,000 Christian spouses of Russian Jews, mostly Russian and Ukrainian women along with 400,000 half Jews, the offspring of these marriages. In the orthodox Jewish law, Hallukah they are considered non-Jews, but by the secular Israeli state they are treated as Jews. The same intermarriage has taken place in America. Judaism has much to offer, but it must make a concerted effort to include half-Jews, non-Jewish spouses and even outside Gentiles in its services and communities. That is the new regeneration and renaisance of American Judaism, indeed, of world Jewry, not the reclusive and exclusive golden gated suburban communities. Jews came to America to avoid exclusion and discrimination not to perpetuate it under a new guise, this time as reverse discrimination of exclusion.
They came to America to mingle with people of all races, religions, nationalities and partake in the modern world of science, technology and the secularized material world, and to follow the American dream and credo, out of many one. And this one has the freedom to believe and maintain any identity that he or she values. Tom Tsuka
First of all, I find Rabbi Hirschfield's comments to be somewhat
"remarkable" in that there seems to be a rather careless reading of
history.
The "rabbis" were not opposed to Greek. In fact, on the verse
"Yaft elokim L'Yefet..." there was a comment that the ONLY langauge
into which the Torah should be translated was *Greek* -- considered to
be a language of great beauty. However, the Rabbis WERE opposed to the
Pagan Greek CULTURE. A culture that glorified the body and reduced the
spiritual to something man-made.
b. The "Pious ones" fought on the Shabbat because otherwise, they would
have been destroyed by an enemy that would have deliberately attacked on
the Sabbath. The rules of Piku'ach Nefesh are not a "violation" of tradition
and to state that tradition was "violated" in order to preserve it -- or that
tradition was "redefined" is not exactly accurate either.
B. it seems to me that "Your Name" (Tom Tsuka) would have been THRILLED with
the Hellenists. He wants a "religion" that has no rules -- except for the
ones that he likes and he wants to be able marry whomever he wants -- regardless
of affiliation or religion! Actually, he would have been very upset with Ezra and Nechemia
who forced the Jews to divorce their non-Jewish spouses. (Further, I have news for
him that while non-Jewish "family members" are "recognized" by the "secular"
Israeli government, they are NOT recognized by the Rabbinate and therefore marriage
can not be performed over there, either.)
So, I guess that Your Name has absolutely NO REASON to celebrate this holiday. No doubt
he is saddened that the Hellenists were on the "losing side". Of course, he also ignores
the fact that if we would all follow his "path" there would be no "jews" to speak of within
a very short time. It is no secret that in families where "anything went" -- "then EVERYTHING
went". We are Jews because we have continued -- against all odds to follow the rules of the Torah
as we understand them. We value and prize the Land of Israel because G-d promised it to us.
We were happy to have a Jewish State because it meant that we could live as Jews in the land
promised by G-d. And, we are saddened by the attempts of the secular government to repeately
curry favor with the non-Jewish world both in terms of the diplomatic behavior and how the government
continues to relate to religion. For us, the miracle of Chanukah is that G-d will always support
those who try to follow the Torah.
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