For thousands of years people have struggled for the right to practice their faith freely. Not surprisingly, the story of Hanukkah as the celebration of religious freedom became particularly popular in America where we have been conducting the single most successful experiment in religious freedom ever conducted in human history.
But the history of Hellenism is really not a story of the restriction of religious freedom. It is a story of the celebration of religious syncretism. Ironically, the Maccabees were probably more religiously restrictive than the Seleucids against who they fought. Upon winning the war, the Maccabess forcibly circumcised members of the Jewish community and later forced entire gentile ethnic groups to convert to Judaism.
The ancient version of fighting for religious freedom was fighting for the freedom of your people and the opportunity to make others just like you. But freedom of America has changed that story.
In contemporary America, the version of the Hanukkkah story told by everyone from best-selling author Herman Wouk to comedian Adam Sandler, is actually a tale in which we are invited to imagine the importance not only of fighting for the freedom to practice our own religion, but the importance of fighting for the freedom of others’ to practice theirs, include no religion at all. That has been the American spin on this ancient story.
Where do you wish you could be more spiritually free? For what other group’s religious freedom are you concerned?
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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 
posted December 28, 2008 at 11:57 am
Right now I am concerned for the people who I know and love who live in Israel and did not even hear in the papers they were being bombed to the extent that they have to now consider a ground war against Hamas and company!
So much more important that the 8 days of Channukah wouldnt you say!
Hugs
Laura
posted December 28, 2008 at 9:24 pm
Check the history. I understand Judah the Maccabee to be an acculturationist and not an anti-Hellenist. The Maccabees rightly objected (with te support of some Jewish Hellenists) to Antiochus IV’s anti-religious decrees. While Torah observant, they were nonetheless innovative. They fought on the Shabbat and ascended to rule without being of Davidic origin, among other things. The gentile conquests of which you speak were Hasmonean and occurred well after the Maccabean revolt.
posted December 29, 2008 at 8:34 am
Ira,
Of course you are correct…and not. If you look over the posts for each day of Hanukkah, you will see that the story of Hanukkah is a story of many stories, which like all stories (including your version) are selectively told. In fact, many of the points you raise have been addressed in the post about re-defining what we mean by assimilation.
Like those who were discomforted by that telling, you question this one. I wonder, will we ever be collectively wise enough to stop bickering about which is the “correct” story and simply bask in the brilliance of having so many to tell? Will we ever discover that when it comes to matters of the soul, there are many correct choices and that the really dangerous one is making none at all?
Happy Hanukkah!!