and the Shamash We Need

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	Forwarded this email? Subscribe here for more The Civil War We Forgot — A New Look at Hanukkah and the Shamash We Need Madlik Disruptive Torah Dec 18   READ IN APP   We grow up hearing that Hanukkah is the story of the few against the many. The brave Maccabees against the oppressive Greeks. The miracle of oil that lasted eight days. It is, in other words, one of the least Jewish Jewish holidays—because it asks us to forget the fighting, forget the politics, forget the fractures inside our own community. It asks us to focus on a miracle instead of a machloket (a dispute). But what if the miracle wasn’t the point? What if Hanukkah was not even, or not mostly, a war against the Greeks… but a Jewish civil war that we chose not to remember? This week on Madlik Disruptive Torah, we’re talking about Hanukkah — not the Hanukkah of dreidels and donuts and miraculous oil, not even the Hanukkah of brave Maccabees fighting the evil Antiochus. We’re talking about something far more uncomfortable: Hanukkah as a Jewish Civil War Because behind the legend, behind the miracle, behind the songs we teach our kids, the Hanukkah story hides a truth we rarely tell. “Hanukkah began not with a foreign army invading Judea, but with Jews fighting other Jews.” And the real question — the question for us today — is not how the Maccabees defeated the Greeks, but how we keep from replaying the same civil war two thousand years later. The Enigma at the Heart of the Holiday In Hebrew school and in our liturgy, it’s all about: the few against the many, the weak into the hands of the mighty, a miracle of oil that lasted for eight days. But this miracle is an anomaly. As I said in the episode: “We Jews don’t really celebrate miracles… We don’t have our patriarchs walking on water.” And yet, in all of rabbinic literature, there is only one place where the oil miracle appears — buried deep in Shabbat 21b. Adam adds: “This is the only place in the Talmud that they tell this story.” Why one mention? Why bury the real conflict? The Real Story: Internal Friction, Not External Enemies When we turn to Maccabees I, the opening scene looks less like anti-Greek resistance and more like political realignment: “Wicked men went out of Israel… saying, let us make a treaty with the heathen around us. for since we separated from them we have had much sorrow.” So this plan pleased them well. Then certain of the people were so forward herein, that they went to the king, who gave them a license to do after the ordinances of the heathen, whereupon they built a gymnasium at Jerusalem according to the customs of the heathen and made themselves uncircumcised, and forsook the holy covenant, and joined themselves to the heathen, and were sold to do mischief. These so-called “Hellenizers” were less assimilated cosmopolitans and more, political actors, Judean elites with economic interests tied to the Seleucid empire. This is not a culture war. It’s not Torah vs. Greek philosophy. It is something far more familiar: “According to modern academics, it was a battle between factions inside Judea over which foreign empire to align with — Syria or Egypt.” And the key scholarly line quoted: “The quarrels were factional ones… whether the old government of the Ptolemies should continue or whether the Jews should deliver themselves to the Syrian kings and their Hellenization.” (see TOBIADS) This is a civil war, not a miracle story. How the Hanukkah Story Became Our Own Culture War We Jews have always projected our present anxieties onto the Maccabees. Today’s Political Analogy I said it bluntly: “Some people today go so far as to say: you know who the Maccabees are? They are the Zionist nationalists. And who are the Hellenists? They are the foreign-funded human rights NGOs taking foreign money and trying to push it upon the authentic Jews in Israel.” (see here) This frame appears today in newspaper columns, op-eds, and political speeches — the ancient factional struggle repurposed to fight the culture wars of the modern State of Israel. Louis Brandeis’s Version In 1912, Brandeis had his own take and told American Jews that Hanukkah was: “A victory of the many over the privileged powerful few… a victory of democracy over aristocracy.” In his telling, the Maccabees become the plain people, the populists, the grassroots activists pushing back against entrenched and scheming ruling class. Not religious purists against the cultural assimilated. Herzl as a Hellenist? In a pre-state JPS volume, another writer (Hortense Levy Amram) compares Judah Maccabee and Theodor Herzl: “Outstandingly they are alike in that the one man was no more a statesman when the suffering of the Jews awakened his sympathy than the other was a soldier when called upon to lead his people in war. Of the differences between them, the most important is that they came from opposing sides, in that Maccabeus took up the struggle to save traditional Judaism while Herzl came from what today corresponds to the Hellenistic party of the earlier times..” The idea that Judah Maccabee, a peasant farmer and Theodor Herzl an assimilated journalist were accidental leaders is profound. That Herzl — father of Zionism — is reimagined as the ideological descendent of the Hellenists shows that the paradigm has less to do with the ideological position held and more to do with leading from below. As Brandeis writes: “The Maccabees’ victory proved that the Jews, then already an old people, possessed the secret of eternal youth, the ability to rejuvenate itself through the courage, hope, enthusiasm, devotion and self-sacrifice of the plain people. In that distant past the plain people achieved a rebirth.” Why the Rabbis Hid the Story Given all this, the Rabbinic move becomes clearer. “A civil war is not something you teach in Hebrew school. A civil war is something you celebrate with sufganiyot.” So the Rabbis redirected the holiday: away from factionalism and shame, toward divine grace, toward a small jar of oil, toward light in the darkness. Because: “Civil wars are ugly. Factionalism is shameful. And maybe the Rabbis believed the Jewish people couldn’t survive if Hanukkah remained a memory of how we tear ourselves apart.” And living through exile, oppression, and winter, they were probably right. A Surprising Turn: The Pedagogy of Early Israel Then comes the twist — one I did not expect to find. While adults told miracle stories, the community oriented pioneers who founded the State of Israel told its children something else entirely. In a book of children’s stories for the holidays (Sefer HaHagim HaGadol), I recently picked up in a used book co-op in Tel Aviv: Six Hanukkah stories — and three were about the Shamash. The helper candle. The one that lights the others. The one that doesn’t count toward the mitzvah. The unsung heroes. The “found” leaders. What were the educators of early Israel trying to teach? Story 1: “I Don’t Want to Be the Shamash” (Rachel Rosner) A girl is cast as the Shamash in her class play. She is disappointed. Others get to be “real” candles. She doesn’t want to be the helper. But her classmate Ravital wants the part: “None of the candles can be lit without the Shamash.” Only later does Miri realize: “She was the one who started the lighting of all the different candles.” The role she dismissed becomes the role of leadership. Story 2: “The Shamash” (Miri Zelazadam) The eight candles stand tall, proud of their light and lineage. And they look down at the humble Shamash. The Shamash answers: “As long as your light shines, it is the simple Shamash’s glow that burns within your hearts.” This is Brandeis again— the common person, the one whose contribution enables the rest. Story 3: “The Ninth Candle” (Hannah Nir) The Shamash speaks directly: “Allow me a personal confession: I am the ninth candle.” “In the end I am only the Shamash.” “Yet it is dear to me to be so — a follower for all generations.” Its work consumes it: “By the time I ignite each candle I am already worn down by half.” But it feels no bitterness: “All my satisfaction is kindling.” The poem ends: “Remember me — the one who gave with all his heart… For this is what it means to be a Shamash.” The Hanukkah Message We Need Today The more I read these children’s stories, the more I realized they were not naïve — they were prophetic. In a society already torn by political divisions, culture wars, ideological splits, and contested visions of the future, early Israeli educators were teaching: A Jewish society survives not because of its heroes, but because of its Shamashim. The ones who: light others, bring people together, allow each candle to shine in its own way, stand to the side so that others may stand upright. As I said in the episode: “The challenge and potential of Hanukkah is not to whitewash differences, but to find a common sense of service.” The Civil War We Forgot — and the Unity We Can Still Choose We began with Hanukkah as a civil war. A story of power, factionalism, betrayal, and internal strife. We end with Hanukkah as a meditation on service. A call to humility and responsibility. A reminder that the flame survives only when someone lights it. In a moment when Israel — and the Jewish world — feels dangerously polarized, perhaps the ancient Rabbis and modern Israeli educators agree on this: We do not need more Maccabees. We need more Shamashim. People who help. People who listen. People who bring others’ light to life. Shabbat Shalom & Chanukah Sameach Enjoy the light. Cherish the light. And don’t let the light go out — because, my gosh, we surely need it. Sefaria Source Sheet with full text of Hanukah Children’s Stories quoted above in Hebrew and English: https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/695661   Like Comment Restack   © 2025 Geoffrey Stern 548 Market Street PMB 72296, San Francisco, CA 94104 Unsubscribe