The Decrees of Antiochus: What Lies Behind Them and Their Relevance Today?

The war of Chanukah is seen in Jewish tradition as a war for the Light, the light of faith, 'And God said, let there be light', the temple candles, against Greek culture, which sages likened to darkness.

Modern culture is perceived in its own tradition as a war for Enlightenment.

Eastern culture builds its foundations on Illumination, aspiring to achieve it.

Well, it sounds so nice. Everyone strives for light, each from their own perspective.

And yet, much blood has been shed in the pursuit of light interspersed with good intentions, starting from the battle of the Maccabees with the Hellenists to the modern-day societal wars, conservatives vs. the enlightened.

One of the great puzzles among the conservative public is how to explain the behavior of those people, members of our own nation, who seemingly act to harm their own people and homeland. How can it be? Do they really have to be anti-Semites? Insane? Connected to the Freemasons?

And what about the Hellenists two thousand two hundred years ago? What led them to harm their people so much? And Antiochus himself, why did he invent various strange decrees on the Jews against their religion, what concern of his is it? After all, no such decrees were made on any other people in his empire that intervened with the religious practices of people according to their faith!

Interestingly, the sages, with divine inspiration, established the festival of Chanukah as an eternal holiday for generations because the same spirit of Hellenization, which was linked to Greek culture, is the foundation of modern enlightenment.

The Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor, in his book "Dilemmas and Connections," explains the deep psychological perspective behind the war of enlightenment against religion. He writes: 'There is indeed a myth of enlightenment. There is a common notion that sees enlightenment as a transition from darkness to light, that is, a direct, continuous, and absolute transition from an erroneous and illusory school of thought to a domain where truth is accessible...' In other words, enlightenment educates the mindset that behaviors based on tradition are flawed by their reliance on tradition, even before examination, and human behavior should solely be guided by the individual's reasoning at that time.

This isn't a view of heresy. It is a worldview unwilling to accommodate anything beyond sensory perception here and now. Its issue isn't with conservative and traditional ideas or their logic but with the fact that people turn to tradition to form an opinion. This turning is heresy against the core myth of enlightenment, which asserts there's no point in turning to tradition or conservatism or the spiritual achievements of the past, only to the ideas of the present, to wisdom as perceived in our generation. Thus, it is no wonder that today, the enlightened fight for things that, a few years ago, would have seemed ridiculous even to themselves. There is no looking back, what matters is only what enlightened people of our times think, and there is an obligation to fight with all their might to impose this view...

This is the war of Chanukah, and this is the battle that still exists in our generation. We hope and pray that we do not, heaven forbid, reach a physical war, but on the contrary, succeed in turning even the war of opinions into a situation where there are no internal wars within the people of Israel but understanding one another, getting closer to a state of unity, to achieve absolute victory over the enemy and the evil urge.