Jewish World Review Nov. 27, 2002 / 22 Kislev, 5763
Jeff Jacoby
Light's victory over darkness
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For those with the good fortune to be both American and Jewish, not one but two holidays are at hand. As the grace
of Thanksgiving fills the land, Chanukah waits in the wings. The menorah's first flame, ushering in the eight-day festival,
will be lit Friday before dusk.
Too bad Chanukah and Thanksgiving aren't this close every year. Though they commemorate events nearly 1,800
years apart, the two holidays resonate deeply with each other. It is worth reflecting for a moment on just how much they
have in common.
Chanukah celebrates the Jewish victory over the Syrian-Greek tyrant Antiochus IV, who sought to impose his
Hellenistic ideology throughout the Seleucid empire. He succeeded nearly everywhere. But in Judea, religious Jews
balked. Faithful to their Torah and their one G-d, they rejected Hellenism, refusing to embrace its network of pagan
G-ds, its cult of the body, and its obsession with public games.
Their resistance was met with horrifying cruelty. Antiochus resolved to destroy Judaism. He abolished Jewish law.
He banned Sabbath observance and the study of Torah, two pillars of Jewish life. He dispatched soldiers to set up altars
across the country and forced Jewish leaders to sacrifice pigs upon them. He installed a statue of Zeus in the Temple at
Jerusalem; those who would not worship it were killed. Among the many martyrs were the seven sons of Hannah, each
of whom refused to bow to the idol. One by one, they were slaughtered before their mother's eyes.
In 167 BCE, the Jewish revolt began. The aged priest Mattathias and his five sons, led by Judah Maccabee, launched
a guerrilla war against the vastly more powerful Syrian-Greeks. Though impossibly outnumbered, they won miraculous
victories. In 164 BCE, the Maccabees recaptured the desecrated Temple, which they cleansed and purified and
rededicated to G-d. The menorah -- the candelabrum symbolizing the divine presence -- was rekindled.
It wasn't the end of the war. Not for another 22 years would the Jews regain sovereignty in their land. But to mark
that turning point of religious renewal, the day the Temple was restored and the threat to Jewish law repelled, a new
holiday was instituted. It was called "Chanukah" -- Hebrew for "dedication."
Eighteen centuries later, another group of believers marked their own rededication, and gave thanks for their survival in
the face of terrible devastation.
The Pilgrims who gathered for the first Thanksgiving feast in 1621 had little enough to be grateful for. Puritan
separatists from East Anglia, they had been severely persecuted by the established Church of England. In 1608,
desperate to live in a land where they could worship as they thought right, the separatists made their way to Holland, then
as now a tolerant place.
But life in Holland was difficult, too. There were many fears, above all that Holland would be conquered by Spain.
That would bring the Inquisition and terrors even worse than those of King James.
And so the little band of believers took a step fraught with risk: They sailed to America. It was a nearly suicidal
endeavor. Published guides advised voyagers to the New World: "First, make thy will." On Nov. 21, 1620, after a
fearful crossing, the Mayflower anchored off Cape Cod. Five weeks later, finding no better landing place, the Pilgrims
waded ashore at Plymouth.
It was winter. Snowstorms raged. They were lost in the wilds of Massachusetts with little food and no shelter, far
from the Virginia colony they had been aiming for.
"That which was most sad and lamentable," their governor, William Bradford, would later record, "was that in two or
three months' time, half of their company died, especially in January and February, being the depth of winter, and lacking
houses and other comforts; being infected with the scurvy and other diseases which this long voyage and their
inaccommodate condition had brought upon them. There died sometimes two or three of a day."
To be with their G-d, to worship in peace, these people had uprooted their lives and forsaken everything they had
known. Now they would see half their number -- husbands, wives, children -- die of sickness and starvation.
Like Job, the Pilgrims suffered every loss imaginable -- except the loss of faith. And so they could sit down a year
later, the few who survived, and proclaim a day of thanksgiving. Or as the Maccabees might have put it, a day of
rededication.
Plymouth was not the first settlement in the New World. Jamestown, in Virginia, preceded it by 13 years; the Spanish
had been in Mexico for a century. But the Pilgrims built the first colony founded on a principle: the right to worship
freely. In time, Plymouth slipped into theocracy. But the Pilgrims' idealism and fortitude inspired others. American
democracy first stirred at Plymouth.
The victory of the Maccabees and the arrival of the Mayflower were episodes of great political moment. But
Chanukah and Thanksgiving are not about politics. Nor are they about turkey or football or presents.
We may have secularized them and materialized them, but under the tinsel and the gift-wrapping, these holidays are
about religion. Each is rooted in the triumph of belief over persecution. Each draws its power from the courage of men
and women who endured terrible suffering for their devotion to G-d. And each is a reminder, as we head into the
blackest nights of winter, that nothing can overcome the darkness like the light of faith.
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Jeff Jacoby is a Boston Globe columnist. Comment by clicking here.
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