December 12, 2025
I want to invite you to imagine the rabbis of the Talmud sitting around their Beit Midrash (house of study) and discussing all of the matters pertaining to Jewish life. These conversations would have taken place sometime between the 1st century of the common era and the 5th or 6th century of the common era. As they are conversing, one of the rabbis interjects and says, “Mai Hanukkah?” meaning, “What is Hanukkah?” It is a profound question to ask. They answer by explaining the ritual of kindling lights and the miracle of the oil. When you want to understand the story of Hanukkah from a historical perspective, you generally look to two sources, the Talmud and the books of the Maccabees. The books of the Maccabees are considered part of the apocrypha, which means they were written around the time as the Bible, but are not part of the Tanakh, the Jewish Bible.
In the book of Maccabees, we learn the background of the story of the Seleucid Greeks. They ruled Jerusalem during the time of the origins of Hanukkah (2nd century BCE) and took over the Temple and placed idols within it. They forbade the Jews from offering sacrifices, made their own sacrifices to Greek gods, prevented the Jews from studying Torah, and prevented circumcision. This is called Hellenization – the process by which the communities that the Greeks conquered would abandon their own cultures and take on Greek cultures. Essentially the Greeks were saying, “We are happy to keep you alive, but you must become Greek.” Of course, if someone were to disobey these rules, they did so at the penalty of death.
Earlier this week, I listened to Rachel Goldberg-Polin as a guest on Dan Senor’s Call Me Back podcast. She frames the situation of the Jews in ancient Israel during the time of the Maccabees in the following way: There were Jews who fully assimilated and took on Greek culture; there were Jews who rebelled, fled to the hills, and maintained their Jewish identity; and there were Jews who had their feet in both buckets—the Jewish bucket and the Hellenized/assimilated bucket. The world in ancient times is much like the world we have faced in recent years. In many instances, we are given a choice: if you want to be accepted by the dominant culture, you have to abandon your Judaism. Some people choose to do that. Others dive deep into Judaism, Jewish practice, and Jewish identity. For the ancient Seleucid Greeks, they were happy to have us around—just in the way they wanted us to be around.
When we think about Hanukkah and we ask the same question the rabbis asked, mai Hanukkah? What is Hanukkah? — we are challenged to think about the importance of our own Jewish identity. Following Goldberg-Polin’s teaching, we wonder about the times when we wish for acceptance by the rest of the world, and we also think about how we immerse ourselves in our own Jewish identity. Over the last two years, many people have experienced receiving a message saying something like, “We are fine that you’re around, but in order for you to be accepted by ‘us,’ you have to abandon your values, your Zionism, your connection to Israel. We can keep you in our circle, but only on our terms.” That is exactly what the Seleucid Greeks did to the Jews in the time of the Maccabees.
Rachel Goldberg-Polin reminds us that history is repeating itself. She explains that Hanukkah is a choice. For those of us living here in America, we have a choice to make every day. We know we live in a world where there are times we do things that we would consider to be part of the assimilated world (i.e., going to the movies, concerts, sporting events, etc.) and there are times when we live in the Jewish world (i.e., going to Torah study, Shabbat services, family holiday dinners, and more). Hanukkah, then, is an invitation for us to think about where and when we want to draw the line regarding how assimilated we want to be. We know we live in both buckets: a Jewish bucket and an assimilated bucket. As we celebrate the days of Hanukkah and light the hanukkiah, let us think about the same questions our ancestors did: What is the line we want to draw for the boundary of our Jewish identity? When can we immerse ourselves Jewishly? When do we dive into the world around us? And perhaps we also need to ask ourselves how we bring our Jewish selves and values to the assimilated world we encounter.
Shabbat Shalom and Happy Hanukkah,
Rabbi Rick Kellner