What the Hanukkah story teaches us about the Trump administration
Today, we have to be the Maccabees.
By Danya Ruttenberg December 23
Danya Ruttenberg is rabbi-in-residence at Avodah and author of "Nurture the Wow: Finding Spirituality in the Frustration, Boredom, Tears, Poop, Desperation, Wonder, and Radical Amazement of Parenting."
In 175 B. C., an insecure, despotic ruler came to power. He was narcissistic and known for a level of extravagance and display that bordered on the bizarre. Despite his occasional ability to captivate his subjects by appearing gracious, he was said to have, in his heart, a cruel tyrant’s contempt for his subjects. Political positions under him were easily bought; he installed unqualified cronies in high positions and quickly turned on one if another offered him more money for the same job. He was quick to anger, nicknamed “the madman,” and it wasn’t long into his reign that he began curtailing civil liberties, restricting the freedom of religion, and pillaging his subjects’ resources for his own profit.
Antiochus IV Epiphanes seized rule illegitimately over the Seleucid Empire, including Judea; the kingship was meant to have gone to his nephew, but he took it by force. He allowed bribes to drive his appointments of the high priest several times and plundered the treasury of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem for its gold. In a fury about a humiliating loss in Egypt, he cracked down in Judea, outlawing observance of the Sabbath and ritual circumcision and defiling the temple by erecting an altar to Zeus there, complete with pig sacrifice. He sent his officers to slay and destroy, with an agenda that was less about Hellenism — that is, the demand that the Judeans assimilate into the kingdom’s dominant Greek-influenced culture — than it was about denationalization, a full eradication of their way of life.
As Hanukkah begins, the parallels between that ancient story and what’s happening in U.S. politics are hard to ignore. There are the questions around Donald Trump’s rise to power — his connections to Vladimir Putin and possible Russian interference in the election. There’s his cabinet, stacked with donors and those whose positions on everything from minimum wage to immigration, public schools, privatization and the environment could affect us in devastating ways. Trump’s pursuit of his own financial gain seems to be pointing us toward a kleptocracy, collusion with brutal regimes and terrifying shifts in foreign policy. He threatens freedom of speech, assembly and the press, as well as American Muslims‘ free exercise of religion, among his other authoritarian tendencies. Trump may very well sack the temple of our democracy and social safety nets. Like Antiochus, he could eradicate the way of life that has defined this country.
Antiochus’s regime was, needless to say, terrifying and devastating for the Judeans, who had to decide whether to be martyred — as many were — or to submit to his demands. A small handful of zealots chose a third option, however, protesting his decrees and the complicity of some of their fellow Judeans. After an initial skirmish, the Maccabees ran for the hills and, soon, were engaged in all-out warfare with the massive Seleucid army. They were outmanned and underarmed; many of the Maccabean soldiers didn’t even have swords and armor. But they made use of their superior knowledge of their terrain: They were light, quick and mobile, relying on ambush techniques and superior tactical skill. Slowly, painstakingly, they beat back the Seleucids and eventually gained their freedom.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/12/23/what-the-hanukkah-story-teaches-us-about-the-trump-administration/?utm_term=.4f7335f6daca&wpisrc=nl_headlines&wpmm=1