Posted on 12/04/2007 1:29:33 PM PST by Alouette
Who are the bad guys in the Hanukah story? And who are the good guys?
These are serious questions with serious consequences.
Most Jews (and certainly most Christians) dismiss the winter holiday as a trivial, feel-good festival about candles, potato pancakes, spinning tops (dreidls),and eight nights of gifts, without coming to terms with its serious, relevant and distinctly uncomfortable messages. While frequently (and fatuously) described as a “celebration of tolerance,” Hanukah is more properly designated as an annual re-dedication to the values of the Religious Right.
No wonder that so many American Jews (with their reflexive, often ignorant liberal instincts) refuse to acknowledge the real Hanukah and its politically incorrect messages. In last week’s Washington Post, a householder from Potomac, Maryland named Kenneth Nechin proudly explained that his home attempts to honor the “deeper meaning” of the holiday: “Religious tolerance, the freedom to practice religion, minorities overcoming majorities who are trying to take your rights away.”
Actually, far from celebrating “diversity” or “tolerance” or “respect for every faith,” Hanukah (the name means “dedication” in Hebrew) marks a singular display of intolerance-- when religious zealots, exalting the values of “that old time religion,” came into the Temple in Jerusalem and drove out all alternate, “creative” forms of worship. In the “For the Miracles” (Al HaNissim) prayer recited at least three times a day by religious Jews during the eight days of the festival, we salute this uncompromising assertion of absolute truth: “Your children came to the Holy of Holies of Your House, cleansed Your Temple, purified the site of your Holiness and kindled lights in the Courtyards of Your Sanctuary.” No, the fervently faithful rebels did not assign a special area for other religious impulses as part of some ancient commitment to multiculturalism.
(Excerpt) Read more at townhall.com ...
Warning! This is a high-volume ping list.
Thank you so much for posting this! But where is the full article? I click on “next” or “page 2” and just get a page of links to various columnists. I really want to read the whole thing!
Click on “continued...”
Yah, Antiochus Epiphanes was a sweet heart . . . cutting out the tongues and scalping the Jews that would not eat the pig he sacrificed in the Temple. The forces of tolerant paganism at work.
Thank you!
NO wonder I hearing Adam Sandler Hannkahah song today on KOST 103.5 it is beginning of Hannkah
Excellent article.
Medved really nails it. The Hashmonaim were NOT multiculturalists, moral relativists. Great take on Greek celebration of homosexuality. Really reverberates today when the left and leftist Jews have made gay marriage one of their most important issues.
It is not suprising that Christopher Hitchens hates it.
http://www.slate.com/id/2179045/fr/rss/
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