It must have been an extraordinary experience when the kohanim in the days of the Hasmoneans suddenly realized that a tiny amount of oil that should have lasted for only one day would last for eight days.
They probably did not realize this at the beginning. But when the same amount of oil had burned for two days, and then for three days, and ultimately for eight days, they were confronted with a great mystery.
A solemn terror must have overtaken them.
This is the foundation of genuine religiosity – the dawning of awareness that all things cannot be explained by the ordinary. It is radical amazement, which shatters the commonplace and makes us realize that our wisdom is sometimes inferior to dust.
The mysterious existence of the Jews
And so it is with the Jews. It is terrifying to contemplate the mysterious existence and extraordinary doings of the Jews.
Like the Hanukkah lights, they keep on reminding the world that there is exceptionality, which transcends history and ordinary human accomplishments.
They are a wondrous people who continue to break rules that most believe to be absolute and unconditional. By surviving the brutality of the world for thousands of years, and by making contributions to the world totally out of proportion to their numbers, Jews remind mankind that the world does not always bow down to mere logic and common sense.
This anomaly is a representation of the divine. The purpose of the Jews is to epitomize the godliness and dignity of all men. And this requires them to embrace their otherness and their mission to be a light unto the nations.
But for those who abhor this view of man and want him to be nothing more than one branch of the primate tree, similar to apes and chimpanzees, this view arouses extreme hatred, which they hurl back at the Jews, the bearers of this message.
Most antisemites do not even know why they are antisemitic. They are plagued by a subconscious hatred for those who stand for and teach the preeminence of man and his moral character.
It was Edward H. Flannery’s famous book on antisemitism, The Anguish of the Jews (1965), which clearly pointed this out. Flannery wrote: “It was Judaism that brought the concept of a God-given universal moral law into the world… The Jew carries the burden of God in history [and] for this has never been forgiven.” It is the rejection of universal morality that is at the root of antisemitism.
Jews themselves must realize that the wars being fought now, with their concurrent worldwide outburst of antisemitism, are the result of this phenomenon. Because the Jews continually violate the very rules of history – surviving nearly 2,000 years of exile while outliving all their enemies, returning to their ancient homeland, and continually astonishing the world – they are a constant reminder of their otherness.
Together with their insistence that man is unique, they remain the most challenged people under the sun.
These wars are not just about land and not just about the Jewish people. These wars are about the Jews’ right to be different in order to be Jews, serving mankind to make this a better, more dignified world.
Even when many Jews today no longer see themselves as the carriers of this moral quest, subconsciously their arch enemies still identify them with this mission. There is no escaping this.
WHILE REMAINING humble, Jews should realize that they are either superfluous or indispensable to the world. There is no in-between. It is either tragic or magnificent to be a Jew. Either the Jews are of no importance or they are of supreme importance. There is no purpose to their existence if they are not extraordinary.
Only by refusing to surrender to normalcy are we able to be Jews.
This has become the greatest problem for a large part of our people, including hundreds of thousands of secular Israelis. In their longing to be accepted by the world, they strive to be “normal” by the ordinary – and often mediocre – standards of the world. They do not realize that this is wishful thinking.
In fact, this desire for normality only adds to their perplexity when the world rejects them and antisemitism rears its head once more.
One of the great tragedies of the State of Israel is that it must constantly defend itself against ongoing attacks on its citizens. When its enemies claim Israel will be wiped out, “from the river to the sea,” there is no option but to defend itself with all its might. Israeli Jews are forced to rely on military power to survive.
But this is a reliance that they abhor. It was Golda Meir who said, “Perhaps we will be able to forgive the Arabs for killing our sons, but it will be harder for us to forgive them for having forced us to kill their sons.”
It is this paradox that makes these wars so intolerable. Those who are forced to fight are those who hate it the most. What is most ironic is that were the Jews not to fight these wars, one day the antisemites would blame the Jews for allowing Arab terrorists such as Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthis – and above all, Iran – to take over Europe and kill millions.
Those willing to be honest will one day praise the Jews for defending Europe and beyond. But only a few will realize that they themselves should have participated in the fighting but instead left it to the Jews.
The current wave of antisemitism has nothing to do with Gaza, the occupation, nor accusations of ethnic cleansing and war crimes. These spurious accusations are merely one more pretext to find a way to attack the Jews, whose very existence is a thorn in the side of a large portion of this world.
For thousands of years, Jews have been the object of hatred in societies boasting every religion, or none. Fascists called them communists. Communists branded them capitalists. Poor Jews were bullied, and rich Jews were accused of world dominion. Jews have been expelled from nearly every country in which they have resided. They were told to go home.
Now, after 2,000 years of exile and the murder of six million of them, they have returned to their homeland, only to be told that they need to be annihilated again.
THIS IS the reason that the sages of Israel decided to make it an obligation for every Jewish family to light candles on Hanukkah. They did not emphasize the military victory of the Hasmoneans – the Maccabees – against the Greek empire. Instead, it was the miraculous candle lighting in the Temple that they chose to emphasize.
A tiny amount of pure oil, not sufficient for more than one day, was able to remain lit for eight days. Because this is the nature of Israel – to achieve the impossible and illuminate the world, rebelling against the ordinary and the status quo, even when the price is high.
Jews should be proud of what they are hated for. They are the moral conscience of this world. It was Winston Churchill who said: “Some people like Jews and some do not. But no thoughtful man can deny the fact that they are beyond question the most formidable and the most remarkable race which has ever appeared in the world.”
We forget this at our peril. We are all, whether we acknowledge it or not, living expressions of the flame of Hanukkah, which refuses to submit to mere normalcy. We, too, continue to shine against all odds.
The writer is the author of many books, such as the bestseller Jewish Law as Rebellion. Find his weekly essays at cardozoacademy.org.