“Alexander the Great?” Please. I mean, have you seen those silly commercials and previews for the Oliver Stone costume drama? If you want to make a movie about some heroes with sandals and swords, let’s talk about the Maccabees.
Judah and his sons invented guerrilla warfare. Over several decades they were outmatched by the armies of Alexander’s heirs, yet they prevailed. The Maccabees took back Jerusalem from an imperial force through a combination of wits and ferocity.
Then there’s that whole bit about the oil and the lamp. But would Chanukah really have any meaning without the battles? The bravery? The rebels who prevail against overwhelming odds?
Chanukah is, in essence, a holiday of military triumph. And, as a child, I honored that martial spirit without even realizing it.
You see, when I was a little kid, I was obsessed with a different group of rebels who outsmarted an empire through smarts and bravery. These rebels didn’t want to recapture Jerusalem. They just wanted to destroy the Death Star.
Yes, I’m talking about “Star Wars.” During those eight nights of the Festival of Lights I wanted nothing more than to get the latest and greatest spaceship, action figure or weapon to further the great battle of my “Star Wars” toys.
War, death and destruction. These are the things that occupied my childhood imagination. But I was a hypocrite. Because if you’d asked my 10-year-old self what I thought of the Maccabees and their great victory, I would have said in a self-righteous tone, “War is stupid. Why did they have to fight?”
My family was extremely anti-war. We feared the buildup of the Cold War throughout the 1980s and supported the nuclear freeze movement. It wasn’t just my family either. My synagogue in Southern California actively celebrated nonviolence. The most popular teacher at Hebrew school was well-known to have been a conscientious objector during the Vietnam War.
I grew up thinking that Jews and war didn’t mix. Some of the great modern critics of warfare are Jewish, and my young notion was that we were the People of the Book, not of the sword. We survived centuries of persecution by understanding the culture wherever we settled and prospering within it, while maintaining our own identity. That’s not the way of a group of fierce warriors.
The contradiction between my love of war toys and my anti-war idealism didn’t hit me until recently. With all the mania for Alexander the Great, I decided to do a little research on the Maccabees. Not only did they engage in ingenious battle tactics, but they were some of the first people to risk death to stand up for their beliefs.
Then I was thinking about what to get my cousins for the holidays. Walking around the Metreon in San Francisco, I saw all the super-violent video games — Doom, Grand Theft Auto. Minutes later, I saw the trailer for the new “Star Wars” movie coming out in 2005. Bam! I realized that the difference between today’s shoot-’em-up games and the idealism of “Star Wars” was in their use of violence. For the Jedi knights, violence was a last resort.
Same goes for the Maccabees.
The great thing about Jewish tradition is that it honors those who stand up for their beliefs against great odds — Abraham jeopardized everything when he smashed the idols, people sacrificed their lives to fight the Nazis.
I think I’ve figured out a way to honor the martial aspect of Chanukah while acknowledging the errors of violence. It is a matter of splitting hairs, of understanding the difference between righteous violence and reckless bloodbath.
When I have children, I plan to impress my family’s pacifism on them. But, during Chanukah, I also plan to recount — with pride — one of the best David vs. Goliath stories of all time.
Jay Schwartz is disappointed with the two most recent creations by George Lucas. He can be reached at [email protected].
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