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Our Past in Present Tense
Why
Do We Ignore The Second Jewish State?
We
have the highest regard for King David, who established the United Kingdom of
Israel 3,000 years ago, and we joyfully celebrate the birth of the modern State
of Israel. But very few of us pay attention to the existence of another Jewish
state that lasted for a century, between 164 and 63 BCE. Even on Chanukah, when
we recall the heroism of the Maccabees, we concentrate on the miracle of a
little cruse of oil — and ignore the impressive results of our ancestors’
uprising against their oppressors. Amazingly, the two Books
of the Maccabees, which contain a full description of those events, were
rejected by our spiritual leaders — and were saved by the Church. Subsequent
generations of rabbis, who so carefully commemorated every tragedy that befell
us in the course of our long history, decided to hide from us one of the
greatest victories in our past that led to our people’s renewed independence.
Instead, they made us believe that only miracles enabled us to survive.
In
order to understand our rabbis’ approach to the Maccabean uprising and to the
subsequent independent Jewish state, we need to get acquainted with the
historical facts — which will be contained in the next few paragraphs. Only
then will we be able to comprehend the reasons behind the rabbis’ decision to
purge the revival of a Jewish kingdom, under the rule of the Hasmonean dynasty,
from our tradition — a decision that I intend to discuss in the second part of
this article. I realize, of course, that history is not everyone’s cup of tea.
But our past is an integral part of our present, as the annual celebration of
Passover amply illustrates. Theodor Herzl, the founder of modern Zionism, wrote
in his diary that while in his youth, a religious studies teacher chastised him
for not being able to recall the Exodus; a couple of decades later he was
chastised by some influential Jews for remembering the Exodus too well. So,
please bear with me as I summarize some data from the distant past because it
may shed light on our present as well.
It
all began with Alexander the Great’s occupation of the Middle East, including
the tiny province of Judea, c. 333 BCE. After his untimely death, when his
generals divided his empire among themselves, Judea was first under the rule of
the Ptolemaids of Egypt, and then in 201 BCE, it was taken over by the Seleucids
of Syria. By that time the Romans appeared on the horizon; they soon defeated
the Syrians and imposed a heavy financial burden on their kingdom. In
desperation, the Syrian rulers confiscated the treasures that were kept in the
various temples under their domain — including the one in Jerusalem. A few
decades later, Antiochus IV (175-164 BCE), also known as Epiphanes (“god
manifest”), went one step beyond outright robbery and, in order to unify the
various ethnic groups in Syria, accelerated the Hellenization process in their
midst. He paid particular attention to Judea because it was a buffer province
with Egypt, with whom the Syrians fought in those days. Thus the new king turned
Jerusalem into a typical Greek polis
(“city”), with Greek political and cultural institutions, and he appointed
and deposed Jewish High Priests at will.
Antiochus IV took an even more extreme action in 167 BCE: contrary to the
age-old tolerance of Middle Eastern rulers toward all religions, he forbade the
observance of Jewish religious rites, first in Judea and then in a few other
provinces in his kingdom, desecrated the Jerusalem Temple, and rededicated it to
Olympic Zeus. All this is well known from rabbinic literature. What we are not
told is that Antiochus’s actions were fully supported by many upper-class
Jewish Hellenizers, including Menelaus, who was appointed High Priest four years
earlier. Therefore, the Maccabees’ (“hammers”) subsequent revolt was not
only against the Syrian oppressors but also against those upper-class Jews who
embraced the Greek culture and collaborated with Antiochus IV.
As
it turned out, the prevalent political conditions were in the Maccabees’
favor. Following Antiochus IV’s death in 164 BCE, open warfare erupted among
claimants to his throne, and Rome, as well as Egypt, became interested in
weakening Syria’s power. Consequently, Judah the Maccabee’s followers
managed to regain Jerusalem and to rededicate the Temple to the one and only
God, in December (Kislev) 164 BCE. In recognition of the rebels’ success, the
Roman Senate ratified a treaty with them in 161 BCE, and thereby gave de
facto recognition of Judea’s independence. While the warfare with the
Syrians continued, with varied results, even they began to recognize the Jews’
growing power and in 142 BCE they exempted Judea from paying tribute to their
treasury, thereby granting full independence to that country. As a result, after
an interruption of 440 years, a Jewish State came into being, to which
historians refer as the Second Commonwealth.
Two
years later, a Great Assembly was convened in Jerusalem, and it confirmed Simon
the Maccabee, a member of the Hasmonean family, as ethnarch
(or ruler), High Priest and supreme commander of Judea. They also declared these
offices hereditary “until a true prophet shall arise” (I Macc. 14:27 ff).
Thus, the Hasmonean dynasty continued to rule until 63 BCE, when the Roman
general Pompey got rid of two brothers who vied for the throne of their mother,
Queen Salome Alexandra, and turned Judea into a Roman province for centuries.
What
did the Hasmoneans accomplish in the course of their reign? Their first and
foremost achievement was the expansion of the few Jewish settlements that
existed in the first half of the second century BCE into a sizeable territory
that included most of present day Israel, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and the
entire Western part of the Kingdom of Jordan. Moreover, the bulk of the pagan
population of the land became an integral part of the Jewish nation. As a
result, even after the Hasmonean dynasty’s demise, Judea remained a country
with a Jewish majority. Moreover, the new kingdom’s population enjoyed
considerable prosperity. While agriculture remained the mainstay of the economy,
trades flourished, crafts developed, and international commerce played a major
role.
But
territorial growth required extended military campaigns and a sizeable standing
army with many foreign mercenaries. And as much as the Hasmonean rulers were
eager to enlarge Judea, they were greatly influenced by the Hellenistic culture
that prevailed throughout the Middle East in those days. Thus, in addition to
their Hebrew names, they assumed Greek ones, too, and life in their palace was
full of intrigues as in all the neighboring royal courts.
However,
the most serious problem, as far as later generations were concerned, was rooted
in the conflicts among the various religious currents among the Jews. Instead of
allowing freedom of religious expression, some Hasmonean rulers persecuted the
Pharisees, who became the founders of Rabbinic Judaism. No wonder that later
rabbis wanted nothing to do with the Hasmonean dynasty and emphasized the
miracle of Chanukah, rather than the Maccabees’ victories that led to a mainly
secular, rather than to a religiously oriented State.
Dr. Yehuda Shabatay received rabbinical training in Budapest, a master of jurisprudence degree from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and his doctorate in Hebrew literature from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in New York. He was engaged in Jewish educational administration over most of his career and now teaches Jewish studies and history at Palomar College and San Diego State University.