Holiday celebrates religious freedom

Published 3:06 pm Friday, December 7, 2007

I enjoyed reading your article on the Hanukkah holiday. (Dec. 5, “Break out the dreidels, children.”) The holiday reaches beyond symbolizing “their triumph against great odds.” The Jewish nation has triumphed against great odds for nearly two millenia of exile, and nearly every day of the year would call for a new holiday based on this reason alone.

The Jewish nation had lived religiously untroubled under the rule of the Syrian Greeks for centuries before the story of Hanukkah. The holiday celebrates the battle against the issue of new decrees imposing paganism and Greek culture and banning observance of Jewish ritual, and the ensuing victory. It was a victory for the freedom to practice their religion without imposition. The story of Hanukkah and the many lessons thereof are available online at our site, www.SnoJewish.org/Chanukah.

Perhaps that is why the holiday of Hanukkah is so widely celebrated in America among secular Jews as well as religious. We enjoy the ability to practice our religion freely in this country, a possibility last encountered by the Jewish nation during the time of the story of Hanukkah.

Rabbi Yossi Mandel