Archaeologists in Israel finished excavating the most complete part ever discovered of the foundations of the walls which surrounded Jerusalem during the time of the Hasmonean Kingdom, when the events of Hanukkah took place.

In Hebrew, Hanukkah means “dedication,” and the holiday marks the rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem in the second century B.C.E. after a small group of Jewish fighters liberated it from occupying foreign forces, and the Hasmonean Kingdom that followed.

Jews celebrate the eight-day holiday, which this year begins on December 14, with the ritual of lighting candles, in honor of the tiny supply of ritually pure oil that they found in the Jerusalem Temple that lasted for eight nights instead of just one.

I hope that both Jews and Muslims will also remember all oppressed religious communities, such as the Rohingya people of Myanmar, the Uighurs in China’s Xinjiang Province, and the brave Muslim woman of Iran protesting the cruelty of Iran’s morality police and have suffered hundreds of martyrs: because Hanukah teaches the very important lesson that faith and hope in the long run overcome nasty politics and politicians.

If you ask any Jew to tell you how Hanukah began, or why Jews celebrate this festival for eight days, they will say: Once a Syrian Greek king polluted the Holy Temple in Jerusalem by erecting a statue in it. Then, after more than three years of fighting, Judah the Maccabee and his warriors recaptured the holy Temple in Jerusalem, and began to purify it.

But all the pure olive oil for the lamp that should burn continuously had been polluted except for one little jar of oil that miraculously burned for eight days.

This Hanukah story is about two kinds of battle; the physical struggle against others (political and sometimes military); and the spiritual struggle within ourselves to trust in God (the oil).

When the Maccabees recaptured and........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)