In the 2nd century before the common era, the Holy Land was ruled by the Seleucids (Syrian-Greeks) who, with the collaboration of the Jewish Hellenists, introduced pagan idols into the Holy Temple and set about to forcefully Hellenize the people of Israel. Mattityahu, the son of the High Priest Yochanan, was already an old man when he picked up a sword and raised the flag of revolt in the village of Modiin in the Judean hills. Many rallied under his cry, "Who that is for G-d, come with me!" and resisted and battled the Greeks from their mountain hideouts.
After heading the revolt for one year, Mattityahu died on the 15th of Cheshvan of the year 3622 from creation (139 BCE). His five sons -- the "Macabees" Judah, Yochanan, Shimon, Elazar and Yonatan -- carried on the battle to their eventual victory, celebrated each year since by Jews the world over with the festival of Chanukah.
Links: VirtualChanukah.com; a Chanukah anthology
On this night in 1938 and continuing into the next day -- November 9 on the secular calendar -- the Nazis coordinated vicious pogroms against the Jewish community of Germany. Encouraged by their leaders, rioters attacked and beat Jewish residents, burned and destroyed 267 synagogues, vandalized 7,500 Jewish businesses, and ransacked countless Jewish cemeteries, hospitals, schools, and homes, while police and firefighters stood by. Ninety-one Jews were killed and 20,000 others were deported to concentration camps.
These pogroms, which collectively came to be known as Kristallnacht (“night of broken glass,” referring to the thousands of windows that were broken) were a turning point after which Nazi anti-Jewish policy intensified.
The evil King Yeravam of Israel declared a holiday on this day, one month after Sukkot, where offerings were brought in his idolatrous temple. As told in I Kings 12, this was part of his campaign to distance the people from the Temple service, which took place in Jerusalem, which was ruled by Rechavam, David’s grandson.
Abraham circumcised Isaac, his son, when he was eight days old. (Genesis 21:4)
We are not Jews by any rational choice.
We are born into a life mission we did not choose.
A male’s entry into the Jewish community is by circumcision—before he has a mind to be reasoned with.
A Jewish woman enters the covenant eight days earlier—as soon as she emerges from the womb.
As for those who join our people, they do so because something mysterious propels them from inside. The reasons and rationalization emerge only later, out of some deep and unknowable place.
And is it not in our capacity to leave. Even concerning a convert, the rabbis rule, “Even should he sin, once a Jew, always a Jew.” (Talmud Sanhedrin 44a)
And that is why it is so precious to be a Jew.
If we were Jews by the choice of our own minds and hearts, then our Judaism would take us only as far as our minds and hearts can know.
We would remain limited by our own conceptions—the futile imaginations of tiny, finite creatures grasping upward into the sky for their infinite Creator.
But our minds and hearts have no choice. It is He who reaches down, chooses us, and flicks a switch at our very core.
And it is a divine and eternal G‑d-point within us that reciprocates to choose Him. For no reason whatsoever.
So that our bond transcends reason and time, our journey is on eagle’s wings and our destiny beyond the stars.
We are His and He is ours, and nothing—not even our own minds and hearts—can come between us.
(Revised October 2021)