Candle #4: “So What’s Wrong With Hellenism?”

  I would heartily recommend that you read some of the works of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the last Lubavitcher rebbe. While I disagree with just about everything this Chasidic sect believes, nonetheless outside of the religious writings his insights are often brilliant. He had been a student at the Sorbonne in Paris, and like so many of his predecessors and contemporaries in the sect, was worldly in his academic pursuits…of course, secular ideas were poo-pooed in relation to the “word of God,” but that’s beside the point.

  The rebbe’s thoughts about the world surrounding the Maccabees are most interesting, particularly regarding the different perspectives on Jewish life at the time. He writes about Greeks, about Syrians, about, shall we say, Torah-true Jews and about those of our people who bought Hellenism hook, line and sinker.

  These Jews were called Y’vanim, from the word Yavan in Hebrew meaning Greece. Rabbi Schneerson says that Greek philosophy was worthy of study but when the values of Torah combined with them, it not only diluted ours but perverted them. The holy was secularized, the body was exalted making the idea of soul and spirit irrelevant. Following Hellenistic teachings led to materialism and other “isms” contrary to our tradition. 

   Hellenism was the assimilation of that era. We have always borrowed from our host countries, as I’ve previously mentioned, but this was for all intents and purposes the first time, AND we were the host country making the situation far worse! With the Temple desecrated and our people split between the Torah and the lure of the secular, no wonder Mattathias sought to fight the enemy regardless of the odds. Challenges to our values in more recent times haven’t been as consequential as back in the second century, BCE, but we’ve always got to be vigilant in our struggle to remain Jews!