The purpose of this blog is to add some color to the Friday night dinner table. Please print and share...
Happy Hannuka!
For those looking for a new twist on the holiday to share with your table, here's a tale I stumbled upon that everyone will surely enjoy:
As every Jewish child knows, the evil king of the Channuka story is Antiochus III.
Well, nobody lives for ever, not even someone called "The Great".... Can you guess the name of his successor?
You guessed it: Antiochus IV.
IV is defeated in battle by his great rival, Ptolemy IV of Egypt.
(Recall that both are Hellenistic kings ruling segments of Alexander the Great's empire.)
On his way home to Egypt, Ptolemy - ever the good pagan - stops in Jerusalem to thank the local "god", i.e., God.
But his attempt to enter the Temple and the Holy of Holies is rebuffed, first by the Cohanim (priests) and then by Divine intervention - he experiences temporary paralysis.
Humiliated, Ptolemy returns to Egypt and becomes even more anti-Jewish than Antiochus III had been in the Channukah story.
Meaning, he was really into paganism and exceedingly anti-Jewish.
He creates a special Jewish tax they have to pay. He makes them wear his version of the Nazi yellow star - branding them with the symbol of Dionysus. And the penalty for subverting these and other anti-Jewish measures is death.
Most Jews accept the decrees and stubburnly refuse to give up their Judaism. So Ptolemy turns up the heat: all Jews must die.
Even the cosmopolitan Jews of Alexandria. They will be rounded up too, and anyone who informs on a Jew will be rewarded with the Jew's property, so there is great enthusaism for the enterprise in that "modern, enlightened" city.
The Hippodrome is the only building large enough to serve as a prison, and there the Jews await their fate....
Since the end of the war, Egypt has had hundreds of trained killer elephants with nothing to do. Ptolemy dreams up the idea of getting 500 elephants drunk and releasing them in the Hippodrome.
The imprisoned Jews of course are praying for salvation.
Hermon, the Keeper of the Elephants, follows orders and gets the elephants drunk as loons. But the king himself apprarently got ahold of the same wine because he falls asleep and doesn't show up at the appointed time, so the massacre is postponed.
The Jews are still praying.
The next day Hermon the Keeper of the Elephants prepares his herd again, yet this time, Ptolemy apparently forgets the entire plan and castigates Hermon for foolishness.
But Ptolemy's eager officers remind him that it was indeed his plan, so the elephant massacre is rescheduled.
Finally, Ptolemy and Hermon lead five-hundred drunken elephants to the Hippodrome.
The Jews hear the tumult, see the rising dust and do the only thing they can — raising eyes and hearts to Heaven. A cohen named Elazar leads their prayers, beseeching God to bring a miracle today like the countless miracles he has done for our ancestors.
As the king and his elephants arrive, the Jews raise their prayers to a frenzy and two angels appear (only visible to the Greeks and the elephants). Greeks and elephants alike stop in their tracks in fear, and then the elephants begin to stampede outside the Hippodrome, trampling many Greeks to death.
After this miraculous salvation, Ptolemy is man enough to recognize a superior force. He offers the Jews a (presumably kosher) banquet and declares them welcome and protected throughout his empire.
Question for your table: Is it a Channukah story?
Happy Channuka and
Shabbat Shalom
PS - This story, by the way, is told in several forms in ancient non-canonical texts, including what is called 3 Maccabees and Against Apion by Josephus. If you want to read more about drunken killer elephants, click here.
For those looking for a new twist on the holiday to share with your table, here's a tale I stumbled upon that everyone will surely enjoy:
As every Jewish child knows, the evil king of the Channuka story is Antiochus III.
Well, nobody lives for ever, not even someone called "The Great".... Can you guess the name of his successor?
You guessed it: Antiochus IV.
IV is defeated in battle by his great rival, Ptolemy IV of Egypt.
(Recall that both are Hellenistic kings ruling segments of Alexander the Great's empire.)
On his way home to Egypt, Ptolemy - ever the good pagan - stops in Jerusalem to thank the local "god", i.e., God.
But his attempt to enter the Temple and the Holy of Holies is rebuffed, first by the Cohanim (priests) and then by Divine intervention - he experiences temporary paralysis.
Humiliated, Ptolemy returns to Egypt and becomes even more anti-Jewish than Antiochus III had been in the Channukah story.
Meaning, he was really into paganism and exceedingly anti-Jewish.
He creates a special Jewish tax they have to pay. He makes them wear his version of the Nazi yellow star - branding them with the symbol of Dionysus. And the penalty for subverting these and other anti-Jewish measures is death.
Most Jews accept the decrees and stubburnly refuse to give up their Judaism. So Ptolemy turns up the heat: all Jews must die.
Even the cosmopolitan Jews of Alexandria. They will be rounded up too, and anyone who informs on a Jew will be rewarded with the Jew's property, so there is great enthusaism for the enterprise in that "modern, enlightened" city.
The Hippodrome is the only building large enough to serve as a prison, and there the Jews await their fate....
Since the end of the war, Egypt has had hundreds of trained killer elephants with nothing to do. Ptolemy dreams up the idea of getting 500 elephants drunk and releasing them in the Hippodrome.
The imprisoned Jews of course are praying for salvation.
Hermon, the Keeper of the Elephants, follows orders and gets the elephants drunk as loons. But the king himself apprarently got ahold of the same wine because he falls asleep and doesn't show up at the appointed time, so the massacre is postponed.
The Jews are still praying.
The next day Hermon the Keeper of the Elephants prepares his herd again, yet this time, Ptolemy apparently forgets the entire plan and castigates Hermon for foolishness.
But Ptolemy's eager officers remind him that it was indeed his plan, so the elephant massacre is rescheduled.
Finally, Ptolemy and Hermon lead five-hundred drunken elephants to the Hippodrome.
The Jews hear the tumult, see the rising dust and do the only thing they can — raising eyes and hearts to Heaven. A cohen named Elazar leads their prayers, beseeching God to bring a miracle today like the countless miracles he has done for our ancestors.
As the king and his elephants arrive, the Jews raise their prayers to a frenzy and two angels appear (only visible to the Greeks and the elephants). Greeks and elephants alike stop in their tracks in fear, and then the elephants begin to stampede outside the Hippodrome, trampling many Greeks to death.
After this miraculous salvation, Ptolemy is man enough to recognize a superior force. He offers the Jews a (presumably kosher) banquet and declares them welcome and protected throughout his empire.
Question for your table: Is it a Channukah story?
Happy Channuka and
Shabbat Shalom
PS - This story, by the way, is told in several forms in ancient non-canonical texts, including what is called 3 Maccabees and Against Apion by Josephus. If you want to read more about drunken killer elephants, click here.
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