Chanukah is the time when we celebrate our victory over Hellenization as manifested by both the Greeks and the Hellenized Jews. On a simple level we view the victory as one of spirituality over physicality. The spiritual way of G-d conquered the way of the gymnasium, worship of the human body. Jews were now free to ascend pious ladders of asceticism. I believe this view of our triumph to be overly simplified and perhaps even incorrect.

Plato believed that the self is a combination of two components: body and soul. The purpose of life, for Plato, is freeing the mind from bodily attachments and living the life of the soul. According to Lucreitius, who was a materialist, the purpose of life was getting past our illusionary spiritual sentiments and enjoying the physical. Both of these models were satisfactory modes of existence in Hellenized Greece. By taking a side in this war, one was showing their firm commitment to a philosophical school. The religious Jew, by contrast, chose both. The Talmud teaches us that the Greeks tried to rid the Jews of Sabbath observance, circumcision, and religious recognition of the new month. Why? Each of these expressed Judaism’s sophisticated credo: spirituality and physicality can coexist as a holy chimera. Sabbath is a day where we connect to G-d and can do so through eating, sleeping, singing and other pleasures. Circumcision is about acknowledging that the flesh can be made holy. The celebration of the new month identifies the functional calendar as providing new opportunities for religious growth.

Judaism is not the escape nor is it the indulgence. Judaism is the eternal dance between both sides of our being.