DANIEL GREENFIELD: THE LIGHT THAT BURNS

Posted By on December 21st, 2011

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The Light That Burns

A candle is a brief flare of light. A wick dipped in oil burns and then goes out again. The light of Chanukah appears to follow the same narrative. Briefly there is light and warmth and then darkness again.

120 years after the Maccabees drove out the foreign invaders and their collaborators, another foreign invader, Herod, the son of a Roman Idumean governor, was placed on the throne by the Roman Empire, disposing of the last of the Maccabean kings and ending the brief revival of the Jewish kingdom.

The revived kingdom was a plaything in the game of empires. Exiled by Babylon, restored by Persia, conquered by the Greeks, ground under the heel of the remnants of Alexander’s empire, briefly liberated by the Parthians, tricked into servitude and destroyed by Rome. The victory of the Maccabean brothers in reclaiming Jerusalem was a brief flare of light in the dark centuries and even that light was shadowed by the growing darkness.

Israel was free only to the extent that the prowess of the Maccabees had made it too expensive to properly reconquer. Playing off the Syrian-Greeks against Rome allowed a temporary independence that ended when one of the players dropped out. Even as Rome’s power was growing, its headlong collapse into decadence led to heavy spending, corruption and barbarism.

 

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