Chappy Chanukah 5777

[BaalChatzaf]

Last night I lit the first of 8 candles remembering a war of liberation fought 2150 years ago.  The Jews in Israel (Judea)  expelled the forces of King Antiochus and established a Jewish commonwealth.  The profaned temple was cleansed of the filth the Pagans brought there and once again Jews could freely practice their religion and the religion of their fathers.   It was Good News for a while.  Unfortunately to secure the victory against the Greek tyrants the Jewish rulers asked for and received help from Rome.  That turned out not to be a good career move for the Jewish people. Even so,  Imperial Rome has vanished but the Jewish people remain. 

In the Dispersion  Jews have a little toy for the holiday. It is the dredel.  It is a spinning toy that turns up one of four Hebrew letters,  an acroynm for the phrase "a great miracle happened there" נס גדול היה שם.  In Israel dredel is a little different.  It has four Hebrew letters that spell out   "a  great miracle happened here" נס גדול היה פה. For a little while, the Jewish people had their very own domain and did not have to depend on the kindness of strangers.  Perhaps that day will happen again.  Or as we say at the Passover Feast   --- Next Year in Jerusalem.  If not -this- Next Year then some other Next Year.

The principle remains:  לא מתעסק עם היהודים  (Don't Fuck with the Jews).

[Brant Gaede]

Don't fuck with anybody.

--Brant

let's spread the principle around

[RobinReborn]

The Greeks were tyrants?  But they brought Aristotle to the world!

[BaalChatzaf]

3 hours ago, RobinReborn said:

The Greeks were tyrants?  But they brought Aristotle to the world!

Alexander's generals were not Athenians.  They split up an ran Alexander's conquests  after the death of Alexander.  The Ptolemy family got Egypt.  Cleopatra was the 13 th generation descendant of Ptolemy. 

Greece was divided into dozens of city-states.  Each city operated like a separate nation.  Athens may have nurtured Aristotle as a philosopher (Aristotle was not born in Athens),  but an Athenian jury  80 years earlier put Socrates to death for expressing  unpopular ideas. After Alexander  died, Aristotle got out of Greece because he did not want to face a fate similar to Socrates  while in Athens.  He died a year after he exiled himself from Athens. 

[RobinReborn]

Have you read The Last Days Of Socrates by Plato?  I have, I don't think that Socrates is that wise, he shouldn't have been put to death but if Plato's description of him was accurate he seemed like he was suffering from dementia at the time.  His ideas remind me of some ideas I've read in the Bhagavad Gita.

 

Aristotle's teachings were kept in the Library of Alexandria, I imagine that they were spread via word of mouth throughout the Greek Empire. 

 

Ultimately I do not see why you view the Greeks as tyrannical.  I see them as quite similar to Jewish people.

[BaalChatzaf]

1 hour ago, RobinReborn said:

Have you read The Last Days Of Socrates by Plato?  I have, I don't think that Socrates is that wise, he shouldn't have been put to death but if Plato's description of him was accurate he seemed like he was suffering from dementia at the time.  His ideas remind me of some ideas I've read in the Bhagavad Gita.

 

Aristotle's teachings were kept in the Library of Alexandria, I imagine that they were spread via word of mouth throughout the Greek Empire. 

 

Ultimately I do not see why you view the Greeks as tyrannical.  I see them as quite similar to Jewish people.

In some respects yes.  As a matter of fact in Alexandria the Jewish Community was very willing to take up Greek philosophy on nature and metaphysics.  The notion of logos  was popularized by the leaders of the religious Jewish community and that notion was very prominent later on in the Gospel According to John. Where Jews differed from the Greeks markedly was in moral issues connected to sexuality.  The Jewish religion is very much against male homosexuality (it is a stoning offense)  where as the Greeks promoted it as a means of relating an older male mentor to a young male student. Homosexuality was tolerated by the Greeks  and loathed by the Jews.  There was a love-hate relationship between the Jews and the Greeks.  Judah ha'Nasi a Jewish sage once wrote  "beware the tree of Greek learning,  it has beautiful fruit,  but the fruit is poisonous".  A very ambiguous  attitude. It both admires and condemns Greek learning in philosophy. The Greeks on the other hand regarded the Jews as the philosophers of the East.  Alexander the Great went out of his way not to get into a war with the Jews, or to harm them unless, of course the opposed him.  The rulers of Jerusalem sought to make a treaty with Alexander.  The Jews agreed not to hinder Alexander in any way  and Alexander promised not to harm them.  After this settlement, Alexander became a hit with  the Jewish community and many male children were named Alexander in his honor.  It is very rare for Jews to name their sons after a Gentile. 

[RobinReborn]

So jewish people took parts of greek philosophy, rejected part of greek culture (homosexuality, which is by no means universal) and called them tyrants?

 

Aside from being tolerant of homosexuality, how were the greeks tyrants?  You haven't named anything unusual about how the greeks ruled over the jews.

[BaalChatzaf]

6 minutes ago, RobinReborn said:

So jewish people took parts of greek philosophy, rejected part of greek culture (homosexuality, which is by no means universal) and called them tyrants?

 

Aside from being tolerant of homosexuality, how were the greeks tyrants?  You haven't named anything unusual about how the greeks ruled over the jews.

The Tyranny was under Antiochus.  It was under his reign that he attempted. to impose  Greek idolatry on the Jewish people.  He also punished parents who circumcised their sons by death.   Antiochus abolished the celebration of the New Moon (Rosh Chodesh) and forced pagan blood offerings in the Temple. This was what led to the Hasmonian Result in which the Jews eventually triumphed.  It was a 14 year  guerilla  war against what was then a super power.  

When the Greeks did not attempt to impose their religion on Jews or prohibet Jews from practicing their religion,  there was generally a fair cordial relationship between Jews and Greeks.  As I said, the Jews admired the brainy philosophy of the Greeks. 

Much later in time (about 1200 years)  R. Moshe ben Maimon (Maimonedes) used Aristotelian logic and metaphysics  to defend Judaism against Islam. This use of Aristotle  was taken up a hundred years later by Thomas Aquinas.  Maimonedes ploughed the road for Aquinas.