Today is the 28th of Shevat on the Jewish Calendar.  

According to Tractate Ta’anit, on this date in 134 BCE, Antiochus V abandoned his siege of Jerusalem and his plans for the city's destruction. As such, this day was observed as a holiday in Hasmonean times.

It would not be surprising if, of all the names and terms in the previous paragraph, only two stood out – Antiochus and Jerusalem.  (The third - Hasmonean - might be less familiar.) From context clues, one might puzzle out that marking the 2159th anniversary of the abandonment of the siege might have something to do with Hannukah… Except that we are months past that festive Winter holiday…

So what’s the deal?

Hannukah is arguably the most interesting case study in rabbinic marketing.  

Tractate Ta’anit (otherwise known as Megillat Ta’anit), is a short book containing a list of minor holidays observed in the Second Temple period - days on which fasting and mourning were forbidden. The entry for each day begins with an Aramaic statement (“on such-and-such a day one does not fast and/or eulogize), followed by a scholion, that is a Hebrew explanation of the origin and meaning of each day.  According to the Talmud (Shabbat 13b), the Scholion was composed by Hananiah ben Hezekiah ben Garon, a student of Shammai around the 1st c.CE.  (Most scholars think the Scholion dates from a much later period.)

In any event, Ta’anit tells us: 

On the twenty fifth of the month is Hannukah, eight days on which one does not eulogize because when the Greeks entered the Temple they defiled all the oil there. When the hand of the Hasmoneans was made strong and they defeat the Greeks, they checked (in the Temple) and only found one jar of oil sealed with the mark of the High Priest which remained undefiled. Though there was only enough in it to light for one day, a miracle occurred through it and they lit the Temple lamps from it for eight days. The following year they decreed these to be eight days of celebration. 

(This story from Ta’anit is also quoted verbatim in Tractate Shabbat 21b.)

This story stands in marked contrast to the accounts in Josephus’ Antiquities of the Jews and the deuterocanonical books of 1 and 2 Maccabees.  In those sources, the reason we celebrate is because on Judah Maccabee’s renewal of the sacrifices in the Temple - a renewal festival that went on for eight days (like Sukkot, which had been celebrated previous to the military victory).

So which is it?

Which explanation would become the primary one would eventually depend on rabbinic politics, or at least a particular stream of rabbinic politics.

When we tell the Hannukah story, it ends with the Maccabees defeating the “Greeks” and rededicating the Temple.  Fade to black and serve the latkes!  …Right?

However, the story isn’t exactly over at that point.  The military struggle against the Seleucids would stretch on for years until the Jewish people came under the rule of an independent kingdom in 110 BCE under John Hyrcanus, the son of Simon Thassi, Judah’s brother.

The Maccabees would go on to establish a dynastic line, and fuse the High Priesthood with the monarchy.  These moves were not regarded as acceptable by the rabbis at that time.  Indeed, there are many accounts of Hasmonean kings running afoul of rabbinic decorum. 

One of the most egregious examples of this involved Alexander Yannai, the second king of the Hasmonean dynasty who ruled over the kingdom of Judaea from 103 to 76 BCE. During his reign, he expanded the kingdom’s borders, forcibly converted the Idumeans to Judaism and violently suppressed any critics of his policies.  What most irked the rabbis, however, was Yannai’s behaviour on Sukkot.  As King, he also officiated as the High Priest at the Temple in Jerusalem.  When it was time to perform the water libation ceremony at the altar, a rabbinic fixture of the Sukkot festival, Yannai poured the water on his feet.  According to Mishnah Sukkah 4, the crowd was so outraged by this act of mockery, they pelted him with etrogim.  Outraged, Yannai ordered his troops to attack the crowd, and six thousand people were killed. Yannai also had wooden barriers built around the altar and the Temple preventing people from going near him. From then on, only the priests were permitted to enter.

Yannai’s sons would eventually fight each other for the throne, with the weaker of the two inviting the Romans to join his side in the struggle.  The Romans under Pompey would help Hyrcanus II, but then decided that they wanted Judea for themselves in 63 BCE.  The subsequent centuries-long occupation would be marked by a series of bloody uprisings, the first resulting with the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE, and the second with the razing of Judea in 135 CE and a wave of persecutions that almost ended Judaism as we know it.

It is not surprising then that the Rabbis have no love for the Hasmoneans (i.e., the descendants of the Maccabees), or their approach to Jewish life (i.e., might is right). Indeed, after the failure of the second revolt (i.e., the Bar Kochba Revolt), the rabbis of the Talmud (Ketubot 111a) adopted the “Three Oaths” as political ideology.  (This position was in stark opposition to that of Rabbi Akiva (and others) who proclaimed Bar Kochba as Messiah, and, openly sanctioned the uprising.)

Going forward, the Jews pledged (1) not to "ascend as a wall" to reclaim the Land of Israel, (2) not to "rebel against the nations of the world.” In turn, the other nations were sworn (3) not to "subjugate the Jews excessively.”  

This pseudo-pacifism would also find expression in its understanding and commemoration of Hannukah.  For the rabbis, it was not the military victory (i.e., the few Maccabees defeating the many “Greeks”) that fuelled the festivities, but the miracle of the oil, a shining example of divine intervention and ritual purity.

They shifted focus away from the problematic legacy of the Hasmonean dynasty, whose fusion of political and religious authority and subsequent moral failings had led to disaster for the Jewish people. 

Even the traditional game of dreidel, with its message that "a great miracle happened there," reinforces this theological rather than martial focus. Through this careful recasting, the rabbis created a holiday that would inspire generations of Jews in exile not through tales of military might, but through the enduring message that even in darkness, divine light could persist against all odds.

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