Weekend self-care open thread: Happy Hanukkah!

Happy weekend, friends!

This year, Hanukkah began on the evening of Christmas Day. It is what we call a "moveable feast."

A quick precis on Hanukkah.

Since the destruction of Judea by the Babylonians, Jews in Palestine had been ruled by Babylonians, Persians, and then by Macedonian Greeks.

After Alexander the Great's untimely demise, his empire fractured, with his generals and companions fighting for and splitting the spoils. Judea and the Levant came under the rule of his general Seleucus and his descendants. 

Now, the Greeks deemed anyone who was not them as "barbarians". And the Jews, with their peculiar practices, were particularly looked at askance.

At the time that the Hanukkah story takes place, Antiochus IV Epiphanes was king of the Seleucid Empire. And he, quite frankly, hated the Jews. He decreed that Jews were not to circumcise their sons, and that the Temple would house a statue of Zeus.

A rebellion rose up at this sacrilege, headed by the priest Mattathias, and then his son Judah, of the Maccabee family. Against all odds, they beat the Greek superpower. 

To cleanse the desecrated Temple, after they had removed the foreign idols, they sought to reconsecrate it. But they found that they had only enough oil to light the Menorah for one day. 

Hanukkah celebrates the miracle which then occurred: The oil which would last only one day actually lasted eight days. 

During these holidays—Christmas, Yule, Kwanzaa, and Hanukkah—we celebrate the return of the light in a darkened world. This weekend we celebrate the resilience of the Jewish people, who have faced extermination by those among whom they have lived, and have survived to tell the tale.

As always, dear friends, be ever kind, gentle, and joyful with yourselves and those around you.