This rebuttal of what Christopher Hitchens says is only scratching the surface of his mistakes and errors. But I have to leave room for others as well.
The basis of his arguments is that Chanukah celebrates the triumph of theocratic darkness against the enlightenment of Greek philosophy and science. He obviously didn't go to cheder, or to history class, because this is the opposite of what historical records show.
Although there are claims that Alexander the Great was a student of Aristotle and a philosopher in his own right, no such claims are extended to Antiochus IV Epiphanes. He was the first king to declare himself to be a god, and was considered a boor by his own people. (Apparently, though I haven't found a source, he was referred to by the people as 'Epimanes' - the madman). There was no enlightenment of Greek culture in the Selucid Syria, but rather bitter in fighting (and even more fighting against the Ptolemys in Egypt) and conquest. There is no science or philosophy happening at this time in the Selucid empire.
The Chashmonaim were fighting primarily against the celebration of physicality (taken sometimes to its lowest forms). They were not against intellectual discovery or growth, and in fact, as Cohanim (and even the High Priest) they were amongst the most educated and refined people in the country. (Hitchens decides for some reason to call them peasants. Perhaps his dictionary definition of that word is different than mine, and would include Chashmanim who are olive pressers - considered a craft at those times, and the spiritual and political leaders of the people).
Hitchens states that
The Seleucid Empire, an inheritance of Alexander the Great—Alexander still being a popular name among Jews—had weaned many people away from the sacrifices, the circumcisions, the belief in a special relationship with God, and the other reactionary manifestations of an ancient and cruel faith.
The only line of truth in there is that Alexander is a popular name to this day amongst religious Jews. But what is his basis for saying that the Selucids wanted to wean people away from the sacrifices? Does he think that even Alexander himself didn't believe in sacrifices and appeasing the gods? Clearly lies are more interesting than fact. (And for the record, Chanukah is nothing to do with Epicureanism or Apikorsim. It has everything to do with Hellenism, which is certainly not the refined philosophy that Hitchens claims to believe in).
The best part of his article (and the main body of it) is that ultimately the Macabbees were responisble for all the ills of religion in the world today.
This reasoning reaches new levels of idiocy, not to mention the antisemitic implications in what he says.
Had it not been for this no-less imperial event, we would never have had to hear of Jesus of Nazareth or his sect—which was a plagiarism from fundamentalist Judaism
Jesus lived almost 2 centuries after the Chanukah story took place. By this time the remnants of the Chashmonaim had become more Hellenist than the Hellenists. They had perverted Jewish values, killed the Rabbis and slowly wiped themselves out by killing each other.
Jesus (and Chrisitanity) arose as a reaction to the events in his time. He felt that the 'soul' had gone out of religion and only the external physicality was left.
To locate the basis of Christianity in an event several centuries earlier, is to ignore modern science and mathematics. Has Hitchens never heard of chaos theory? Sure it was the fault of the Chanukah story, but it was also that pesky butterfly that keeps flapping its wings somewhere near Taiwan!
(Bear in mind also, that the 'Jewish backwardness' that he writes about also led to theory of relativity, much of the greatest literature of the 20th century, discoveries in recombinant-DNA, developments in monetary history and theory and many other things that shape the world we live in - with thanks to science.co.il
Hitchens utimately reverts to doing what almost all bankrupt 'thinkers' throughout time have done - blame the Jews. He has no shame in blaming the Jews (and particularly the Macabbees, but also any Jews who light a chanukiah or play dreidel) for Christian fundamentalism and Islamic fundamentalism. It is only a small step from here to say that we should lock up all the Jews for inciting 9/11.
He actually writes that:
Every Jew who honors the Hanukkah holiday because it gives his child an excuse to mingle the dreidel with the Christmas tree and the sleigh ... is celebrating the making of a series of rods for his own back
I won't even mention his complete misunderstanding of the miracle of Chanukah (has he bothered reading even the text of the siddur, which clearly shows that the miracle was military. The oil was almost an afterthought. And halachically comletely redundant!)
His philosophy is bankrupt. His logic and reasoning are at best false (though probably non-existant). His facts are made up and irrelevant. And his writing bears no resemblance to that of Aristotle or Epicurus whom he so much admires.
Nor is it surprising that it was published - in todays age stupidity sells.
So all that can be said is, thanks for the laughs. Happy Chanukah.
Here is the full text of his article. Enjoy!
Bah, Hanukkah: The holiday celebrates the triumph of tribal Jewish backwardness.
By Christopher Hitchens
Posted Monday, Dec. 3, 2007, at 11:57 AM ET
High on the list of idiotic commonplace expressions is the old maxim that "it is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness." How do such fatuous pieces of folk wisdom ever get started on their careers of glib quotation? Of course it would be preferable to light a candle than to complain about the darkness. You would only be bitching about the darkness if you didn't have a candle to begin with. Talk about a false antithesis. But at this time of year, any holy foolishness is permitted. And so we have a semiofficial celebration of Hanukkah, complete with menorah, to celebrate not the ignition of a light but the imposition of theocratic darkness.
Jewish orthodoxy possesses the interesting feature of naming and combating the idea of the apikoros or "Epicurean"—the intellectual renegade who prefers Athens to Jerusalem and the schools of philosophy to the grim old routines of the Torah. About a century and a half before the alleged birth of the supposed Jesus of Nazareth (another event that receives semiofficial recognition at this time of the year), the Greek or Epicurean style had begun to gain immense ground among the Jews of Syria and Palestine. The Seleucid Empire, an inheritance of Alexander the Great—Alexander still being a popular name among Jews—had weaned many people away from the sacrifices, the circumcisions, the belief in a special relationship with God, and the other reactionary manifestations of an ancient and cruel faith. I quote Rabbi Michael Lerner, an allegedly liberal spokesman for Judaism who nonetheless knows what he hates:
Along with Greek science and military prowess came a whole culture that celebrated beauty both in art and in the human body, presented the world with the triumph of rational thought in the works of Plato and Aristotle, and rejoiced in the complexities of life presented in the theater of Aeschylus, Euripides and Aristophanes.
But away with all that, says Lerner. Let us instead celebrate the Maccabean peasants who wanted to destroy Hellenism and restore what he actually calls "oldtime religion." His excuse for preferring fundamentalist thuggery to secularism and philosophy is that Hellenism was "imperialistic," but the Hasmonean regime that resulted from the Maccabean revolt soon became exorbitantly corrupt, vicious, and divided, and encouraged the Roman annexation of Judea. Had it not been for this no-less imperial event, we would never have had to hear of Jesus of Nazareth or his sect—which was a plagiarism from fundamentalist Judaism—and the Jewish people would never have been accused of being deicidal "Christ killers." Thus, to celebrate Hanukkah is to celebrate not just the triumph of tribal Jewish backwardness but also the accidental birth of Judaism's bastard child in the shape of Christianity. You might think that masochism could do no more. Except that it always can. Without the precedents of Orthodox Judaism and Roman Christianity, on which it is based and from which it is borrowed, there would be no Islam, either. Every Jew who honors the Hanukkah holiday because it gives his child an excuse to mingle the dreidel with the Christmas tree and the sleigh (neither of these absurd symbols having the least thing to do with Palestine two millenniums past) is celebrating the making of a series of rods for his own back. And this is not just a disaster for the Jews. When the fanatics of Palestine won that victory, and when Judaism repudiated Athens for Jerusalem, the development of the whole of humanity was terribly retarded.
And, of course and as ever, one stands aghast at the pathetic scale of the supposed "miracle." As a consequence of the successful Maccabean revolt against Hellenism, so it is said, a puddle of olive oil that should have lasted only for one day managed to burn for eight days. Wow! Certain proof, not just of an Almighty, but of an Almighty with a special fondness for fundamentalists. Epicurus and Democritus had brilliantly discovered that the world was made up of atoms, but who cares about a mere fact like that when there is miraculous oil to be goggled at by credulous peasants?
We are about to have the annual culture war about the display of cribs, mangers, conifers, and other symbols on public land. Most of this argument is phony and tawdry and secondhand and has nothing whatever to do with "faith" as its protagonists understand it. The burning of a Yule log or the display of a Scandinavian tree is nothing more than paganism and the observance of a winter solstice; it makes no more acknowledgment of the Christian religion than I do. The fierce partisanship of the holly bush and mistletoe believers convicts them of nothing more than ignorance and simple-mindedness. They would have been just as pious under the reign of the Druids or the Vikings, and just as much attached to their bucolic icons. Everybody knows, furthermore, that there was no moving star in the east, that Quirinius was not the governor of Syria in the time of King Herod, that no worldwide tax census was conducted in that period of the rule of Augustus, and that no "stable" is mentioned even in any of the mutually contradictory books of the New Testament. So, to put a star on top of a pine tree or to arrange various farm animals around a crib is to be as accurate and inventive as that Japanese department store that, as urban legend has it, did its best to emulate the Christmas spirit by displaying a red-and-white bearded Santa snugly nailed to a crucifix.
This is childish stuff and if only for that reason should obviously not receive any public endorsement or financing. The display of the menorah at this season, however, has a precise meaning and is an explicit celebration of the original victory of bloody-minded faith over enlightenment and reason. As such it is a direct negation of the First Amendment and it is time for the secularists and the civil libertarians to find the courage to say so.
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