The meaning of history’s first ideological war, the shocking denouement of the Maccabees, and why Jews focus on the miracle of the oil, not the battle.
On Hanukkah, we proclaim our difference with special enthusiasm, refusing a ‘woke’ form of universalism which does not allow for Jewish distinctiveness.
Indispensable to the Jewish worldview is the idea that humans are unique, that we possess a spiritual component and that our actions are freely chosen.