Eight nights. Eight lights. Eight family values. Rabbi Kerry M. Olitzky provides families with a way of letting their Hanukkah celebrations affirm not only their Jewish identity, but the very Jewish values they wish to transmit to their children. Judah and his brothers and those who fought with them had the kind of courage that it seems like we can only read about in history books. Perhaps that is what draws us to the Hanukkah festival each year. A small group of untrained men and presumably women entered into guerrilla-type warfare with the entire Assyrian-Greek army. Working in small ambush attack units, they succeeded in toppling a military giant. Through their persistence and determination, they regained control of the land of Israel. Their victory was incredible, even by the standards of modern warfare. Yet, it seems incomplete. There had to be more to their triumph than just a display of military prowess. That would seem to be insufficient to establish a festival in the middle of winter. The rabbis agree. They wanted to steer the Jewish community clear of what was becoming a clear emphasis on the military victory of the Maccabees. Thus, the rabbis introduced the notion of spiritual strength into the celebration of Hanukkah. Listen to the well-known words of Zechariah (from the Haftarah for Shabbat Hanukkah) that they chose as their theme: Not by might and not by power, but by My spirit, says Adonai (Zechariah 4:6). This is the kind of faith that the Maccabees also possessed. Perhaps it was this inner strength that really drove them to victory They won because they believed that they could win. And then they acted on that belief. We may think that Judah and the Maccabee's heroism is unparalleled and it may be. But there is Maccabee strength in each one of us. We are all children of the Maccabees. As modemn Jews, living with one foot each in both the Jewish and the secular world, the challenge we face is to retap that reservoir of courage that lies hidden
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