February 2013

Dear Blogger Friends

I know it has been months since I have bloged. Many people have asked why I have stopped writing. I really have not stopped, while I was busy thinking I was in control and making plans of my own; life happened. I have been in the hospital twice with what ended up as five ulcers. Sharon, my wife, also ended up in the hospital. My daughter got married and she and her husband are now expecting our first grandchild. With all of the doctor’s appointments associated with the all of the after care, I just have not had the quiet time to sit down and write. I hope that with the New Year, things will settle down or I will just have to make the time to sit down and write.

One topic that I had wanted to talk about in December was the meaning behind the Jewish holiday of Chanukah. It is called the Festival of Light. I will have to go into a lot of background to make some sense of this Holiday, so bear with me through the history lesson. When Alexander the Great died, his four Generals divvied up his territory, one being Syria and another Egypt. When the second generation of Generals had taken over, the Syrian General (Seleuces) got greedy and tried to take over Egypt. He was stopped when the Romans stepped in. This started the good relations between Rome and Egypt, which lead to Anthony and Cleopatra, which is another story. Nevertheless, I digress, Seleuces, on his way back home, takes his frustration out on Jerusalem. He knocks down the walls, kills a lot of Jews, loots the Temple and has the Hellenistic Jews sacrifice at least one pig on the alter in the Temple (the number varies depending on where you read). The Hellenistic Jews do this in hopes of winning favor with Seleuces and stopping the destruction. This is a precursor of the abomination of desolation talked about in Daniel. (Daniel 9:27, 11:31, 12:11).  This infuriates the Orthodox Jews. (This also explains why the Hellenistic Jews are looked down upon and their widows are ignored in the distribution of food in the book of Acts.) With this, the Hasmonean family moves to the mountain outside of Jerusalem where they gather others. Their leader’s name was Judah, whom they nicknamed the Hammer, which in Hebrew is Maccabeus, thus the name of the revolt is The Maccaben revolt. (This revolt is the subject of the book of Maccabes, found in Catholic Bibles. In Seminary, this is studied as part of Jewish history.) The Maccabes were able to kick Seleuces out of Jerusalem. Upon taking over the temple, they had to cleanse it. They only found one vase of kosher oil for the golden lamp stand in the temple, and it was only enough to last one day. It takes seven days for the oil to be made Kosher for the golden lamp stand. Once the lamp is lit, it is not to go out. They lit the lamp and it burned for eight days until the new oil was ready. The miracle of God providing the lamp light is what the Jewish people celebrate during Chanukah and this why Chanukah is called the Festival of Lights.