When reading the background that preceded the miracle of Hanukkah, it is impossible not to feel how accurately the processes that took place then, some two thousand two hundred years ago, describe our challenges and struggles. It is astonishing to discover that human nature has not changed, and that history repeats itself almost exactly.
Alexander the Great, who conquered most of the inhabited world of his time, brought with him Hellenistic culture. It overthrew tribal barriers, softened the differences between peoples, and fostered a general human culture.
Its influence was so great that a division was created between Greeks (a collective name for those who held Hellenistic culture) and barbarians (everyone else). You spoke Greek - you were a cultured person, you didn't speak Greek - you were a barbarian.
The tolerance of Hellenistic culture was expressed in the fact that you were not questioned about your ethnic and religious origin. Even a Jew could be a perfect Greek. It was an open and attractive world. No one asked you who your grandmother was.
Danger is visible in the country
Today we are faced with a confused Western culture. It is attractive, appealing, but as dangerous to the existence of Judaism as it was then. And just as then, those who were tempted to follow Greek culture were assimilated and lost to the people of Israel, Western culture also obscures Jewish identity and leads towards assimilation and assimilation.
Some believed that simply living in the Land of Israel, a Jewish state, would be enough to preserve us as Jews. The Lubavitcher Rebbe expressed his opinion early in the state's history that the same danger lurked in the Land of Israel.
In a letter he sent to then Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion in 1959, in the context of the question of 'who is a Jew', he wrote:
""No matter how great the necessity of religion and its affairs may be for the Israelites abroad, they are even more necessary and vital for the Israelites in the Land of Israel. And one of the fundamental reasons: In the Land of Israel, there is a danger that the second generation will establish a new type, who will excel in the name of the Israelites, but will be foreign to the past of our people, with all its eternal and intrinsic values, and will also be opposed to it - in its worldview, in its culture and in the content of its daily life. Opposite, despite speaking Hebrew, in the Land of the Fathers, he will be prosperous, and will also be enthusiastic when hearing the Bible.".
Ben-Gurion's diagnosis
It turns out that Ben-Gurion was also troubled by these trends of separation, and believed that they should be curbed by education in 'Jewish consciousness'.
In 1955, he sent a letter to the then Minister of Education and Culture, Zalman Aran, in which he called for strengthening the Jewish consciousness of the youth: "As far as I know the youth (and I am talking about the good youth!) are very, very deficient in Jewish consciousness, in recognition of our historical heritage and in moral connection to world Jewry, and a curriculum must be provided that will correct this deficiency without harming other essential branches of study.".
Unfortunately, opponents of this curriculum have prevailed, and in recent decades the general education system has been dominated by a liberal concept that advocates equality among all human beings and rejects the cultivation of Jewish identity. Vigorous action is now needed to restore the world of Jewish values to the hearts of youth and to give deep meaning to being Jewish.
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