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Many of the events leading up to the establishment of the Chanukah holiday occurred in the region of Eretz Yisroel in which Moshav Matityahu is situated. The kvarim (graves) of Matitahyu himself and other Chashmonaim are nearby. It is for this reason that many city and street names in this region are named after people in the Chanukah story. Besides Matityahu, examples include Maccabim, Chashmonaim, Modiin, Mevo Modiim, and Dam HaMaccabim.
It was the year 138 BCE (over 2,100 years ago, and two centuries before the destruction of the Second Temple) and Israel was under the rule of the empire of Alexander the Great. After the death of Alexander the Great, the lands of the Middle East were divided among different rulers. In the north, Syria was ruled by Syrian-Greek ruler Antiochus Epiphanies who eventually took over as ruler of the land of Israel as well. Antiochus was determined to impose his idol-worshiping values on the Jewish people. He forbade the practice of Judaism, set up a statue of Zeus in the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, systematically desecrated Jerusalem's holy sites, and barbarically executed Jews who refused to worship his pagan gods. Many Jews acquiesced to save their lives. It was a very dark time for the Jewish nation.
The Jewish community was divided in response to the appeal for assimilation. Some saw assimilation as a positive and modernizing influence and they welcomed the release from Jewish parochialism. In general, two camps polarized: the Jewish assimilationists (called Hellenists) on one side, and the devout observant community on the other. The matter came to a head in a small village called Modiin, one day's journey from Jerusalem. Greek soldiers came one day and demanded that the Jews sacrifice a pig to the pagan god. At first, no one stepped forward and the Jews stood in proud defiance of their pagan oppressors. But then a Jewish Hellenist volunteered to perform the mock offering. Furious at this outrage, Matitiyahu, from the family of Chashmonaim priests, killed the man on the spot, and then killed the Greek soldiers who were present. Matitiyahu and his five sons fled to nearby caves and became the core of a guerilla fighting unit. They were prepared to fight and die to preserve the exclusive worship of Judaism – battling the Greeks not only militarily, but religiously as well.
The elderly Matitiyahu died within a year and never saw the success of the revolt he began. His son Judah, a brilliant tactician and leader, took over as leader, and it was under Judah's inspired leadership that the Jews were able to successfully confront the Greeks. For the Maccabees, it was not Jewish physical life that was at stake, but the spiritual life of the Jew. The name "Maccabee" is an acronym for the Torah verse "Who is compared to You among the mighty, oh Lord" (Exodus 15:11). Within three years, the Maccabees had recaptured Jerusalem, removed sacrilegious objects from the Temple and restored Jewish autonomy. It was, as we say in the Chanukah prayers, a victory for the weak against the strong, and the few against the many. Religious liberty was established and the Temple was rededicated. The one unblemished container of olive oil lit in the Temple on that day miraculously lasted eight full days.
According to the Talmud, the festival of Chanukah is less about the military victory of a small band of Jews against one of the mightiest armies on earth, and more about the miracle of the oil. The Talmud makes only a passing reference to the military victory ("when the royal Chashmonai family overpowered and was victorious"), and focuses exclusively on the story with the oil, as if this were the only significant event commemorated by the festival of Hanukkah. Why was this?
The answer allows us to appreciate the essential ingredient that has defined 4,000 years of Jewish history. The military victory was extraordinary indeed; yet it didn't last. Just 210 years later, in 68 CE, the Holy Temple was destroyed, this time by the Romans. Jerusalem was plundered, Israel was decimated and the Jewish people exiled. It was the beginning of a period of Jewish powerlessness, dispersion and persecution that has lasted almost two millennia. In 1948, we witnessed the birth of the modern State of Israel and the splendid restoration of much lost Jewish dignity and might, but we are still in exile, mentally as much as physically. Unfortunately, the political and military victory of Chanukah did not last. What lasted was the spiritual miracle – the Jewish faith, which, like the oil, was inextinguishable. Strength founded on military power alone is temporary. It may endure for long periods, but ultimately, it will be defeated by a greater power. On the other hand, strength founded on moral courage, on spiritual light and on faith in the ultimate power of goodness can never be destroyed.
Chazal instituted the Chanukah holiday with a keen understanding of this truth. With their eyes focused on eternity, the rabbis of the Second Temple era grasped that the timeless core of Chanukah was not the victory on the battlefield alone, but rather that the military triumph led to the rekindling of the sacred light and the moral torch. Sure, the military victory was an enormously significant event for which we are deeply grateful. Yet what makes Chanukah a vibrant and heart-stirring holiday more than 2,100 years later is the story of a little container of oil that would not cease casting its brightness even in the darkest of nights and among the mightiest of winds. For more than two millennia, with the onset of the Chanukah holiday, Jewish families gathered around their Menorahs, their children's faces aglow with timeless joy. As they gazed at the dancing flames, they could hear the flickering candles sharing their story, a story with a penetrating punch line: the flame of Jewish faith, the flame of Torah, the flame of redemption, would never be extinguished.
We are proud to be living as G-d fearing and Torah observant Jews in this region, continuing as we can in the footsteps of Matityahu and his sons.
More Recent History
Here is the story that's told of how Moshav Matityahu came to be situated exactly where it is today. In 1979, a high-ranking army official took his ten-year-old son on a tiyul (hike) in the Judean Mountains. One night, while on their hike, the son pointed to some lights in the distance and asked his father what those were. The father recongized the runway lights of Ben-Gurion airport. Immediately upon his return, this man informed his superiors of the potential danger to the airport of this particular hilltop and its line-of-sight access to the runway. In response, the army established a Maachaz Nachal (like a mini army base) on this hilltop in order to hold it and begin developing it into a settlement that would be inhabited by Jews.
In 1981, two years after the hikers spotted the airport from this location, the initial English-speaking Garin (settler's group) moved into their new, government-built homes on Moshav Matityahu.
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As another way to increase Torah learning on the Moshav, Matityahu provides land at no charge to the yeshiva high-school Maarava Machon Rubin.
