Chanuka is all about
chinuch – education.
Jewish education isn’t merely a checklist of Do’s and Dont’s. Our education is about clarifying our values and outlook. This is what the Maccabees were fighting for.
People tend to think the Maccabees won the war against the Greeks and their culture, but I’m not so sure.
Today, anything with the name “Maccabee” on it has more to do with Greekism than Judaism – the Maccabee Games are the Jewish Olympics, Maccabee Tel Aviv is a sports team, and Maccabee beer certainly doesn’t connote an emphasis on the spiritual over the physical.