Because Zvi’s comments on today’s original post about Hanukkah as a story of the fight against assimilation, are so important, so clearly stated and so wrong, I want to respond.
The quick response is that far from “careless”, my reading of history is actually historical. While it may not comfort the pietists amongst us, it is grounded in historic fact, not a seemless religious narrative which fits past events into contemporary religious thought and practice.

Specifically, I never mentioned rabbinic opposition to Greek language or culture in my piece because at the time of the Maccabees there was no such thing as rabbis! The Mishnah, to which Zvi refers, dates to a period 300 years after the Hanukkah story. And because I suspect Zvi has no objection to rendering the Torah into languages other than Greek, even if such study is not the same as reading it in Hebrew, it is quite irelevent anyway.
As to the redefiniton of Jewish law which Zvi finds so disquieting, we should be entirely clear: there is not a shred of evidence for the concept of “pikuah nefesh” (violating the law to save a life) from this period. Ironically, this may have been its first entry onto the relgious scene. To be sure, it was integrated into the law and is now normative, but that was not always the case. In fact, that’s the point. Everything we come to see as normative was once transgressive.
And for those interested in a better understanding of hellenism, I suggest the work of either Morton Smith or his student and my teacher, Shaye J.D. Cohen.
Finally, while I do not agree with all of Tom Tsuka’s conclusions, each issue he raises must be addressed — and not from the “us vs. them” perspective which permeates so much of religious conversation. We might start by acknowledging that among followers of pretty much every faith, “assimilation” is too often simply the word we use for people following the faith in ways with which we disagree. And unless we think we are God, we would all do well to dial back on that kind of language.
Zvi, please keep reading and coomenting! Your remarks about yesterday’s post on the House’s lone republican, Eric Cantor , were fascinating.