Every few years, I feel compelled to point out that American Jews, experiencing Christmas envy, turned one of the most dynamic and relevant stories of the Jewish tradition into one of the most tedious and anesthetized holidays imaginable.

People are often surprised to learn that Hanukkah, popularly known as the “festival of lights,” features very little about lights or very little heavenly intervention. Indeed, Maccabees 1 and 2 are hyper-nationalistic texts, principally concerned with the patriarch Mattathias and his five sons, who rose against Antiochus, the Hellenic king who desecrated the Temple, banned Jewish rituals, and levied excessive taxes on the people.