The first book of Maccabees is an inspired work for Catholics, that is, a fundamental spiritual value. In Talmudic Judaism, however, it is simply a non-canonical book, and so – and there is simply a consensus of rabbinic authority at least since the time of Majmonides – a work of purely cultural value, and since the 20th century – and above all – of political value. Thus, Chanuka – a celebration referring to the purely temporal dimension of events contained in the First Book of Maccabees – is besides a celebration of an overwhelming political nature or, more specifically, a nationalist nature.
Thus, apart from the question of the celebration of which religious, cultural or political symbols 1 would like to see on the phase a propaganda theatre called media politics, 1 must first realize the pronunciation and past of these symbols, which, despite the apparent similarity, may have a fundamentally different meaning depending on the broader tradition they represent. Having no knowing of the above issues, 1 is condemned to be freely led by noses of dulling slogans specified as “religious tolerance”, “religious image” or “worldly state” – regardless of whether you are a supporter or an opponent of ideas hiding behind the said formulas. So it is not so much a substance of effectively favouring the triumph of any religious, cultural or political idea, but of taking care of simple intellectual sobriety that allows the separation of logical reality from propaganda hallucinations.
* * Oh, * *
The most dangerous thing about the human spirit is not tyrannizing physical repression or doctrinal orders, but complacency. The first can awaken self-defence heroism in its victims, and the second self-defence wisdom, while the 3rd kills even the ability in its victims to realize these concepts, or, worse still, identifies heroism with jesting highly gaudy, and wisdom with utmost cynical jesting.
Hence, while the first 2 of these tyrants are mostly killed by a violent assassination, the second is mostly killed by chronic suicide. So the best thing to do in her face is to be so persistent and self-absorbed to take care of serious things, that in each of her contacts it will prove to be what it is: an ephemeral in reality incapable of destroying or even violating anything that she will not willingly exposure herself to.
* * Oh, * *
The most perfect slave is not a galley or a prisoner of the camp, but a completely uncritical consumer of medial-ideological untruth: i.e. not individual who curses his oppressors all day for taking distant his ability to become a better person, but individual who praises his oppressors all day for giving him the chance to “be who you want”.
Jakub Bożydar Wiśniewski
