Welcome back to the re-education.

Today's show is about a Jewish revolt against the Seleucid dynasty way back in the second century

BC.

Now, we know this story because it is the backdrop of Hanukkah, although we have strayed

far from its many profound lessons.

Today, my guest is Ari Lam, the founder of Soul Shop Studios, and the chief rabbi of the

re-education podcast. And we discuss what I think are the real profound lessons of Hanukkah and not

just the sort of dressed up Western version that we celebrate because it falls around Christmas.

Yeah, so it's the Greeks.

The Greeks drove us out to the Hanukkah story.

We're gone for about 100 years, and then we came back.

They left.

They were like, this place sucks. And they fucking took off.

So they left. And then they really, they fucked up our temple, like our main, you know, church,

pretty much. They like messed, I don't know what they did. They knocked over chairs and they, yeah,

spray-painted dicks on the walls. But the main thing they did was they used our oil candle.

It's supposed to keep lit all the time, this oil candle. And they only had one days with oil left.

And new oil was eight days away.

And they're like, what are we gonna do?

How are we gonna keep a lit?

And the Jews are like, I don't know, fuck it, light it up.

Let's see what happens.

...