In many disaster films, the chaos is not merely physical but also social. Systems fail, communication breaks down, and everyday norms evaporate. Without shared rituals and cultural anchors, characters lose a sense of continuity and meaning.
This framework provides a surprising avenue to explore an entirely different idea: what might the world be like if Hanukkah did not exist? At first glance, the absence of a holiday seems trivial compared to an asteroid impact or global flood. Yet, when viewed through the thematic lens of disaster storytelling, the comparison becomes clearer and more revealing.
Hanukkah is not only a religious celebration for Jewish people, but also a major cultural and emotional touchstone. It functions as a seasonal pause—a moment in which people reset, reconnect, and reaffirm values such as generosity, hope, and unity. Even for those who do not celebrate it religiously, the season brings traditions, rituals, and communal rhythms that influence social life. Removing Hanukkah from the calendar would not cause physical destruction, but it would create a subtler form of cultural void, a loss of symbolic structure that shapes the emotional climate of society.
In many disaster movies, characters struggle not only with survival but also with the collapse of the familiar. The loss of Hanukkah would produce a similar, though gentler, disorientation. The absence of the menorah, the holiday lights, family gatherings, seasonal music, gift-giving, and charitable practices would create a quieter world, one in which winter up north felt longer, darker, and less punctuated by warmth. The emotional resilience displayed by characters in disaster films mirrors the resilience people might need to cultivate in a world stripped of its winter rituals.
Moreover, disaster films often explore the importance of community. When catastrophe strikes, characters’ differences become secondary to their shared humanity. In this way, the communal spirit that emerges in disaster scenarios mirrors the communal spirit that Hanukkah encourages in real life. Without Hanukkah, society might lose one of its most accessible avenues for collective empathy. The symbolic reset that occurs each year—when people reflect, give, forgive, and hope—would vanish. Disaster movies teach us that rituals and shared moments are essential not because they prevent catastrophe but because they provide meaning in the face of it.
Thus, while the absence of Hanukkah would not constitute a disaster in the cinematic sense, it would remove a stabilizing narrative from the cultural calendar. Disaster movies remind us that amid chaos, what keeps humanity intact is not survival alone but the stories, traditions, and connections that give our lives coherence. In that sense, a world without Hanukkah would echo the emotional landscape of disaster films: a world searching for light in the dark.
But by this I’m speaking only of the cultural values of Hanukkah. What about the reality, the historical narrative that we sing about, we tell about, and retell about, each 25 Kislev. What about the Maccabees and Antiochus Ephiphanes? Can we honestly separate the history, the story itself, from our cultural takeaways? If there were no Judah Maccabee and the Jewish people had indeed bowed to the Syrian Greeks in 168 BCE, what would be the disaster?
To me, those secularists who remove this true story from the holiday, those atheist Jews who only want the cultural story to win out, make this season into a morality play about survival based on theatre and not about truth. That’s not how I was raised. The purpose of telling the story is not that everyone should have religious freedom. The event, whether this one we celebrate tonight, the faithful defiant stance of the Maccabees against the governmental demands in Mod’in in what we call Israel, or the Passover story as we Jews withstood the slavery and polytheistic overlords in Egypt—all those events are real, historical and yes, have cultural takeaways.
Without the real event with real Jewish characters standing up for God and His ways, and without God intervening and sparing the few Jewish rebels, then what’s the point of teaching this as history? And if it’s not an event in history, then our story becomes as meaningful as anyone else’s story against us. If our story is only an Aesop’s fable or a disaster movie, if Hollywood could tell it as accurately or remove from it the “Based on a true story” opening, then this fiction has no substance at all. Everyone can tell a story and draw from it whatever they want. That, I aver, would be a disaster.
The truth is Antiochus had demanded total honour from his people over whom he ruled. Some Hellenized Jewish people had acceded to his demands. Mattathias Maccabee, a Judean priest, and his sons withstood that demand and especially the bowing to the idol of Antiochus as it travelled into Mod’in. They even killed a Jew as well as a Seleucid overlord there. Over in Jerusalem, some Syrian Greeks had set up an idol in the Holy Temple and sacrificed to it, even a pig was slaughtered and its blood sprinkled on the altar. When his father died, Judah Maccabee stood up and continued the rebellion against such blasphemous and hostile desecration. Finally, after three years, on 25 Kislev in 165 BCE, they purged the Greeks from the Temple and cleansed and dedicated it to the Lord. The Hebrew word “Hanukkah” means “Dedication,” and it is that whole story, based on a true story, which is worth telling and retelling, and remembering in this season and any time.
If you really want to carry this further, if that disaster had worked fully, and if there were no faithful Jews in 165 BCE, then I imagine it would have continued 200 more years. If God had not intervened and strengthened His people and caused them to repent of their idolatrous ways and turned back to Him… if God had been removed from the conversation in Greece or Rome or throughout the known world in say, -4 BCE, then there would be no Christmas story either. No wise men looking for the King of the Jews. No Jewish old people like Simeon or Anna waiting in the Temple in Jerusalem for the Hope of Israel. If there were no Hanukkah, there would be no birth of the Messiah, no shepherds in the field and angels singing “Gloria in Excelsis Deo.” Without Hanukkah there would be no Christmas.
And without Christmas there would be no cultural takeaways like the holiday lights, family gatherings, seasonal music, gift-giving, and charitable practices. Without Christmas, society might lose one of its most accessible avenues for collective empathy. The symbolic reset that occurs each year—when people reflect, give, forgive, and hope—would vanish. Disaster movies teach us that rituals and shared moments are essential not because they prevent catastrophe but because they provide meaning in the face of it.
Yes, it would be a disaster to have a world without Hanukkah and Christmas. The Jewish people would be gone like so many other ancient peoples: the Seleucids, the Hittites, the Mesopotamians, the Amorites, and the like. But worse than that, we would not have the birth of the greatest Jew who ever lived, the Saviour of the World, who was born in a village as small as Mod’in, named Bethlehem. His birth and substantial life that followed brings hope to a waiting world. Not because of family gift-giving, but because God loved the world so much that He gave His only begotten Son, so that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. Jesus laid down His life of his own volition 33 years later a cross there in Jerusalem within walking distance of the Holy Temple. That happened. It’s not a fable. It’s the true story.
What you do with that story determines your takeaways.
Do you believe it? If so, join Simeon and Anna. If you believe it, join the shepherds and angels singing. If so, join me and countless others in proclaiming “Jesus is Lord” to the glory of God the Father. Then it will be a great Hanukkah and great Christmas. The real disaster is hearing the story and thinking this is only a movie plot. Dear friend, the truth is out there. Embrace it. Believe it. Celebrate Him.
