Hebrews and Hellenes, the Philosopher Peoples

That which is most beautiful in the descendents of Japheth is Greek; may it reside in the tents of Shem.
- Rav Hiya bar Abba

Unfortunately, Chanukah celebrations sometimes include denunciations of Hellenism. Must Hebraism and Hellenism be rivals? I am sympathetic with Philo, Alexandrian Jewish philosopher and intellectual ancestor of Western Jews. Lev Shestov describes Philo's position as follows:
Philo, who first tried to make Western man participate in the revelation of the East, felt quite rightly that there was only one means of drawing the Greco-Roman world to the truth of the Bible: to prove that this truth was in perfect agreement with the doctrines of Greek wisdom. . . . The logos of Greek philosophy, its eternal reason, is already completely contained in the revelation given to the Jewish people on Mount Sinai.

Numenius of Apamea asks, "What is Plato but Moses speaking Attic Greek?" Believing "those who speculate about a solitary divinity must be philosophers by nature," Aristotle's school considers Jews to be "the philosophers among the Syrians." The great Western Jew Benjamin Disraeli returns the favour, implying the Hellenes are to the Aryans as the Hebrews are to the Semites:
The Aryan and the Semite are of the same blood and origin, but when they quitted their central land they were ordained to follow opposite courses. Each division of the great race has developed one portion of the double nature of humanity, till after all their wanderings they met again, and, represented by their two choicest families, the Hellenes and the Hebrews, brought together the treasures of their accumulated wisdom and secured the civilisation of man.

This Chanukah, don't let the depravations of Antiochus distort the memory of Jewish-Hellenic accord. May Greeks and Jews, the great philosopher peoples, light the menorah of Enlightenment together!

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