December 2025 Unauthorized Miracles: How Judaism Learned to Love Its Outlaws

Here is a story about Hanukah I bet you’ve never heard, maybe for good reason!

It’s about a Jewish woman named Judith; she lives in an ancient Israeli village called Betulia.
And Betulia is about to be conquered by a cruel general named Holofernes.
Bethulia has been under siege by Holofernes’ army for 34 days. The army has cut off the town’s
water supply. People are fainting from thirst. Children are dying. The situation is desperate.

The Ultimatum: The Jews come to the town leaders (Uzziah and the elders) and say: “We can’t
take this anymore. Better to surrender and become slaves than watch our children die of thirst.
If you don’t surrender, we’ll open the gates ourselves and hand the town over.”

Uzziah’s Compromise: The leader Uzziah makes a deal with the town: “Give God five more
days. If the Lord doesn’t deliver us within five days, we’ll do as you say and surrender.” It’s an
ultimatum to God – save us in five days or we’re done.

Judith’s Outrage: When Judith hears about this five-day deadline, she’s furious.
She summons the elders to her house and tears into them: “Who are you to test God? Who are
you to put the Almighty on a deadline? You don’t put conditions on the Lord of heaven and
earth!”
But she also has a plan. She tells them: “I’m going to do something that will save Israel. Don’t
ask me what it is. Just let me go.”

The Timeline: Judith leaves that very night. She spends three days in the enemy camp winning
Holofernes’ trust. On the fourth night, she kills him.
She returns before the five days are up – saving her people just before they would have
surrendered.

What does this have to do with anything? With Hanukah?

It is a stunning example of the radicalness of Jewish tradition, especially our tradition as “the
People of the Book.”
Why?
By the 8th Century, approximately, the rabbis / leaders of the time do a completely unexpected
mash up.

They import Judith into Hanukah.
Judith becomes the daughter of High Priest Rabbi Yochanan, Yehudit bat Yohanan.
There are prayers / poems mentioning Judith along with the Maccabbees.
The tradition of eating cheese is firmly planted in Ashekenazi communities.
Megillat Yehudit emerges as a formal text read on Hanukah.
Judith is now basically a Maccabbee!

We can ask the question: how could they?
But I’m actually more interested in: why would they?

What was missing that the rabbis of the medieval period reach back into a narrative that’s not
even in the Torah, a violent one at that, and add it to the Hanukah saga?

First, I believe that they did it because they could.
They were demonstrating the elasticity of Jewish tradition.
There is a canon of biblical texts, and there are external texts, apocryphal – meaning hidden /
secret texts – and they too have a place in our traditions.
The scholars of the time said: “Ooh – this is a great story, it’s going to get lost if we don’t add to
our rituals in some way. Let’s not forget about Judith. We need her here in the Hanukah
narrative.

Second, she teaches us that resistance takes many forms.
The Maccabees show us the courage of the battlefield. Judith shows us the courage of the one
who walks alone into the lion’s den. Both are holy. Both are necessary. Both kindle light in the
darkness.

Third, she reminds us that God works through the unexpected.
Judith teaches: God’s deliverance can come through a widow with a bag of cheese. The last
becomes first. The powerless become powerful. The mourner becomes the warrior.
Lastly, women’s stories, different modes of courage, are valued.
The Maccabbees represent the military might, the victory of the sword. Judith represents the
victory of wit, bravery and inner strength.
How incredible that the medieval rabbis realized this element was missing and made this
correction!

This is Judaism at its most audacious, most creative, most alive.
Eight hundred years after the events, our leaders said:
“The boundaries of Hanukah are not fixed. The canon of meaning is not closed.
We can reach back into the apocrypha, pull out a hero who lived in a different time, a different
struggle, and say: She belongs here too.”

Our ancestors took a story from outside the canon and made it sacred. They moved it across
time. They changed its details. They created new rituals around it. And they did all of this in
service of a deeper truth that our tradition must be big enough to hold all of us, all our forms of
courage, all our ways of bringing light into darkness.

Our tradition is alive precisely because it refuses to stay fixed. Every generation has the power
and the responsibility to engage authentically, to notice what’s missing, to bring forward what’s
been hidden, and to create new light for our world.