In the village of Modin, a priest named Mattathias gathered his five sons and told them it was better to die for the laws of their country than to live in disgrace. When the king's officers arrived to force the village to sacrifice to idols, they asked Mattathias to go first—knowing that if the most respected man complied, everyone else would follow. He refused. But another Jew stepped forward and sacrificed willingly. Mattathias erupted. He killed the man on the spot, killed the king's general Apelles, and smashed the idol altar to pieces. "If any one be zealous for the laws of his country and for the worship of God," he shouted, "let him follow me."
He fled into the desert with his sons. Thousands followed. The Seleucid generals pursued them and attacked on Shabbat (the Sabbath), knowing the Jews would not fight. About a thousand men, women, and children suffocated in the caves rather than break the Sabbath. Mattathias then made a ruling that changed Jewish law forever: when life is at stake, you fight on Shabbat. That rule still stands today.
Mattathias died after one year, but his son Judas—called Maccabeus (המכבי, "the Hammer")—proved to be a military genius. Josephus records that the Seleucid general Apollonius marched against Judas with a combined army of Samaritans and royal troops. Judas routed them and killed Apollonius personally, taking his sword and using it for the rest of his career. General after general came—Seron, then Lysias with sixty thousand infantry and five thousand cavalry. Judas defeated them all, despite being outnumbered in every engagement.
Three years after Antiochus had desecrated the Temple, Judas and his men marched into Jerusalem. They found the sanctuary desolate—gates burned, weeds growing in the courts. They rebuilt the altar, crafted new sacred vessels, and on the twenty-fifth of Kislev (כסלו) rededicated the Temple with eight days of feasting and sacrifice. Josephus writes: "From that time to this we celebrate this festival, and call it Lights." He believed the name came from the fact that "this liberty beyond our hopes appeared to us." That festival is Hanukkah (חנוכה).