Dedicated to Difference

I heard a radio commentator today try to shoehorn Chanukah in with Christmas by saying something like "I wish you and your children the values represented by the holiday you celebrate." I wondered then. Everyone knows the values Christmas represents because there are songs galore we all know that enshrine them-- good will to men, etc. So what ARE the values Chanukah represents? I guess I know that, but don't say it so much.
Chanukah has come to mean, ironically, keeping up the with Smiths, because you don't want to feel left out or let your kids feel left out. This is ironic mostly because what Chanukah REALLY represents is that one needs to embrace his own difference.
The word "Chanukah" means "dedication," and it commemorates the amazing military victory of a small group of ragged rebels, the Macabees, against the mighty army of Syrian Hellanists arrayed against them, soldiers of King Antiochus, a convert to the Greek worship of the gods of Olympus.
We all know that there's no one more zealous than a convert, so Antiochus decreed that the Jews had to convert too, or die. So he forced them to do that. And some went along willingly, even doing everything they could to erase the difference embodied in their flesh, undergoing painful operations to undo or disguise their circumcisions.
But the Macabees defied that, and that's what the holiday represents now, something we need to remember when people have turned against the right of gay people to marry, for example. People need to flaunt their difference, to celebrate it in the face of overwhelming odds. To be proud of it.
And that's a value that we don't hear out there very often.