triumph against their Roman overlords and oppressors. They wanted Israel to be vindicated, to be liberated, to taste again the freedom she had had when God brought her out of Egypt under the leadership of Moses, the event celebrated to this day in the festival of Passover. They wanted to smell again the scent of the victory that God had given them over the tyrant Antiochus Epiphanes two hundred years before the time of Jesus, the event celebrated to this day in the feast of Hanukkah. And sometimes,