There's a popular joke that every Jewish holiday can be summed up as "They tried to kill us, we won, let's eat." It's an aphorism that's especially apt for the two rabbinic holidays on the Jewish calendar, Purim and Hanukkah, which we’re currently celebrating. In the Purim story, Haman wished to kill all the Jews in the Persian Empire, and was foiled by a miraculous turn of events. Similarly, in the story of Hanukkah, the king of the Seleucid Empire, Antiochus IV Epiphanes, ordered the Jews to abandon their faith for Hellenistic ideals, but the Maccabees mounted a successful revolt and restored traditional religious practices to Judea.