Maoz Tsur as sung in its most widespread traditional tune is unlike anything else in the modern liturgy of Orthodox Judaism. 

A quick Google search will teach you that it carries a piece of a religious call to (Christian) prayer by the great Bach. And perhaps an old military march as well.  

But let’s be fully honest. It is as close to a Christmas carol as they come. And yet it got a foot in the door and is here to stay. 

Is it scandalous? Maybe not. 

The holiday of Chanukah commemorates a historic battle and a  miracle menorah.  

But it has a religious message to our community. The ancient Hellenistic Greeks and their culture are long gone, but there remains a continued struggle for the Jew to retain his faith in the face of cultural pressures. In the free world, we are beckoned to melt into the host society and leave our religion at the door. Chanukah reminds us that we have Divine wisdom and the Divine spark. It reminds us to celebrate the soul in the face of the Greek worship of the human form. 

But after we have rejected the ills of society, we have been told by the Torah itself that beauty is the endowment of Yefeth, the father of all that is Greek.  

In fact, the rabbis of the Talmud, who lived at a time when Greek culture was still dominant, taught that a Sefer Torah may be written in Greek letters. That is the only language that we may transliterate the Torah with. 

“The beauty of Yefeth shall dwell in the tents of Shem” is the rabbinic term that they derive from Noch’a prophecy. 

It seems that Yefeth was given the gift of the arts. And not in a passing way, I would suggest, but that their take on art and design would endure. So that today we still celebrate their architecture (every federal building in this country is designed after the Greek-inspired Roman edifices), as well as their literature, language, philosophy, and theatre. I would even suggest that modes of art and architecture that are not Greek may only be offshoots of their grandiose ideas in designing. Meaning to say, that perhaps the beautification of a structure may not have become a “thing” if not for their elaborate edifices.  

The rabbis saw that beauty- even of Greek origin- has value, and can even be employed in the service of Hashem.  

To this day many shuls have pillars as part of the aron hakodesh. (Lately, it has become a shtick to make the Aron resemble the art on the shaar blatt of the Vilna Shas- which itself was drawn by a non-Jew.) 

So let’s be honest. Maoz Tzur is a churchy song that we have adopted, and it makes Chanukah beautiful and meaningful. Perhaps it takes away the pining we all have to hum the jingles we hear each year in the department stores. And, at the same time, it is a welcome break from all the rest of the standard nigunim of today that are Chasidic in inspiration.