A beautiful Jew. No designer house, no fancy car, no membership at the club. His essence is beautiful. The Babylonians, the Persians, like so many oppressors, tried to create a vacuum where the Jewish people stood. But those nations eventually disappeared into the very emptiness of their own design.
Darkness seeks endless expansion across the vast breadth and depth of history.
Our sages identify this primeval darkness as a foreshadowing of the Greek culture. More than annihilation, infiltration. They didn't torch the Temple, they redecorated. They didn't spill the oil, they 'touched' it. For the Greeks, a ruined Israel was an imperfect victory.