Guest Columnist for the President’s Column

We welcome David Loewenberg as our columnist this issue for the President’s Column.

Fellow congregants,

I am writing this note a week before we light the first Chanukah candles.  For many of us the Festival of Lights means family gatherings, latkes, presents, and, of course, lighting candles and reciting the blessings of the holiday.  While holding all of the happiness and joy of Hanukah, I am reminded, daily, that more than 100 families will light candles for a second Hanukah in a row with their family member or members still in captivity in Gaza.  (As of this writing, negotiations are ongoing but without any announced resolution.)  So, how might we balance our joy and still feel solidarity with our extended family in Israel?

In one sense, this is a standard Jewish question.  We break a glass under the wedding huppah to remind ourselves of the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem, and that even in moments of great joy we need to remember the fragility of life.  We drop wine or grape juice during the Passover Seder because, as we recite the ten plagues, we remind ourselves not to gloat over the misfortune suffered by our oppressors.

So, what might we do during Chanukah?  Rabbi Gavriella Konsgold of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles reminds us that families have different approaches to lighting the hanukkiah*; some families light a single hanukkiah for the whole family and other families insist that each family member light his/her/their own hanukkiah.  Rabbi Kornsgold suggests that it is permissible to light an extra hanukkiah for those who can’t.  Ask yourself, says Rabbi Kornsgold, “how do you want to bring light into a moment of darkness?”  As long as you don’t say the blessings a second time, you are free to light a second hanukkiah to bring more light, and to remember those who can’t light at all.

My family and I adopted this custom last year and, sadly, we will do so again this year.  (We are a family where everyone gets to light their own hanukkiah.)  If you feel comfortable doing so, and you bought enough extra candles, give it a try and see how you feel, holding two emotions at once.  It’s a small act, but I feel that it sparks a powerful emotion.  As we approach the winter solstice, the darkest day of the year, I am thinking of the words of a modern Israeli Hanukah song called “Banu Choshech Legaresh”/”We came to drive away the darkness”, the first verse translates this way:

We came to drive away the darkness,
In our hands is light and fire.
Everyone’s a small light,
And together all of us are a strong light.

Whatever you do this Chanukah, and however you celebrate, I wish you and yours a meaningful Festival of Lights.  Chag Urim Sameach!  Happy Chanukah!

*Some people say we light the menorah, but I choose the modern word hanukkiah to separate it from the menorah that stood in the Temple in Jerusalem.