Light in the darkness

Chanukah is one of my favorite holidays. While it’s considered a minor festival on the Jewish calendar, the Festival of Lights celebrates our values that our most core to who we are: light, resilience, and hope. 

In my home, my family lights a beautiful, modern marble  chanukiah  that my husband and I received as a wedding gift. But we also light a second  chanukiah  that isn’t aesthetically beautiful like the other. Rather, it’s a bare-bones menorah made from rusty nails. 

You see, my cousins passed this ritual object down to us from a Holocaust survivor who was a metalsmith by trade and had covertly welded the menorah from spare nails while living in a concentration camp.

Even during one of the darkest hours the world has ever known, this man, as brave as a Maccabee, refused to give way to the darkness, and still managed to ignite the light.

Since the end of the  Shoah  and the birth of the modern State of Israel, these last two months have been the darkest the Jewish people have seen.

As we fumble our way through the darkness, we must remind ourselves that our people have always–miraculously–managed to kindle the light, even in the darkest of times. In that great miracle that happened there, the Maccabees managed to kindle the light. And during the Holocaust, this metalsmith, against all odds, found a way to kindle the light.

Today, too, we can spot glimpses of light in all this darkness.

In the last two months, we have witnessed so many people, Jewish people and our allies, who continue to ignite a spark in the dark.

Not long ago, Jewish Chicago magazine put out a call for readers to share their stories of light, and our inboxes lit up like–well–the eighth night of Chanukah. So many people have wanted to help in any way they can. Just a handful of examples:

A 9-year-old boy empties the contents of his piggy bank into an envelope to send to Israel.

Day school students sell things they made-bracelets, cookies, hot chocolate, and more-to raise money for Israel.

Moms raise $20,000 in one week to send pizzas to Israelis, so they wouldn’t have to worry about dinner.

Non-Jews stand in solidarity with their Jewish neighbors by affixing mezuzahs to their doorposts, so their Jewish friends don’t fear for their safety by standing alone as self-identified Jews.

We’ve also witnessed the heroism of people on that terrible day, like the Arab Bedouin resident of Israel who risked his own life saving 30 attendees from the Nova dance party.

Let’s face it: Throughout 4,000 years of Jewish history, our people have faced a lot of darkness. But throughout those same millennia, we also always find a way to kindle the light.

Somehow, through so much peril, persecution, and darkness–the Jewish people are still shining bright. Through it all, the light of the Jewish people endures and glows.

Wishing you a Chanukah full of light.