Shehecheyanu
As I write these lines tonight, Jews around the world light the first candle of Hanukkah, the feast of lights and miracles.
A commemoration that is usually celebrated with joy. Just like it should have been Simcha Torah on that painful October 7, 2023.
Once again instead of celebrating we lament, cry, and get angry.
The time difference allowed those of us who live on this side of Greenwich to debate again whether when our nighttime arrives we celebrate or if we mourn.
Again, the answer is WE DO BOTH.
We will light our candles, we will celebrate the victory of light over darkness, literally and symbolically, we will continue to remember and believe in miracles.
That is the muscle that we have been training for more than 2000 years, and we will not stop doing it. No matter what or who.
On Hanukkah we celebrate the victory of the few over the many.
Over the centuries, our sages have made the narrative of the miracle of the oil and the spiritual strength prevail over the military action, and the truth is that it was the military action what allowed the victory.
It was the impulse of a few who refused to let themselves be defeated by those who held power. The audacity, the courage, the bravery to begin that battle carrying the sword of freedom and the right to Be.
There was also internal discord at that time, as there was a dissident group that believed that it was better to assimilate into the glorious Greek culture and fade into it.
Rabbi. Yerahmiel Barylka masterfully explains this concept in his latest book, Illuminando Januca (Illuminating Hanukka), pointing out that what bothered the Greeks, and so many others along history, was the decision of the Jews to be different.
It was the concept of otherness that made them uncomfortable.
It seems that in every era our right to belong and at the same time to respect and preserve our identity was and is seen as an attack.
Throughout history, Jews have been concerned with sustaining and transmitting our traditions, customs and stories, maintaining that eternal flame that vibrates within us from generation to generation, but without being proselytizers about it.
We do not look for followers and that is the paradox, considering that those who in the name of who knows what elevated truth or what particular G-d have went across centuries forcing everyone else to be uniform.
We just want to be who we are, anywhere in the world. With freedom and security.
It seems to be a little thing to ask for, and yet we continue to pay a very high price over and over again.
Everything is so twisted that, as we need to continue explaining and justifying ourselves just for BEING, it was also necessary today to highlight that the one who put his life at stake to disarm one of the terrorists, being wounded on the way was Arab and Muslim.
I long for the day when it would be enough to say that anyone with a sense of justice and compassion did the right thing in the face of an irrational and terrorist attack.
However, in the madness we live in today, the label made the gesture worth double.
If I had to ask for a miracle today, it would be to be able to tell these stories without labels.
To be able to say that in the face of an aberrant and unjust act (which I wish did not even happen) good men and women step up to defend those who are attacked, regardless of religion, skin color, place of birth or social class of one or the other.
Maybe John Lennon’s wishes resonate in my mind today, only a couple of days after the anniversary of his also absurd death, and I Imagine that such a world is possible.
This morning, in the shock of the news, a dear friend asked me what tools I found, if any, within our tradition to navigate the anger and frustration that I feel in these situations.
My answer is to continue choosing life, being resilient, to keep on explaining tirelessly who we are, what we do, to defend our rights as individuals to live in peace anywhere in the world, without labels and to defend the right of the Jewish People to live in the ancestral land with which we are connected. To be a free people in our homeland, Eretz Tzion ve Ierushalaim.
One of the ways to do this is to proudly light my candles, put them in the window and praise Hashem for the miracles He made for our ancestors, in those days in our time.
Chag Chanuka Sameach.
May the light once again illuminate the darkness by removing the veils of evil, falsehood and injustice so that we can all live free and open, being who we are without much further explanation or excuse.
I finish like almost every text I wrote in these past two years.
Am Yisrael Chai. No matter what.
Vicky Ludmer
December 14, 2025 – 25 of Kislev 5786
