Terror Will Not Extinguish the Light of Hanukkah
Hanukkah began this year with a massacre in Sydney, Australia. As Jews around the world awoke this morning with excitement over the impending start of the holiday later in the day, we were greeted with the heartrending news of a mass-shooting at the public menorah lighting in Bondi Beach which left 11 dead.
We are no strangers to holidays marked and marred with tragedy. A Yom Kippur stabbing here, a Passover shooting there, a Simchas Torah massacre, and now Hanukkah. They seem to like to go after us when we’re celebrating. How dare we peacefully commemorate our holy days!
They want us to be afraid. That’s terrorism’s goal – to make us cower and quake. Not just Jews. It’s always the Jews first, but it never ends with us. This will stop only when we come together, all of us, and remember that we are all one human family, all children of God.
In 1993, there was an outbreak of white supremacist violence in Billings, Montana. When Hanukkah came, a brick was thrown through the window of a young Jewish boy who had a menorah in his window. Days later, a church leader suggested that his congregants put images of menorahs in their windows. The Billings Gazette printed an image of a menorah in the paper, and though there were only 150 Jews in the town, suddenly 10,000 homes had menorahs proudly displayed in their windows.
This evening, and throughout the eight days ahead, there will be public menorah lightings in cities around the country and the world. The message is simple – light is stronger than darkness. That is not just a Jewish message, it is relevant to every one of us. There are those who want to divide and conquer us, but when we are united – when we allow the identical light that exists within all of us to radiate and coalesce – they will be unsuccessful.
Be brave. Be a peace maker. Push back against darkness. Happy Hanukkah!
— Pnei Hashem is an introduction to the deepest depths of the human experience based on the esoteric teachings of Torah. www.pneihashem.com
