CHANUKAH 5786 Sec. E, P20
This year, a visceral Chanukah
The little Chanukah candles make a statement: Jews stand up to anti-Semites, be they outside a New York City synagogue, in Gaza, in a London synagogue or anywhere else.
These little candles are to be stationed our front window or even outside on the porch (in a perforated metal and glass container) — for all to see.
We light the Chanukah candles with pride and defiance this year. We stand up for our Jewish identity and remind ourselves that in antiquity we also went to war to defend our land and our integrity.
Chanukah is about more than “religious freedom.” It is about the right of Jews to an independent Jewish homeland.
By the simple act of lighting candles (or oil in wicks), we are invoking all of the Israelis who lost their lives in southern Israel and Gaza that we may live. The small fires of Chanukah candles recall other fires, too, the horrible fires kindled by evil people to burn Jews to death and their homes to the ground in southernIsrael, Oct. 7, 2023. We also summon the images of wounded Israelis, many of them amputated, other mentally wounded, now dotting the streets of Israel.
Yes, our Chanukah candles this year are visceral. They are also impressive because they illuminate a sliver of hope. There is a ceasefire in Gaza, but there is no cessation of attacks on Israel and no disarmament of Hamas. Trump promises it, but he has no plan. Even so, we allow ourselves amidst the pain and horror of these past two years a sliver of hope. That, too, is seen in the flickering Chanukah candles.
The blessing we recite upon lighting the Chanukah candles cites the “miracles performed in those days, in this season.” Indeed so. No less, we recall the miracles performed before our very eyes — the decimation of Hezbollah, the destruction in Iran, the deaths of thousands of terrorists in Gaza.
To be sure these victories protecting the Jewish people can at a terrible price for innocents. We mourn those losses, too, as we gaze at the flickering Chanukah candles, even as we realize: It was them or us — and Israel didn’t start these wars. The pain of the death of innocents is on all of us, but the moral onus is on the warmakers.
True enough, Chanukah is a festive time. Latkes. Parties. Family gatherings. Jelly donuts. We believe that permeating all of the festivity this year will be an appropriate seriousness, a renewed focus on what Chanukah means: the rejection of Hellenist-style assimilation, the acknowledgement of the centrality of the ancient Holy Temple in Jerusalem — duly rededicated on that ancient, first Chanukah.
Jews live in the past, in the present and in the future. This is felt powerfully on Passover. This year, it will also be felt on Chanukah. We are the eternal people. Our visceral losses over these past two years also point to the losses we sustained in the past and the Messianic hope we have for the future.
Look at those burning Chanukah candles. They speak! They tell the Jewish story.
© IJN 2025
