Hersh’s Hanukkah Lights

Rachel Goldberg-Polin, writing about watching the video of her murdered son lighting Hanukkah candles as a hostage in a tunnel in Gaza, says she felt many disparate emotions. However, what the candle flames themselves conveyed was hope: “Hope! It’s not a suggestion, or advice. It is a command.”

In the wake of the Sydney Hanukah massacre, dare we hope? With so much of the world arrayed against us, dare we hope? With antisemitism spiking in Australia, France, England, Canada, and the world of social media, dare we hope?

Israel’s national anthem is called, “HaTikvah, the Hope.” Hope is integral to the soul of a Jew.

Hope is integral to the soul of a Jew.

Words my cousin Leah once said to me are emblematic of hope. Leah grew up in a religious Jewish family in Communist Russia. They lit Shabbat candles behind heavy curtains and Leah, a budding concert pianist who was required to go to school on Shabbat, used to tell her teacher (every week) that she couldn’t write that day (a violation of Shabbat) because her hand hurt, and it would harm her piano playing. Leah’s family yearned for the freedom to practice Judaism, but the government refused their application to leave. So for years they waited and hoped.

On Passover of 1964, the government informed them they had permission to leave for the U.S. They got on the plane that very day. Decades later Leah told me: “We are Jews. We hope.”

The Basis of Jewish Hope

What is Jewish hope based on? Our hope is not like sports fans hoping their team will win, nor like an investor hoping his investment will make him rich.

Our hope is based on our conviction that there is a God who controls history and intervenes in history for our benefit. When God introduced Himself at Mt. Sinai to the Jewish People, God said: “I am the Lord your God Who took you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.” This is the first of the Ten Commandments.

While it seems like a statement more than a commandment, our Sages taught that this is the commandment to believe in a God who intervenes in history and in our individual lives for our benefit.

In a random universe, hope is no more than wishful thinking. But in a purposeful universe directed by God, who has promised that the Jewish People is eternal and will return to its land, hope is the natural outgrowth of belief in God.

When Evil Wins

Because human beings have free will to choose between good and evil, evil sometimes wins. Evil won this past Sunday on Bondi Beach in Sydney. Evil won on October 7, 2023, when Hamas invaded Israel and murdered, raped, and kidnapped 253 innocent people. Evil won between 140-138 BCE, when the Seleucid Greeks who ruled the land of Israel attempted to wipe out Judaism.

King Antiochus IV forbade, on pain of death, circumsion, Shabbat, Jewish holidays, and the study of Torah. Jewish women who allowed their sons to be circumcised were killed with their sons tied around their necks. Jews who refused to eat pork or sacrifice hogs were tortured to death. The invincible Greek empire ruled the known world and the Jews were a small, vanquished people. What hope was possible?

Yet, because there is a God who intervenes in history for our benefit, the victory of evil, however painful, is always temporary. In 138 BCE, an untrained, ill-equipped family of priests and their cohort, whom history calls the Maccabees, miraculously vanquished the mighty Greek army. It took three years of fighting to reclaim the Temple in Jerusalem, the source of the holiday of Hanukah, and another 22 years of fighting until the Greeks were completely banished from Israel. Human effort is vital in actualizing Divine promises. However, the unlikely victory of “the weak over the strong, the few over the many” is a testament to the Divine hand in history.

Gaza, Bondi Beach, and the Future

In a Hamas tunnel in Gaza, six young hostages-- Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Carmel Gat, Eden Yerushalmi, Almog Sarusi, Or Danino and Alex Lubanov—lit Hanukah candles, said the blessings, and sang Moaz Tzur, the traditional song attesting to God’s salvation in different periods of persecution throughout Jewish history. The hostages were starved and tortured, and the filming was staged by their captors.

However, as Hersh’s mother Rachel wrote: “Seeing these young, vibrant, and luminous Jews keeping alive their over-2,000-year-old tradition of lighting Hanukkah candles, even when in the bowels of hell on earth, you cannot help but feel something.”

Rachel suggests that what the captives themselves felt in the flames of the Hanukkah candles was hope. “Hanukkah teaches us there is light. Even in the darkest of times and the most upside-down of places.”

This week, as we bury the dead of the Sydney massacre, Jews throughout the world will be lighting Hanukkah candles. Our tears will not extinquish the tiny flames. For the Hanukkah lights attest to our faith that light ultimately triumphs over darkness because God keeps His promises to the Jewish People.