Here is my latest conversation with Rabbi Joseph Edelheit. Below is a snippet of the article which informed our discussion. Click above for the transcript of the talk. Thanks once again to all of you who have sent me your thoughts, questions, and encouragement.
Various municipalities and public institutions in North America and Britain have decided to cancel Hanukkah celebrations such as menorah lightings in their towns and cities. It's hard to blame them. They have seen how, since the Hamas massacre on the previous Jewish festival two months ago, any signs of Jews or Jewish life around them have become targets for violence and hatred. So why establish new targets?
Hanukkah this year reminds us of grim lessons we preferred to forget. Perhaps it's better for Diaspora Jews to shelter in place and relearn them. Because if we're being honest with ourselves, the story of Hanukkah is so unclear to us that we've chosen to replace it with rather bland and meaningless candles and doughnuts.
Most years, that's fine. Western society has done more or less the same is commercializing the birth of Jesus out of Christmas. There's no reason for Jews to be more precious about their winter festival. It's not like the Jewish calendar lacks for other meaningful dates.
But this isn't any other year.
Pictures of Israeli Hamas hostages appearing on a screen during the ceremony to light the Hanukkah menorah at Brandenburg Gate in Berlin on Thursday.Credit: Markus Schreiber /AP
If you visit the kibbutzim around the Gaza border and the evacuated city of Sderot, here and there you can still spot sukkahs that were built a week before the October 7 massacre, and their owners haven't been back to dismantle them. If they ever will return.
We've gotten so used to calling it the "October 7 massacre," partly because we all use the Gregorian calendar, and partly because there's something ery jarring about using the name of the festival on which it took place: Simhat Torah, or "Joy of Torah." How can we use that to note such a dark day?
Every Jew Lived the Real Story of Hanukkah This Year