Candle by candle, the Chanukah Miracle and Jewish Renewal Spread Throughout the World
JDC has a long history of supporting Jews and Jewish communities in celebrating Jewish traditions and holidays. From supplying gifts to thousands of children in DP camps in Germany post World War II to providing communities who lacked them with prayer books and ritual objects such as menorahs and candles, JDC has for decades helped to bring light and spiritual sustenance to Jews in need during Chanukah.
In addition to collaborating with local communities to provide Jewish educational programming throughout Central and Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union and elsewhere, JDC also coordinates programs such asBaby Chanukah for vulnerable mothers and their young children in Argentina to ensure that all who wish to celebrate the holiday are able to do so, irrespective of their personal or economic circumstances.
Today, the Festival of Lights is commemorated around the JDC world with myriad activities that attest to the power of fueling and rekindling the flame of Jewish life, particularly in regions of the world where that light was nearly extinguished in the past by hatred and intolerance.
To honor of the first night of Chanukah on December 26th, in Nizhni Novgorod, Russia the rabbi will light a large menorah on the main street of the town in front of the Puppet Theater, while the Jewish community of Marrakesh, Morocco will gather at the local gathering place (dedicated last year) to partake of beignets (like sufganiot, traditional Chanukah donuts) and watch the children play dreidl. Festive celebrations by Women’s Clubs and Children’s Clubs, Senior Clubs and Family Clubs, as well as gala concerts, dance performances, quiz games and scores of other programs will take place simultaneously around the JDC world.
Each candle that is lit this Chanukah is a small victory in what the esteemed Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz calls the struggle for Jewish identity. The following are his thoughts on the meaning of the holiday and JDC’s historic role in sustaining the flame of Jewish life for communities around the globe:
While the coming holiday of Chanukah has many facets, it is, in its very essence, the holiday for Jewish identity. Its war is the war of Jewish identity, and its victory is a victory for Jewish identity. All the rest about Chanukah is incidental. There are means, there are ways, there are details – but that is the basis of Chanukah. The war itself is waged in different ways. In the time of the Hasmoneans, it was a real physical war, with a fair amount of bloodshed and killing. The war today is less bloody, but not less critical. It is the same war about identity. And the enemies are, under a different guise, basically the same enemies.
Identity is not just making a choice of a certain color or a certain form of a flag. Identity means the choice for meaningful existence. When identity is lost, whatever else remains has no meaning for the Jewish people. Today’s war is being fought to sustain Jewish identity through very hard times – times in which different levels of assimilation and the results of assimilation are assaulting the Jewish people. And in this war, it now seems that the Jewish people are surely not on the winning side.
What is important in our times, as it was in former days, is that we should be aware of the truth, the true situation that lies before us. While there are many different organizations that each deal with specific aspects of Jewish life – from giving charity to raising tulips in Israel to creating Jewish racehorses and such – our main challenge is simply that the Jewish people continue to exist. Once we know that our very existence is at stake, we can on our own, and working with others, begin to find new ways to nurture Jewish identity.
The theme of Chanukah is symbolized by the story about the lamp of Chanukah, in which a small amount of oil was sufficient to give light for eight whole days. But if one takes the story from the literal to the symbolic level, Chanukah tells us that the small number of people involved, the small store of knowledge involved, even the small amount of goodwill involved – all these, when they were aroused and when the Jewish people came into some power, were enough to sustain the flame in a critical time.
However, even when the crisis passes, our work will not be finished. When the crisis is over, we will still have the task of developing, growing and sustaining Jewish identity and existence. In our time and in the times to come – when the crisis is resolved and the daily, unflagging work must go on – the JDC is an essential part of the solution.
In the last 50 years the JDC has been transformed from an organization that deals with needy Jews, in their economic hardships, into an organization that has two distinct facets. First, it is still the one – perhaps the only – Jewish organization that deals with the whole Jewish people and not just with a select segment of the people. Second, it is an organization that has evolved from focusing solely on urgent, and sometimes very urgent, material needs, into thinking about our Jewish future and the spiritual part of continuity. The JDC sustains the Jewish flame at critical times for communities around the globe.
Now, for the light of Chanukah, the miracle needs two things. On one hand, it needs oil, very real oil, to sustain the burning; that oil is now translated as money, and more money, and even more money. This is the oil that can sustain the continuous burning. But it also needs to have the fire – the ideas and the purpose which are not bought by money, and cannot be supplied by money, but are the other essential aspect of the light.
As the fire cannot burn without the oil, the oil has no meaning without the fire. A combination of these things is what can make the miracle happen, and what enables the JDC to create small miracles of its own around the world, sustaining the flame of Jewish identity.
JDC has a long history of supporting Jews and Jewish communities in celebrating Jewish traditions and holidays. From supplying gifts to thousands of children in DP camps in Germany post World War II to providing communities who lacked them with prayer books and ritual objects such as menorahs and candles, JDC has for decades helped to bring light and spiritual sustenance to Jews in need during Chanukah.
In addition to collaborating with local communities to provide Jewish educational programming throughout Central and Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union and elsewhere, JDC also coordinates programs such asBaby Chanukah for vulnerable mothers and their young children in Argentina to ensure that all who wish to celebrate the holiday are able to do so, irrespective of their personal or economic circumstances.
Today, the Festival of Lights is commemorated around the JDC world with myriad activities that attest to the power of fueling and rekindling the flame of Jewish life, particularly in regions of the world where that light was nearly extinguished in the past by hatred and intolerance.
To honor of the first night of Chanukah on December 26th, in Nizhni Novgorod, Russia the rabbi will light a large menorah on the main street of the town in front of the Puppet Theater, while the Jewish community of Marrakesh, Morocco will gather at the local gathering place (dedicated last year) to partake of beignets (like sufganiot, traditional Chanukah donuts) and watch the children play dreidl. Festive celebrations by Women’s Clubs and Children’s Clubs, Senior Clubs and Family Clubs, as well as gala concerts, dance performances, quiz games and scores of other programs will take place simultaneously around the JDC world.
Each candle that is lit this Chanukah is a small victory in what the esteemed Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz calls the struggle for Jewish identity. The following are his thoughts on the meaning of the holiday and JDC’s historic role in sustaining the flame of Jewish life for communities around the globe:
While the coming holiday of Chanukah has many facets, it is, in its very essence, the holiday for Jewish identity. Its war is the war of Jewish identity, and its victory is a victory for Jewish identity. All the rest about Chanukah is incidental. There are means, there are ways, there are details – but that is the basis of Chanukah. The war itself is waged in different ways. In the time of the Hasmoneans, it was a real physical war, with a fair amount of bloodshed and killing. The war today is less bloody, but not less critical. It is the same war about identity. And the enemies are, under a different guise, basically the same enemies.
Identity is not just making a choice of a certain color or a certain form of a flag. Identity means the choice for meaningful existence. When identity is lost, whatever else remains has no meaning for the Jewish people. Today’s war is being fought to sustain Jewish identity through very hard times – times in which different levels of assimilation and the results of assimilation are assaulting the Jewish people. And in this war, it now seems that the Jewish people are surely not on the winning side.
What is important in our times, as it was in former days, is that we should be aware of the truth, the true situation that lies before us. While there are many different organizations that each deal with specific aspects of Jewish life – from giving charity to raising tulips in Israel to creating Jewish racehorses and such – our main challenge is simply that the Jewish people continue to exist. Once we know that our very existence is at stake, we can on our own, and working with others, begin to find new ways to nurture Jewish identity.
The theme of Chanukah is symbolized by the story about the lamp of Chanukah, in which a small amount of oil was sufficient to give light for eight whole days. But if one takes the story from the literal to the symbolic level, Chanukah tells us that the small number of people involved, the small store of knowledge involved, even the small amount of goodwill involved – all these, when they were aroused and when the Jewish people came into some power, were enough to sustain the flame in a critical time.
However, even when the crisis passes, our work will not be finished. When the crisis is over, we will still have the task of developing, growing and sustaining Jewish identity and existence. In our time and in the times to come – when the crisis is resolved and the daily, unflagging work must go on – the JDC is an essential part of the solution.
In the last 50 years the JDC has been transformed from an organization that deals with needy Jews, in their economic hardships, into an organization that has two distinct facets. First, it is still the one – perhaps the only – Jewish organization that deals with the whole Jewish people and not just with a select segment of the people. Second, it is an organization that has evolved from focusing solely on urgent, and sometimes very urgent, material needs, into thinking about our Jewish future and the spiritual part of continuity. The JDC sustains the Jewish flame at critical times for communities around the globe.
Now, for the light of Chanukah, the miracle needs two things. On one hand, it needs oil, very real oil, to sustain the burning; that oil is now translated as money, and more money, and even more money. This is the oil that can sustain the continuous burning. But it also needs to have the fire – the ideas and the purpose which are not bought by money, and cannot be supplied by money, but are the other essential aspect of the light.
As the fire cannot burn without the oil, the oil has no meaning without the fire. A combination of these things is what can make the miracle happen, and what enables the JDC to create small miracles of its own around the world, sustaining the flame of Jewish identity.
December 2005
