A Special Chanukah Note from the Rabbi

Dear Friends:

Chanukah is supposed to be a joyous festival but we began Chanukah with so much sadness. In Bondi, Australia (suburban Sydney) two assailants opened fire on a public Chanukah celebration. At least 15 people were killed and dozens more injured. Among those murdered were two Chabad rabbis, a ten year old girl, a Holocaust survivor, and a 27 year old French Jewish IT administrator living and working temporarily in the Sydney area.

The Sydney massacre was the worst attack on Diaspora Jewry in years, surpassing the eleven killed and six wounded at the Tree of Life Synagogue in 2018. News of the Bondi attack came while Americans were following the situation unfolding in Providence, RI, where two students had been murdered while attending a study session at Brown University. This was of course only the latest of so many mass shootings here in our own country. A “person of interest” was arrested and then determined not to be the shooter -- who apparently is still on the loose.

And then this morning we woke to news that beloved director and actor Rob Reiner and his wife Michele were murdered in their Los Angeles home. Their son has been arrested and charged with the murder. Rob and Michele Reiner were both Jewish, and while they were not particularly involved in the Jewish community their work often evinced a Jewish social and cultural sensibility -- who can forget Estelle Reiner, Rob’s mother, saying “I’ll have what she’s having” at Katz’s Delicatessen on the Lower East Side?

On a personal note, it is shocking and devastating to see familiar places turned into crime scenes. From July through September 1985, I interned at a very large synagogue in Sydney. I lived in a studio apartment in Bondi, which is the heart of the Jewish community with many synagogues, Judaica shops, and kosher restaurants, caterers, bakeries, and markets. And when Keleigh and I lived in Norwich, CT, we were about an hour away from Providence and would often go there for a day of shopping, Italian food in Federal Hill or a basketball game.

One of the most popular terms for Chanukah is the “festival of light” and we are called upon to increase light in the world as much as we can. In the Talmud there is a debate between the Schools of Shammai and Hillel about how we light the Chanukiyah, also known as the Chanuka Menorah. The school of Shammai says we start with eight candles and decrease by one daily. There is logic to this position since with the miracle of the oil, there would have remained less oil each day than the day before. But the School of Hillel says we start with one candle and add another each day, because we increase holiness (and light) in the world, we don’t decrease it. And this is the practice we follow.

The murderers in Sydney were two Muslim men of Pakistani origin, a father and son, motivated according to Australia’s Prime Minister by an “extremist ideology” which is a “perversion of Islam.” Certainly there are many Muslims who have been raised and educated to hate Jews. But many of you have seen the video of a brave man who happened to be in the area who rushed one of the shooters, took away his gun, and directed the police to where he was arrested. This hero, Ahmed el Ahmed, is also Muslim. He was shot, injured, and remains in the hospital because of his brave acts which saved many Jewish lives. Ahmed el Ahmed, a Syrian immigrant who owns a small fruit shop in Bondi, increased the light in the world.

There is an Israeli Chanukah song called “Banu Choshech L’garesh” which means “We Have Come to Chase Away the Darkness.” It’s a simple song with a profound message:

We have come to chase away the darkness.

In our hands are light and fire

Each individual light is small

But together they make a mighty light.

Away, darkness and night --

Flee before the light.

Each one of us is only a small light, but together we can be a mighty light.

Because of yesterday’s icy conditions our Chanukah party was postponed by one week and will be held next Sunday, Dec. 21, the night that we light eight candles. Even if you had not planned to join us before, I hope you will now choose to do so. 

I want to assure you, first of all, that the Montgomery County Police Department has been in touch with the leaders of the Jewish community and will be increasing its attention to synagogues and other Jewish institutions; and second, that there will be a police presence for our Chanukah party. So please join us to show that we are not afraid and that we will increase the light as much as we can.

As Peter, Paul, and Mary sang:

Don’t let the light go out,

It’s lasted for so many years.

Don’t let the light go out, 

Let it shine through our love and our tears.

With wishes for a Happy Chanukah, despite everything ---

Rabbi Charles L. Arian