Rabbi’s Update 12/19/25

Dear Friends:

Tomorrow morning I will discuss three different contemporary sources that deal with the question of why Chanukah is eight days. Your automatic response to that question will probably be “because the flask that had enough oil for one day lasted eight” but if there was enough oil for one day, the first day was not really miraculous. Only the next seven days were the product of a miracle and therefore the holiday should really only be seven days.

Rabbi Laura Geller writes: “What is the real miracle of Chanukah? It is the miracle of human courage that empowers us to take risks for the future even in our imperfect, uncertain world. It is the courage, even in the darkest of times, to create our own light.”

David French had an important article in the New York Times yesterday discussing the courage shown by Ahmed el Ahmed and by the Jewish couple Boris and Sofia Gurman in attempting to disarm the gunmen who perpetrated the Bondi Beach Chanukah massacre on Sunday. (The link in this paragraph is a gift link and you should be able to read the article without hitting a paywall.) Ahmed el Ahmed was shot and wounded and the Gurmans were both among the fifteen who were killed.

French writes, correctly in my opinion, that courage is sadly lacking in American society today. He writes that “the presence of evil doesn’t break people. From a young age, we learn that there are wolves in our midst. It is the absence of courage that plunges us into crisis. Great courage can help redeem a catastrophe. But abject cowardice not only magnifies our pain; it makes us doubt the strength and virtue of our nation and culture.” What is it about our society that we have such a courage deficit? What can we do to develop the habit of courage? How can you personally demonstrate courage in our current reality?

Tonight begins the Shabbat of Chanukah and so I wanted to update you on a few matters of proper Shabbat observance during Chanukah.

This evening (actually late afternoon because Shabbat starts so early) we light the Chanukah candles prior to the Shabbat candles. Shabbat starts at 4:30 and the Chanukah candles should be lit before then. The reason that we light the Chanukah candles first is that once we have lit the Shabbat candles, Shabbat has begun and it is no longer permitted to light the Chanukah candles.

Tomorrow night we follow the reverse procedure; we light the Havdalah candle and say Havdalah and only then do we light the Chanukah candles. The reasoning is similar; since we cannot light the Chanukah candles during Shabbat, we must formally end Shabbat and then light the Chanukah candles.

Tomorrow morning is one of those rare occasions when most synagogues read from three Torah scrolls because it is both the Shabbat of Chanukah and Rosh Chodesh. For the last several years we have not been following the traditional procedure and we read only the weekly reading from the Torah scroll and any additional readings from a printed text. If we followed the traditional procedure  we would read the first six aliyot from the first scroll (with the normal sixth and seventh readings combined as number six). For the seventh aliyah we would do the Rosh Chodesh reading from the second scroll and then as Maftir, the reading for the sixth day of Chanukah from a third scroll.  We read the Rosh Chodesh reading before the Chanukah reading because of the principle of tadir v’she’aino tadir, tadir kodem -- things we do more frequently take precedence over things we do less frequently. We have twelve (or thirteen in a leap year) occasions of Rosh Chodesh in a year but only one Chanukah, so Rosh Chodesh takes precedence.

While the Federal government has reopened, if you or someone you know is in need because of having been laid off, or has lost benefits of some type and needs immediate help, please let me know. I can access limited funds through the Jewish Federation almost immediately. For longer-term help, the Hebrew Free Loan Society will loan up to $18,000 interest-free and the Jewish Federation has set up a hotline to access assistance at 703-JCARING.

As a reminder, I am having drop-in hours on Thursday afternoons from 2 to 4 at the shul. For my drop-in hours, you do not need to make an appointment -- that would negate the whole point of drop-in hours -- but I’d urge you to check and make sure I am there regardless as sometimes there are unavoidable pastoral or other emergencies which might take me away from the building. There will be no drop-in hours or Adult Education on December 25 or January 1 due to civil holidays.

As always, if I can do anything for you or you need to talk, please contact me at rabbi@kehilatshalom.org rather than through the synagogue office. I am happy to meet you at the synagogue by appointment; if you want to speak with me it’s best to make an appointment rather than assuming I will be there when you stop by. 

Additionally, if you know of a Kehilat Shalom congregant or another member of our Jewish community who could use a phone call, please let me know.

L’shalom,

Rabbi Charles L. Arian