Hanukkah Meditations

All this light is for me. I walk. I become lighter. I fly then I become another.
           

       —Mahmoud Darwish

Hanukkah celebrates many things. In its symbol of the miraculous eight-days of light, I like to consider it to represent the survival and wish for hope and the ability to be secure (light, warmth, food) despite perhaps insurmountable odds. To be able to define one's life and community on one's own terms. I also think it celebrates the right, possibility and hope for all communities and all peoples to have the freedom to live, believe and flourish regardless of the challenges of the present.

 

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The lights of Hanukkah which we light at home are for me a symbol that we are the centre of our own light. We are not in the diaspora of another light but our centre is light. We must continue to kindle these lights, to ensure that there is light at the centre of our lives, that there can be light at the centre of others' lives. Our identity, our values, our selves are centred in this light which is an understanding and appreciation of the light at the centre of all living things, human and non-human.

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One light leads us to a second and the second to the third and so on until the eighth. Rather than being like the repeating lashes of a whip, each day can be a light, a passing of light from one to the other. An illumination of the way forward, an illumination of the past. The light is not only energy and brightness, but clarity and honesty. Where has each day come from and where is it leading? Who is burnt and who is brightened by the flame and how long will it last?

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Each day we light new candles assuming that eventually we will light them all, for all. Tonight I think about the candles that we have not yet lit. Tonight I think about the candles that perhaps will never be illuminated because we have run out of time or light or else our work has been interrupted or hindered by fear or war or lack of possibility. Tonight, I light these candles thinking of the work of tomorrow when more candles will be kindled, when less candles will remain in darkness.

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The match lights the shamash candle and the shamash candle lights the other candles, one for each day. We blow out the match and throw it away. If lighting the candles is a metaphor, a creation of light now and a recreation of light then, then I think of the match.

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On this last day, all candles throughout the world and from the time of our forebears have been illuminated and we take time to celebrate how much light there is. But we imagine the time ahead— an entire year minus eight days—where there will not be these candles, where there will be no light. Except we remember and we look forward. And we make light in other ways, for other reasons for ourselves and for others. And we look to others' lights, look to having these conversations about light, about dark, about when it will be light again.