There is a crucial element of Hanukkah that cannot be overlooked, Rabba Rori Picker Neiss said during a visit to Reading this week.
Light.
“As the days reach the shortest, as the nights grow long, when it feels like the darkness is going to be all that we can see, we don’t just sit around and wait,” Picker Neiss said. “We do the single most important act of Hanukkah. We do the most radical of acts. We light a candle. We put light into the world.”
Senior vice president and rabbi in residence at the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, Picker Neiss spoke at a reception following the lighting of Reading’s downtown menorah Tuesday, the third night of the Jewish festival of light.
The eight-day festival began Dec 14 and runs through Dec 22.
Rabbi Yosef Lipsker, founder and director of Chabad Lubavitch of Berks County, Muhlenberg Township, and Rabbi Ted Prosnitz of Kesher Zion Synagogue, Wyomissing, led those assembled on Penn Square in traditional prayers and songs before flipping the switch on the city’s electric menorah.
Rabbi Yosef Lipsker, founder and director of Chabad Lubavitch of Berks County, Muhlenberg Township, flips the switch Tuesday on the city’s electric menorah on Penn Square. (MICHELLE LYNCH – READING EAGLE)
The ceremony and reception held by the Jewish Federation of Reading-Berks at the John R. Post Center at Alvernia University’s Reading CollegeTowne drew about 50 members of the community, faith leaders, elected officials and others.
“We are living in some incredibly dark times,” Picker Neiss told the assembly, “and some days it feels like the news couldn’t possibly get worse than it was the day before, and then somehow it does.”
Many watched news reports of the mass shooting that left two students dead and nine others injured Dec. 13 at Brown University in Providence, R.I., she said, only to wake up Sunday morning to horrific images of the terror attack and mass murder in Australia as Jews celebrating Hanukkah were gunned down by a radicalized father and son.
The gunmen opened fire on a crowd of around 1,000 people, killing 15 and wounding more than 40 other attendees at a Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach in Sydney.
Rabba Rori Picker Neiss, senior vice president and rabbi in residence at the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, speaks at a reception following a ceremonial lighting of Reading’s downtown menorah Tuesday. (MICHELLE LYNCH – READING EAGLE)
Such news can be crushing, Picker Neiss said.
“It’s hard to feel like tomorrow is going to be better,” she said. “It’s hard not to feel overwhelmed, not to become paralyzed, to feel like the world is ending, to feel like the darkness is going to overtake us.”
But, she said, explaining one of three Hanukkah origin traditions, Adam says: “This is the way of the world. The world does grow dark, but we must never forget there is light that follows the darkness.”
Hanukkah celebrates the rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem by the Maccabees after a rebellion against the Syrians in 170 B.C. Jews rebelled because they had been prohibited from practicing their religion and were being forced to worship Greek gods. The Syrians defiled the sacred Temple, calling for an altar to Zeus to be constructed there and for pigs to be slaughtered on the site in violation of Jewish law. According to tradition, a small amount of oil miraculously lasted for eight days after the Temple was rededicated, enabling the sacred lamp there to remain lit until additional supplies were available.
The story of Hanukkah is a story of people who refused to give up even when battle seemed futile, when the menorah could not stay lit, when the darkness seemed like all they could imagine, the rabbi said.
“They took the first step,” she said. “They lit the first light, and they had faith that when they lit those flames, the world would get just a little bit lighter.”
One flame doesn’t overcome all of the darkness, she said, but it is a start.
“We start with just one small flame,” Picker Neiss said. “We shine it in the windows. We shine it outdoors. We invite others to gather around. We put it where it can be seen. We put light into the darkness.
“May we all find the courage to light our flames in the face of darkness, to choose hope, when despair feels easier, to choose action when empathy beckons, to choose courage when fear overwhelms.”
Other speakers at the event, themed Shine a Light on Antisemitism, included Cindy Gerber Tomlinson, CEO of the Jewish Federation; Margo Levin, Jewish Community Relations Council and social media coordinator; Debbie Goldberg, Jewish Community Relations Council chair; Dr. Glynis A. Fitzgerald, Alvernia University president; and Mayor Eddie Moran.
Tomlinson thanked those attending for coming together as a community in the face of growing antisemitism.
The mass shooting in Australia, she said, follows years of increasing hate crimes and extremism targeting Jewish people and institutions around the globe.
“Our hearts are shattered for those murdered and injured, all those impacted and the entire Australian Jewish community,” Tomlinson said. “And we are angry. We are angry that Jews around the world are now celebrating Hanukkah with fear after years of sounding the alarm about the crisis of antisemitism.”
Antisemitism doesn’t just threaten Jews, she said, it threatens the very fabric of society.
Over the past five years, Tomlinson said, antisemitic incidents in the U.S. have increased by more than 300%.
“These realities make vigilance, unity and Jewish pride especially important during moments when we gather publicly to celebrate Jewish life,” she said, “but we are standing strong as a Jewish community, lighting our menorahs night after night, united with our brothers and sisters of the greater Reading and Berks County community.”
The Berks community, Tomlinson said, is a fantastic example of the type of strong coalition needed.
“We need to continue to build it and grow it together,” she said. “We must work to build a world in which Jews and all people can celebrate their faith and their identity without fear of violence.”