The Sacred Lights of Chanukah

Rabbi Israel Zoberman — Thu, 12 Dec 2024 20:05:22 +0000

The fragile yet formidable Chanukah candles

We tenderly lit, daringly defy the suffocating

Darkness around us and in us,

Soothing and softening, we pray, all who

Their magic of evoked memories of elation

And trepidation with oil – dripping levivot

(Potato pancakes) for expectant levavot

(Hearts) while partaking of sustaining sweet

Sufganiyot (donuts) to counteract the bitterness

Of previous and following defeats,

Celebrating a temporary victory before the

Hasmonians’ intra-feuds hastened the demise

Of short-lived Jewish sovereignty with warning

Lessons for the contemporary scene of mounting

Extremism and spreading strife,

With hostages in death-filled Gaza darkness

Still-second Chanukah’s Festival of Lights

In captivity, how tragically ironic!- desperately

Yearning for a light lagging too long

Behind and may not come, and for too many

Their wondrous light already snuffed out by

Those adoring the dark with the candle of each

Unique life burning down before its time and

Forever lost is that consecrated inner oil,

Though only we possess the priestly power

To extinguish the bright Chanukia (menorah)

Embedded deep within us.

Rabbi Dr. Israel Bobrov Zoberman is the founder of Temple Lev Tikvah and Honorary Senior Rabbi Scholar at Eastern Shore Chapel Episcopal Church

Purim has fun with a serious situation

Rabbi Israel Zoberman — Thu, 14 Mar 2024 20:21:22 +0000

The Purim festival is an extraordinary fun-making of costumes and masks, which in a pandemic, save lives threatening all. The holiday masks and matches the extraordinary seriousness of the life and death issues behind it, allowing for the healthy release of pent-up tension and emotion. After all, a threat of genocide hanging over a vulnerable people such as the Jews, with a plot in place to terminate its existence in the vast Persian empire of antiquity, was not to be taken lightly.

Salvation was found through an intermarried Jewish queen who was placed in a pivotal position to help her kin. It is an intriguing dimension to a drama whose historical veracity remains uncertain. Still, the challenges and lessons contained in the fascinating Scroll of Esther have remained applicable throughout the Jewish saga.

Rabbis have taught that in the Messianic era to come, of all the Jewish holidays, only Purim will continue to be celebrated. Is it because we should never take Jewish survival for granted and need to always be on guard? Is that why God’s name is not mentioned, even once in the scroll, a notable exception to all the other books in the Bible? Rabbis even regarded Purim as equal to the very opposite Yom Kippur, the holiest Jewish Day of bodily deprivation.

Curiously, the terrorizing dictatorial leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran (once Persia), now celebrating the 45th anniversary of their theocratic revolution, continue to seek hegemony in the Middle East and the Muslim world. Their bloody involvement in the ghastly barbaric attack on Israelis along the Gaza border, reminiscent of Nazi atrocities, is ample testimony that they have not given up on “wiping Israel off the map” and to conclude what Pharaoh, Haman, and Hitler attempted.

Queen Esther was forced to hide her Jewish identity, otherwise, she could not get into the palace to fulfill her mission of saving her people. Our beautiful and heroic Esther had to be prodded nonetheless by experienced Mordechai. After all, she was young to risk her life by appearing uninvited before King Ahsheverus. However, she did perform, and well at that, forever earning an honored place in the pantheon of Jewish heroines and heroes. It seems that our remarkable duo of Mordechai and Esther created the prototype of the Israeli Mossad operation!

The Jewish people are not yet fully safe but are finally capable of defending their lives. “Never Again!” is a sacred commandment.

Rabbi Dr. Israel Zoberman is the founder of Temple Lev Tikvah and Honorary Senior Rabbi Scholar at Eastern Shore Chapel Episcopal Church, both in Virginia Beach.

Rabbi Israel Zoberman | Jewish News

The Sacred Lights of Chanukah

Purim has fun with a serious situation