12/16/2025
A message from Rabbi Linden:
Friends,
As many have noted over the past twenty-four hours, it is becoming increasingly hard to know what to say in moments such as these. The horrific terror attack on our Jewish brothers and sisters in Australia produces so many of the same emotions for our community as the terrible attacks that have preceded it, from Washington to the Nova festival to the Tree of Life Synagogue. We feel shock, we feel anger, we feel profound sadness and loss. We may feel an entirely justified sense of fear and dread. And what we want in the aftermath of these terrible moments often follows a similar pattern as well: we want justice, we want recognition from our governments and non-Jewish neighbors and friends of the threats facing us, and we want to feel safe performing what should be the entirely uncontroversial act of being Jewish in public. Much to our dismay, we have been uncommonly familiar with these emotions, just as we have become distressingly accustomed to the post-attack commentary. Time will tell if any of what we feel, or any of what we rightfully demand will lead to change this time around. The baleful history of the last few years pushes us away from imagining that we will see a better path, but it's worth remembering that the weight of our tradition would allow for the possibility of hope and redemption. That, after all, is the core message of these days of Hanukkah.
On Bondi beach, just as in our homes, those gathered would have recited three b'rachot, the three blessings assigned to the act of lighting the candles of the first night of Hanukkah. The first blessing is about commandment: the obligation we have to light these particular lights on this particular day in this particular way. Jewish life has always demanded something of us, required us to do certain things so that we could join in community with each other, and with those who came before us and those who will engage in these same actions after we are gone. By saying the first blessing, we express a hope that our actions matter in the world, and that there will be Jews after us to believe and act the same. The second blessing is about miracles, and note that we do not mention the specific miracle of Hanukkah: God who did miracles for our ancestors in their day, and miracles for us in ours. Miracles are in short supply these days--as indeed they always were--but this second blessing is about the possibility of things that we do not expect, about the hope we have for a better world and our more secure place in it. Like the first blessing, we say this blessing every night, almost as if the act of remaining hopeful requires an effort of eight full days.
The final blessing of Hanukkah, of course, is about life. It is about being grateful for having lived long enough to have reached this joyous occasion. It is a blessing we say at each holiday, because we do not take this life for granted. It is a blessing we say only on the first night, and it is a blessing that takes on even deeper significance in the face of violent death visited (yet again) on some of our people simply because they were Jews. We are not the first Jews who have had to say this blessing of life in the face of its opposite--our people have needed and failed to receive miracles in many generations--and there is perhaps hope to be found in the fact that our resilience as a people as thwarted every attempt thus far to deny us the right to exist and thrive. We have merited to live to many moments of joy, just as we have had the misfortune to live through many moments of sadness. And because of that, we know that the one will never entirely blot out the other. We will bless, we will weep, we will dance (again), we will mourn. That is the Jewish life that has been bequeathed to us, and the one we honor on this holiday. May we see better days soon.
