| Dear friends,
The feeling I got from traveling in our processional to TISM last Sunday for our Chanukah Festival, along with police accompaniment, can only be characterized as “Verklempt.” I was overcome by a sense of connection. I was in awe of the community that we are building and grateful for the support of our local police. Our amazing volunteers made this happen.
It is my great honor to thank: Michael Bigman, Ken Blitzer, Francine Bloch, Peter Bloch, Ed Cohen, Bruce Feingold, Harriet Fox, Mitch Gaines, Gayle Gordon, Johnathan Israel, Curtis Izen, Sheree Jarmol, Nadine Kaufman, Ellen Lefkowitz, Harold Lefkowitz, Bruce Nelson, Marc Pashnick, Evelyn Polay, David Rosenzweig, David Sandomir, Mimi Schultz, Robert Schultz, Marc Suntup, Marge Suntup, Elane Tarnofsky, Jeff Tepper, and Ian Wald.
Chanukah is about hope. It’s about the sense that the impossible is possible and that our own perceived limitations will not always hold us back. I’m waiting to see Netflix or HBO make a show about the Maccabean Revolt because it has the makings of great cinema: action, hope, defeating odds, and restoring light.
I wish I could speak to my ancestors back in Lithuania who were fleeing from pogroms, that I, a rabbi in NY, proudly drove down the street behind a massive Chanukiah with the protection of law enforcement. They wouldn't’t believe me. I wish I could tell them that we have sovereignty in the Land of Island. For hundreds of years, that was only a hope. In the words of Theodor Herzl, “If you will it, it is no dream.” Chanukah reminds us that we have more in us than we realized and that the only thing that we can really count on is that things will be very different in the future.
I imagine that those living in Israel at the time of Roman rule were afraid that Judaism would be extinguished. It’s a story we hear often throughout Jewish history and fear about our current communities. Chanukah comes along to rededicate us to hope in a future that may look different, but burns brightly.
Shabbat shalom and Chag Urim Sameach,
Rabbi Bernstein
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Affiliated with United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism