Hanukkah is an eight-night-long holiday that celebrates our people’s victory over oppressive forces that tried to destroy us (other than its duration, you could say the same about pretty much every other Jewish holiday!). We light candles in a hanukiah, a special nine-branched menorah, to symbolize how in the aftermath of the war, the single day’s worth of oil left in the desecrated temple miraculously lasted for eight days. Calling it a menorah is actually a misnomer, as menorahs are seven-branched candelabras lit during the rest of the year. The hanukiah is what we light at Hanukkah.

I love seeing all of the different hanukiyot that people show off with their candlelighting at this time of year. Some are ornate; some are simple. Some are antique; some are modern. Some have the classic branched shape with four candle holes on each side, the taller shamash helper candle in the center; others follow more unconventional shapes or patterns. My hanukiah, which is pictured as the cover image for this post, is quite special to me; it belonged to my father, one of the very few things of his that survived all the upheaval. It isn’t a traditional one. The candle holes are Maccabee soldiers marching to the gates in Jerusalem, and the shamash goes atop the gate itself. For Hanukkah, we start inserting candles from the right side and go to the left, but we light the candles each night from left to right (I get this mixed up every year and always have to ask my friends, but I’m confident in sharing that info with you on night 8, now that we’ve been doing it this way all week). What’s really cool about my hanukiah is that while the first candle goes into the top of the soldier closest to the gate, as we move through the holiday, we light more of the candles and it kind of simulates the soldiers marching toward the gate.

The eighth night of Hanukkah is my favorite. The full glow of nine candles in all their glory, such a force of energy that you can actually bask in the heat and light if you get close enough. There’s a tradition held that at one point, the old rabbis contended whether we should be starting with one candle and going up to eight over the course of the holiday, or start with eight and count down to one; the prevailing perspective is that we should absolutely go from one to eight – we should always, always be increasing the light.

It is a damn dark world out there these days. Today, I read that the Anti-Defamation League reported that, amid a number of years of rising Antisemitism in the United States, 2022 saw the number of Antisemitic incidents reach an all-time high in this country. That’s not to say we are lacking in hope; I also read today that an candidly Jewish man handily won the race for governor in Pennsylvania, over a Nazi-esque opponent. It’s quite an important success in a battleground state that went red just six years ago in 2016. (I don’t claim to be a political scientist or any sort of expert about such things, but I do recognize a Nazi when I see one – they’re making it pretty easy to do nowadays – and “Nazi=bad” is a pretty good basic tenet to live by, I say.) Every year, I teach children of all ages about Antisemitism and the Holocaust; every year, I am reminded that light can endure even in unimaginable darkness. Every year, more and more, I am reminded of how important that job of mine is.

I just think that we should all do what we can to increase the light, and if there are places where we can’t find light, then we need to create some. It’s not enough to light candles; we need to be candles, in our world.

We could all use a little more light.