CHANUKAH : DAY 8
Up there, on a shelf, a chanukkiyah, unlit, in a film, signifying that here live Jews. Is it inherited, a mere decorative ancestral memory, alone, atop books?
The chanukkiyah, alight, in a window, perhaps lit with brachot, perhaps not, a signals to the world that mir zaynen do, we are here, we survived, we exist.
A chanukkiyah lit before the Shabbos candles, and after Havdalah candles, the light of all of holy time and our victory time, says to all that we are alit with more than just survival, that we observe and we celebrate. In the light of all of these candles burning, the burning light of the Jews somehow perseveres.
Rabbi Barbara Borts Newcastle