Ceremony and Celebration Family Edition, The Hagim, Hanukka, The Fifth Night, A Hanukka Message
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ḤANUKKA FOR OUR TIME
Back in 1991, I lit Ḥanukka candles with Mikhail Gorbachev, who had, until earlier that year, been president of the Soviet Union.
For seventy years, the practice of Judaism had been effectively banned in Communist Russia. It was one of the two great assaults on our people and our faith in the twentieth century. The Germans sought to kill Jews; the Russians tried to kill Judaism.
Under Stalin the assault became brutal. In 1967, after Israel’s victory in the Six-Day War, many Soviet Jews sought to leave Russia and go to Israel. Not only was permission refused, but often the Jews concerned lost their jobs and were imprisoned.
Around the world, Jews campaigned for the prisoners, called Refuseniks, to be released and permitted to leave the country.
Eventually Gorbachev realised that the whole Soviet system was unworkable. Communism had brought repression, a police state, and a new hierarchy of power, not freedom and equality. In the end it collapsed, and Jews regained the freedom to practise Judaism and go to Israel.
That day in 1991, after we had lit candles together, Gorbachev asked me, through his interpreter, what we had just done. I told him that twenty-two centuries ago in Israel, after the public practice of Judaism had been banned, Jews fought for and won their freedom, and these lights were the symbol of that victory. And I continued: “Seventy years ago, Jews suffered the same loss of freedom in Russia, and you have now helped them to regain it. So you have become part of the Ḥanukka story.”
And as the interpreter translated those words into Russian, Mikhail Gorbachev blushed.
The Ḥanukka story still lives, still inspires, telling not just us but the world that though tyranny exists, freedom, with God’s help, will always win the final battle.
❖ Points to Ponder
- What similarities are there between the Ḥanukka story and the story of Soviet Jewry under Communism?
- How can we be sure that ultimately, we will always win the battle?
- Rabbi Sacks applies the messages of the Ḥanukka story to contemporary times. What can we learn from Ḥanukka to help us in our generation?