Just a reminder that a 2,176 year old tradition begins anew tonight.
So tonight in honor of all Jews living and passed who have helped to light up the
world we live in, I light my menorah. I don’t light it out of a profound belief
in the miracle of the Maccabees, for I don’t believe in miracles. Nor do light
it out of any family tradition, for I was raised Roman Catholic. I light it in
honor of the millions of Jewish families who should be lighting their own
menorahs tonight; the millions of “missing families” who don’t even exist today
because the men and women who would have been their parents and grandparents were
slaughtered in the Holocaust. Slaughtered not because of anything they had done,
but merely because of who they were.
Hanukkah means "to dedicate." It’s
not a major Jewish holiday, but it is the most well known Jewish holiday to non-Jews,
so I think it’s a good time for us non-Jews to dedicate ourselves to
remembering the Holocaust; a good time for the world to dedicate itself to
never letting such genocide happen again. Religion aside, respecting and
protecting all people is just the right thing to do, so for the next eight
nights I will light the menorah for those who never had the chance. Happy Hanukkah.
