On the eve of Chanukah, I was impressed by the comments of Brititish Chief Rabbi Rabbi Jonathan Sachs who was speaking on this morning's Thought for the Day slot on BBC Radio 4's Today Programme.
He recalled hsi experience twenty years ago when he lit Chanukah candles with Mikhail Gorbachev, the last president of the USSR, the former Soviet Union. He was asked to explain the siginificance of the festival. He said that it was about when Israel was under Greek rule and how the tyrannical leader, Attiochus IV, deprived the Jews of their religious rights. It was thanks to the inspiration of an elderly priest, Mattityahu, a group of Jews fought for their freedom and won, regaining control of Jerusalem, cleansing the defiled Temple and relighting the menorah, the great candelabrum. And we've lit lights ever since on the anniversary of that rededication.
Rabbi Sachs then went on and said that for seventy years under communist rule the Jews of the Soviet Union had lost the freedom to practise their faith. And it was under Mikhail Gorbachev himself and his policy of glasnost that that freedom was restored. So in a sense he was part of the story of Hanukkah more than 2000 years later. Gorbacev litterally blushed by seeing his political achievements in that kind of historical context.
Alas, the battle for religious freedom still continues today. In many parts of the world Jews, Christians and Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs and others are still persecuted because of their faith. The simple symbolism of candle-lighting is shared by so many faiths, not just Jews on Chanukah but Christians at prayer, Hindusand Sikhs at Diwali.
Surely no one's flame threaten another's, nor does their's diminish mine, and each time someone lights one, whatever his or her faith, the world becomes a little brighter for all of us. That's why religious freedom matters and why religious diversity enlarges us all.
I have very powerful childhood memories of lighting Chanukah candles and recieivng presents. You are too young to remember your first Chanukah, but I know that your parents will. May you enjoy the excitiment of this lovely festival first as a child, and then eventually as a parent too.
Grandpa Jonathan
