Kindling the lights in the New Year

This year as Diaspora Jews kindle the Chanukah lights, we’ll be crossing an unusual boundary of sorts. Just as we kindle the last two candles on our menorah, we’ll be saying goodbye to year 2024 of the Gregorian calendar and (happily, I suspect for most), trading it in for the auspicious and encouraging beginning of 2025.

That’s because this season, Chanukah won’t end until the second day of January. We’ll still be wrapping up one holiday of light, joy and promise as we embark on celebrating another. Many will barely have time to put away the dreidels and sufganiyot before unfurling their party favors and uncorking the champagne.

As it should be this year.

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The secular year of 2024 brought its own profound darkness to the world. The war and the antisemitic protests in our communities and on campuses have tested our faith in humanity and our confidence in our ability to coexist with neighbors who share divergent viewpoints. It’s forced thousands to choose between their identities as Diaspora Jews and their belief and commitment to a Jewish homeland. Nearly 15 months have passed since the Oct. 7 terror attacks in southern Israel, and we are still searching for closure and for many Jews, a renewed sense of belonging in their communities.

The great sage Hillel taught that there is power in the light that Chanukah puts forth and that we should always build upon such opportunities, never detract from them. “One elevates to a higher level in matters of sanctity and one does not downgrade,” the Talmud explains. His debates with his contemporary Shammai over this point were legendary. Shammai believed one should kindle all eight lights at once on the first night and then successively decrease the number of candles throughout the holiday. According to the interpretations of the amoraim (the Jewish scholars of the third through fifth centuries C.E.), Shammai’s reasoning was based on the number of outgoing days of the holiday, which decreases with each successive blessing.

Today, most Jewish communities follow Hillel’s teachings. It is a natural inclination for Jews to try to build upon something that can grow, even with something as tiny as a candle flame of light.

This isn’t the first time in which the Chanukah lights have helped communities come to terms with tragedy. Gabriel Weinstein, the Jewish Project’s project manager for digital content and communications, notes on the organization’s website that following the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting in 2018, communities around the world were able to find healing as they lit their holiday candles. Then, like now, Chanukah came at a time “when the global Jewish community desperately need[ed] an opportunity to celebrate the sanctity of Jewish tradition. Each night [brought] a new candle and a fresh opportunity to celebrate an elevated sense of holiness.”

But this year, as we carry the Chanukah light forward, we do so with renewed optimism. The month has brought hope for the end to Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon. It has brought hope for the return of hostages and a sense of closure for their families. Israelis who were displaced by terror attacks and war are slowly returning to their communities. The Startup Nation, which only a couple of years ago was seen as a powerful incubator for global change, is once again moving forward.

This will be only the fourth time in more than 100 years that Chanukah will coincide with the secular New Year. Hillel’s teaching of the elevating power of this holiday was intended as universal guidance. But this year, it carries unique meaning. It seems appropriate that we should finish the very last minutes of this year of loss and darkness bathed in the light of an almost fully lit menorah. It seems even more fitting that we should celebrate its brightest lights as we kindle a new and hopeful year of change. PJC

Jan Lee is an award-winning editorial writer and former news editor. Her articles and op-eds have been published in a variety of Jewish and travel publications, including the Baltimore Jewish Times, B’nai B’rith Magazine, Jewish Independent and The Times of Israel. This article first appeared on JNS.