We light the candles of Chanuka, 8 nights, every night. I've done it 79 times in my life.
My man asked me last night, "Why are you lighting the extra little candle each night?" I did not answer. I had a problem explaining it to myself. For 807 days, each time we light candles, whether the Shabbat candles or this past few days, the Chanukah candles, I also lit a memorial candle that lasts 25 hours.
The memorial candle is one we light on special occasions. Each person adds it at his/her specific times. Some before the Day of Atonement, others on personal dates. But I've never added memorial candles to the daily lighting of the Chanukiah. I started it during this war, each Friday. I prayed for the families of the soldiers who died, asking God to help them overcome the horrible grief they must be going through.
I've never prayed for the dead. I know that many people do. It never occurs to me to do so; it is not a practice in my personal belief. But I light the memorial candle as a reminder. When Willie asked me, I took his question with me to bed.
In the quiet of the evening, when the Shabbat was settling down on our surroundings and the peace engulfed us, even though we are at war, I found my answer.
In my childhood home, I learned our nation's history. Each historical step was sipped in biblical stories, in the horrid past of persecution and war, and then in overcoming when God saved His people by His miracles and His love. Collective memory came up with sayings such as, "They try to eliminate us, with God we triumphed, and now we celebrate & eat." Or "it was hard, we had to overcome their hate, and now we have a new holiday." "There is always light after the darkness". The historical account of the Jewish people always includes the light brightly lit after the darkness. And when we celebrate the success of life reborn again, it always contains the memory of the mourning.
The history of modern Israel is no different. The nation had come through the Holocaust to its modern birth. Israel lost its young people, men and women, for the last 77 years in attack after attack from the surrounding nations, but each holiday, like the Phoenix, we come out of the ashes into the light.
Why the memorial candle? because I mourn the thousands of generational youth who gave their lives for our nation, and their families who suffer the loss, and I remember their blood that spilled on our land, allowing us to live on it.
Why, when I lit the Shabbat and Chanukkah candles? Because their sacrifice brought us light and allowed us to live in our promised-by-God land as a free nation.
MAY THE LIGHT AND LOVE OF GOD ALWAYS SHINE IN YOUR LIFE.
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