Remembering Chanukah With My Father

The Chassidic masters used to say, “Listen to the Chanukah candles; every one tells a story.”

As we prepare to kindle the special 8th light, I would like to share a personal story:

When I was a young teenager, I would often come home from yeshivah to celebrate Chanukah with my family. Inevitably, my father OBM, would draft me and my siblings to help with the various community menorah lightings he had arranged.

I remember one Chanukah dressing up as clown, dancing around the mall singing Chanukah songs at a public menorah lighting at Regency Square. I remember going to hospitals, jails, and the Beth Shalom Home to hand out tin menorahs and boxes of candles so that everybody who wanted could light the menorah.

But it wasn’t always glamorous. Many winters I stood outside in the freezing cold trying to help my dad install gasoline lanterns on a giant menorah he had built on the corner of Parham and Patterson avenues – my fingers so numb I couldn’t feel them. Then, each night, I had to put on all the winter clothes I had in order to go outside and refill them. And I remember the stares.

Not the innocent stares that came from non-Jews who had probably never seen a menorah – let alone two Chassidim at a busy Richmond intersection. But the stares of contempt, and sometimes even anger, from fellow Jews who didn’t like the fact that my father had taken Chanukah out of the closet and placed it on the streets of Richmond for all to see.

As I got older, I became aware of what seemed like an annual debate between my father and the rest of the community; From the Federation to the Rabbis, to many of the lay-leadership, everybody was against public menorahs. My father kept insisting that the message of Chanukah was a universal one – and that the Jewish community should proudly embrace the opportunity to be a “Light unto the Nations,” but he was (literally) fighting City Hall.

Urged on by his mentor and teacher, the Lubavitcher Rebbe OBM, my father kept those menorahs burning anyway, and at one point, had over a dozen giant Chanukah menorahs on display all over the city.

Last week I was honored to be invited by our Governor and First Lady, Dorothy and Terry McAuliffe, to a Chanukah celebration and menorah lighting at the Governor’s Mansion. Standing there, watching our Federation leaders, Rabbis, Lay-leadership, and Jews and non-Jews alike, sing the blessings and kindle a menorah (on state property, no less!), brought tears to my eyes. How many of the people here know, I wondered to myself, that this moment was made possible by the tenacity of a single man determined to teach the world to proudly celebrate light?

Even though it was already the fourth night of Chanukah, my heart was bursting to say the blessing “she’hehcheyanu v’kiyimanu vi’higiyanu l’izman hazeh!”

As I looked around the room and watched my colleagues and friends joyfully and publicly celebrating Chanukah, I couldn’t help but squeeze my fingers and marvel just how warm it felt inside.

Happy Chanukah!