The Fight Endures, As do We

This is Hanukkah.

We recount the story of Matityahu and his five sons who we called the Maccabees. These untrained, but God inspired, zealots gathered around them a group of like-minded people who took up a struggle against overwhelming odds. Victory came to their hands, although at a high price.

In the struggle of the forces of good and evil, good ultimately wins even when the cause seems hopeless. The war of the Maccabean guerillas against the larger forces of evil is not an ancient event 2500 years old but a contemporary one. We have seen in our own lifetime the martyrdom of millions to a fight against unmitigated evil. The lives of men women and children were devoured in a savage attempt to destroy our people, faith and all that is humane.  In face of degradation and physical torture of six million martyrs, stories of immense strength appear.

 

The great Rabbi Leo Baeck was one of the leaders of the Jewish community in pre-war Germany.  As the head of the Reichsvertretung, the representative body of German Jews, he had the respect and admiration of the Jewish population.  Even through the beginning of the war, he received many invitations to serve as rabbi abroad, turning them all down.  With knowledge of what lay ahead, Baeck declared he would stay there as long as there was a minyan in Germany.  Ultimately, with his people, he was sent to Theresienstadt concentration camp in 1943.

 

At the beginning of the Nazi reign of terror, Dr. Baeck accepted the challenge of fighting for the lives and dignity of his fellow Jews.  He would staunchly remain with them, no matter what the consequences.  Their fate would be his fate; their story, his story.

 

When it meant death to ask one’s mind publicly, Dr. Baeck spoke of life and of determination  to survive. He composed prayer to be recited throughout Germany on Yom Kippur. Knowing full well that Gestapo agents were stationed at services he asked for prayer nonetheless be said everywhere on that holy night:

”Let us despise the slanderous and calumnies directed against us and our faith. We bow our head before God, and remain upright and erect before man…”

 

Good inevitably triumphs over evil. Rabbi Beck was a towering example of justice and faith in the midst of the inferno.

Rabbi Leo Baeck lived before the conflagration and survived the holocaust. The liberating forces found a week but still powerful man in Theresienstadt in 1945.

 

On Hanukkah we begin by lighting a single feeble flame. We continue throughout the next week to add more lights, one after the other, until we have a shining beacon. Isn’t this a wonderful symbol?  We demonstrate on Hanukkah the power of the Jewish spirit. It will not be quenched. It will only grow adding additional lights to causes all to glow with newfound strength. We had inspiration to inspiration until the light of the human soul glows with faith in God.

And has 50,000 Jews came out to greet Simhat Torah in Moscow in 1986, Jews always understand the powerful symbol that moves them. Defying the government, risking their livelihood, knowing informants alert in the crowd, they fought on. Jewish martyrdom is not over but we shall always triumph.

”Not by might, nor by power, but by My spirit alone, says the Lord of Hosts.”