Rabbi Seth Grauer
Rosh Yeshiva & Head of School
On the morning of October 7, Ben Shimoni managed to escape from the Supernova music festival in Re’im, saving the lives of four women. Miraculously, he dodged the bullet barrage, and managed to drive to safety in Beersheva.
But the story is not over.
Shimoni said he was going back to help others. The women pleaded with him not to but he did, making the trip to Re’im not once, not twice, but three times, saving an additional eight people. Five days later, they found his body. His cousin, Keren, said, “Ben would just do what he felt was right, regardless of the risk to himself.”
Ben’s story is just one of so many stories of Jewish heroism over the last few weeks in Israel. Courageous Jews standing up to evil, saving lives, helping each other.
Giving.
Caring.
Doing the right thing.
That’s the strength of the Jewish people.
That’s our resilience.
Believing in a brighter future.
Hoping for better days.
And never extinguishing the light, even in the blackest, darkest times.
Noam, a Sofer, returned to work after Simchat Torah and called customers to pick up their Tefillin orders. One order caught his eye – the customer was from Nir Oz, one of the kibbutzim near Gaza that had been hit hard on October 7. He texted the customer, Renana, to ask how she and her family were doing. She replied that her son, Yagil Yaakov, was taken hostage in Gaza, and he was supposed to be celebrating his Bar Mitzvah in six weeks’ time.
While holding the tefillin bag embroidered with the name Yagil Yaakov, Noam said he felt awful and told Renana he would refund her order.
“Noam, you aren’t refunding me a penny. Yagil will come home and we’re going to make a big celebration. We’re going to need the Tefillin for his Bar Mitzvah.”
On Nov 28, Yagil Yaakov came home!
That’s who we are.
As Rabbi Sacks ztl” said:
“How do you live with the constant threat of violence and war? That takes faith. Israel is the people that has always been sustained by faith, faith in God, in the future, in life itself. And though Israel is a secular state, its very existence is testimony to faith: the faith of a hundred generations that Jews would return; the faith that led the pioneers to rebuild a land against seemingly impossible odds; the faith that after the Holocaust the Jewish people could live again; the faith that, in the face of death, continues to say: choose life.”
May the messages contained in this “Sparks of Light” booklet spread light, hope and faith to your families and the entire Jewish community.
Am Yisrael Chai!
Chanukah Sameach!
Mr. Hillel Rapp
Principal of Bnei Akiva Schools
The Chanukah story is often described as a victory of Judaism over Hellenism. While the Maccabees certainly waged war to reclaim the Temple and Jerusalem from forced Hellenisation, the battle of ideas and influence within the streets of Jerusalem proved a bit more complicated.
The Hasmonean dynasty, established following the Chanukah victory, was itself heavily influenced by Hellenism. For example, they broke a key Jewish principle as old as the prophets, the separation of political and religious authority, serving as both kings and kohanim. Even the military victory, which took 20 years to secure, was undone within a century when the Roman empire conquered Jerusalem.
At first blush, this closer look at history may seem to mitigate the pride and power that we associate with the Jewish victory. But it would be a mistake to read our history as a zero-sum conflict between Jewish and Greek cultures. It is precisely the ability of Judaism to survive and thrive through global ideological changes that is our miracle. This doesn’t happen through isolation but in our ability to engage with foreign values and ideas, borrow and adapt where we can while remaining uncompromising in protecting our particular identity.
The Maccabees did not fight for cultural isolationism or some romanticized vision of the Jewish past. But they did fight to protect Jewish ideas from ever being replaced or deemed inferior. Today we have inherited this battle as we forge a path within a system of learning that was brilliantly designed millenia ago to protect our core identity even as it selectively adapts and integrates with the changing world.
