“Darkness was on the face of earth…God said “let there be light…God saw the light was good and divided the light from darkness”

Hands holding candle

How can we bring the light of day one into the world?

The Breaking Matzo community is devastated by the recent anti-Semitic attack at the home of Rabbi Chaim Rottenberg in Monsey, a suburb north of New York City, during a Hanukkah celebration – the latest in a string of anti-Semitic incidents in recent weeks that including beatings of Jewish people in the streets of New York City and a massacre at a Kosher grocery store in Jersey City, N.J., in addition to the unimaginable loss of lives at The Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh.

We pray for those who lost their lives, and those families and friends who lost a loved one or are suffering injuries. May we all seek to find blessings in their beautiful memories. May the communities in New Jersey, New York and Pittsburgh find strength and hope to deal and heal with these unspeakable tragedies. Such anti-Semitic acts of violence are morally repugnant.

I decided to read the torah…

from…

The very first page….

Genesis 1.

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. Now the earth was unformed and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the spirit of God hovered over the face of the waters. And God said: ‘Let there be light.’ And there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness.
While we cannot fully protect ourselves from the darkness that occurs on our planet, each of us can, and must, choose daily to illuminate the earth with light of day 1 which is good.

During this Hanukkah Celebration and rededication, the light of the Menorah takes on even more significance and meaning.

We must vigorously divide the light from the darkness.

May we be inspired to cast radiant light in the midst of the unspeakable darkness.