Don’t Underestimate the Power of One Candle




As we gather throughout the nights of Hanukkah one ritual draws our attention: the lighting of the Hanukiyah, the Hanukkah menorah. Each night we add a candle until we reach the last night and have all eight candles burning. In essence each day of the festival is represented by one candle, a rather meager representative by today’s standards!

Have you ever seen one of those space photos taken of the earth at night? What we see is an entire planet that seems aglow by electricity. Major urban areas can be identified by the big “blob” of light that can be seen even from space. In this age in which our planet is aglow with artificial light it might seem that one small candle doesn’t really mean much. Perhaps it doesn’t if the only measure we use is the amount of light that is added to the darkness of a winter night. In fact that one small candle adds much to the winter night – it adds the light of community. A sense of community in numbers- that one light that I burn adds to the light that you kindle. Then we can multiply that by the number of Jewish homes in which small solitary candles begin to add up to a massive number- candles are lit across the globe. No, you might not be able to see them from space ,but you can certainly see them as you pass proud Jewish homes in which a great miracle is being recalled and celebrated.

More importantly I think we might underestimate how important one candle can be if we failed to consider the impact of this very easy ritual. Our people have a long history, one that has defied the normal expectations of historians and the common life cycles of nations. Through the millennia nations have come and gone, empires have been won and lost; wars have brought destruction to cultures and entire peoples. Yet, through it all, our people survived. The occasion of Hanukkah begs that we ask the question. An often quoted verse is “Not by power, but by the spirit.” Those few words say volumes about our people and even more about the significance of “one little candle.” We have survived because of the power of our rituals. We have survived because of those special acts that unite us as a people, unite us as a community, and unite us to a past that we never experienced directly but is a part of our “sacred present.” It is the power of this very “small” ritual that ties us to the past and the future.

Often the word “ritual” is considered to be something bad- an empty act that is simply done because someone said you have to do it. Rituals are considered just empty actions but they are not- they are the symbolic actions that focus our minds and bodies on spiritual truths. Lighting one candle may shed a tiny bit of light but that same candle can light the spirit of an entire people.