Hope seems to be the theme of this year. I remember fondly racing home from school to Chanukah dinners of latkes with pot roast or sauerbraten and applesauce. Never sour cream. It was part of our German Jewish heritage. But my people came to this country really early. In the 1840s, not the 1940s. Tonight’s story is from Eight Tales for Eight Nights, by the consummate storytellers, Peninnah Schram and Steven M. Rosman. It is a Holocaust tale.

“Many years ago, our town was the nicest place to live. Trees lined the streets and wooden carts filled with fruit and vegetables stood by the curbs. On Thursday nights, we would go to the bakery and buy the challahs that had just emerged from the brick ovens. We always bought three challas, two to eat on Shabbos and one to eat on the way home. Fresh from the oven, it was so sweet and warm it seemed to melt on our tongues. I studied violin with Mr. Solomon. He was a kind man with chubby cheeks that would puff up and push his eyes closed whenever he smiled. Mr. Solomon thought that I might grow up to be a great violinist, if only I would practice more. But I did not like to practice. One day, the Nazi soldiers came to our town…

One Thursday evening we were all on our way to the bakery, Mama and Papa and my little sister Necha. ‘What’s that?’ cried Papa suddenly…I ran before Mama could grab me and when I got to the bakery, I stopped short. There was broken glass everywhere, the little pieces glistening in the moonlight like crystals. All the cakes had been thrown off the shelves. The challahs had been torn to pieces and strewn throughout the shop…

The Monsters in Black Boots built a high wall around our town and locked us in with a huge iron gate. Then the trucks started coming, bringing Jews from smaller neighboring towns….Chanukah was coming. We used to have big parties and invite our friends. Mama would bake kugel and fry latkes and Papa would organize dreidle games…Oh how we loved that dreidle game. But this year there would be no party. There would be no dreidle game. There would be no celebrations of any kind…I sat at my bedroom window and looked into the night sky. It was very dark. There was no moon and no stars. The street was bleak and deserted. The Nazis had ordered the streetlights to be extinguished early. Papa opened the door…’What are you looking at,’ he whispered. He put his arm around me and I started to cry. ‘Sometimes things can look very dark and very frightening,’ he said softly, ‘But watch this.’ And he took a match out of his pocket. ‘Do you see how dark it is in this room?’ he asked. I nodded. ‘Well then, watch how one small match can chase away all the darkness.’ Papa struck the match against the wooden window sill. Suddenly a flame arose and danced on the match head. It cast its light across the whole room… ‘Tomorrow is Chanukah,’ said Papa. ‘We Jews have always believed in the power of light. Remember that our prophet Isaiah said that we were a light to the other nations of the world. Even one Jew who believes can chase the darkness of evil from the world. Antiochus was like these Nazis. He thought he could make us give up being Jews. He thought it would be easy to destroy us. But Judah Maccabee and his brothers believed in the strength of our people. Judah and the other Maccabees were only one small candle against the darkness of Antiochus’s whole army. But they chased the wicked Antiochus away, just like this match I am holding chases the darkness from this room. Every time a Jew lights a candle, as we do on Chanukah, we chase away some of the evil in the world.’ Papa hugged me and left the room. But he left something behind. I could feel the thin stick next to me on the bed. When I picked it up, I saw it was a match. It felt like a magic wand in my hand. As long as I had it, I could banish darkness and defeat the demons of the world…The next day the deportations began. We were herded into trucks like cattle. The Monsters in Black Boots uses sticks and attack dogs to squeeze us into the trucks….

It was evening. I could see the darkness through a crack in the wooden wall of the train. ‘Rabbi,’ I said, ‘It is erev Chanukah. Shouldn’t we say the blessings and sing Ma’oz Tzur?’ ‘Where is the menorah to kindle?’ asked the rabbi. ‘And what miracle shall we ask G-d for?’…Seeing the desperation in my eyes, Mama reached into her pocket for the small stick of butter she had taken when we were deported. I broke off a piece and made my way back to where the rabbi lay against the wall. In my pocket was the match Papa had given me the night before. With one short scrape against the wood, the flame arose and danced on the match head. As I held the flame to the butter it began to melt and the fat dripped into the well I had made in the potato. I placed my shoelace in the potato like a candle wick and used the dying match flame to light the lace. ‘Rabbi,’ I cried. ‘Here is your menorah.’…There we were, prisoners herded onto the train of the Monster. Yet that night, the spirit of Chanukah rocked the train. I looked at Papa. ‘One candle can defeat all the darkness,’ I said. Papa smiled at me and pulled me close to him. My one candle had banished all the darkness in our lives that night. And for many dark nights to come, I kept the memory of that candle burning within me.”

One candle. The power of light. Hope. This is what Chanukah is all about. Peter Yarrow had it right in his song, Light One Candle:

Light one candle for the Maccabee children
Give thanks that their light didn’t die
Light one candle for the pain they endured
When their right to exist was denied

Light one candle for the terrible sacrifice
Justice and freedom demand
Light one candle for the wisdom to know
When the peacemaker’s time is at hand

Don’t let the light go out:
it’s lasted for so many years.
Don’t let the light go out:
let it shine through our love and our tears.

Light one candle for the strength that we need
to never become our own foe.
Light one candle for those who are suffering
the pain we learned so long ago.
Light one candle for all we believe in,
let anger not tear us apart.
Light one candle to bind us together,
with peace as the song in our heart.

What is the memory that’s valued so highly
that we keep it alive in that flame?
What’s the commitment to those who have died,
we cry out they’ve not died in vain?
We have come this far, always believing,
that justice will somehow prevail.
This is the burden and this is the promise
and this is why we will not fail.

Don’t let the light go out. (3x)