Dr. Terry Segal’s Chanukah Message for 2025

“Harmony” and “coexistence” recall the 1968 Broadway musical, Hair. Its iconic counterculture, shock value against the morals of the time, depicted nudity, drug use, and profanity, but also highlighted ideals of harmony and coexistence. It spoke to a nation, divided, over the Vietnam War, specifically, the lyrics of Aquarius, with the dawning of a New Age of “harmony and understanding, sympathy and trust abounding.” It sent a love arrow of hope and possibility right to our hearts.

Musically, harmony is a complex creation of individual voices or instruments that, when grouped together, form a cohesive whole. With a synergy of differing opinions and perspectives we can enhance a baseline melody of peace.

Ideally, toward a vision of peace, can we fine-tune our individual thoughts, words, and deeds, to express those that promote harmony and coexistence? Build a movement, as individuals, with that shared purpose.

A single candle lights the darkness. Envision a fully lit menorah, reflected in a window. Each person is a candle, with its own color, texture, height, yet with that sole purpose of illumination.

Recently, I fell asleep pondering what’s needed to transition away from hatred and division. I awakened to whisperings from angels, in response. What follows, is my journal entry from that morning.

The trail from our breath of words
can either warm or scorch the souls of others.
Breathe words of comfort and love.

Grow roots and branches in your verdant green heart.
Don’t let it turn to stone and crack into rubble.
Neither have a glass heart
that can shatter into shards of pointed daggers
and bleed you and others dry.

Build a crystallized sugar ladder of sweetness
that extends from the earth to the heavens.
Climb it each morning and retreat from it each night
as you slumber into worlds beyond.
For there is where we travel to places far and wide
and dance with those who are here no more.

Whisper prayers of love on the wind and let them form
a vortex of light that illuminates the world
and all who inhabit it.

Go to that dark place
where you last lost your smile
and reclaim it.
Widen it with laughter.

Fill your pockets with sparkling joy and scatter it everywhere.
Like tiny specks of glitter that glint in the sun,
it will shine throughout all eternity.

And because we can’t share gifts that we don’t have,
become love.

Dr. Terry Segal is a licensed psychotherapist with a Ph.D. in Energy Medicine, author, and mixed media Judaic artist.