Rabbi Mark Zimmerman’s Chanukah Message for 2025

The Light We Keep Alive

For much of Jewish history, our survival depended more on endurance than on power. For centuries we lived at the mercy of others — enduring expulsions, persecution, and catastrophe. That long vulnerability has shaped us deeply. But it’s not the whole story.

More than two thousand years ago, the Maccabees proved that Jews were not destined to only suffer and wait. They reclaimed their homeland and rededicated the Temple. It was a defiant, improbable victory.

And yet, what most Jews remember about Hanukkah isn’t the battlefield — it’s the light. The Talmud’s story of a single cruse of oil lasting eight days eclipsed the military triumph. Our sages were uneasy with glorifying Jewish might, so they shifted the focus: “Not by might, not by power, but by My spirit,” the prophet Zechariah taught. Jewish strength, they insisted, is something deeper than force.

That message hits very differently these days. Over the past decade — especially since October 7th, 2023 — we’ve seen a resurgence of antisemitism that many of us thought belonged to another era. Jews around the world have been jolted back into a sense of precarity. Our synagogues require guards. Our students face hostility on campuses. The sense of safety many American Jews took for granted has been shaken.

For a time, it felt as if the darkness was closing in.

But Hanukkah teaches that despair is not destiny. Even in the most uncertain moments, light can return — but only if we insist on kindling it. The fact that we continue to persevere doesn’t erase the years of pain and uncertainty. But they are a reminder that flickers of hope and light can break through and illuminate the darkness of our world.

Jewish life is not disappearing. The fact that you are reading this is proof of that! We are showing up — in synagogues, in classrooms, and online — to assert not only our identity, but our pride and strength of spirit. We are still teaching our children. We are supporting one another. And we are affirming, in countless small ways, that being a Jew is not something to hide.

This is the heart of the Hanukkah story: Jewish strength is not measured by domination, but by determination—our readiness to rebuild, to hope, and to bring light into a darkened world. The Maccabees kindled the menorah before they knew the oil would last. Their courage wasn’t a response to certainty; it was an act of faith.

Ours must be the same. The Jewish people have endured for four millennia not by shrinking from darkness, but by lighting candles anyway.

And we’re still lighting them to this day.

Hag Urim Sameyach!

Rabbi Mark Zimmerman is the Senior Rabbi of Congregation Beth Shalom, an egalitarian, Conservative synagogue in Dunwoody, Ga.