2012 was a boom birth year. It was the year our eldest was born, and it meant there weren’t enough school places when she was starting school. So we were incredibly lucky that the year she started reception a brand new Jewish school opened in Borehamwood, and we were able to get a place despite living where we are now out of the catchment. This blessing also meant we haven’t had to sit through an entire school Chanukah concert. Until this week. The 3 or 4 pieces our youngest were in were lovely, but we also had to enjoy recorder club recitals. Enough said. But the softy that I am, as all the classes together traipsed onto the stage for the final 2 pieces, I found myself welling up with tears as they sang a Peter, Paul and Mary song which has never spoken so powerfully as it did this year. These are the words (you can hear it here):
Light one candle for the Maccabee children
With 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
But 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. (2)
Light one candle for the strength that we need
To never become our own foe
And light one candle for those who are suffering
Pain we learned so long ago
Light one candle for all we believe in
That anger not tear us apart
And light one candle to find us together
With peace as the song in our hearts
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. (2)
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
That we cry out they’ve not died in vain?
We have come this far always believing
That justice would somehow prevail
This is the burden, this is the promise
This is why we will not fail!
Don’t let the light go out!
Don’t let the light go out!
Don’t let the light go out!
Then we all sang the Hatikvah. Yup, I cried at the Chanukah concert. I’m that mum. And I wasn’t even crying because my child is so adorable. Peter, Paul and Mary cannot have envisaged the days we are living through, but their words absolutely hit home. We have never needed to light our candles and let them shine through our love and our tears more. Chanukah may have ended this week, but that need remains.
A few weeks ago Zigi’s grandpa Jeremy mentioned to me that Zigi was gifted his English name after his rather remarkable great grandpa, Zigi Shipper, whose stone setting is tomorrow. This is, in some way, the way life should go, we celebrate new life and birth as we remember the light that was a full and long lifetime. Born in 1930 in Lodz, Poland, where my grandma was also from, Zigi was a Shoah survivor who saw the worst that humanity can do. But he dedicated his life to using those years of utter darkness to teach, to share his story, and in doing so, to change how thousands of young people in schools up and down the country understood the Shoah, Jews, and the insanity of hatred and antisemitism. As Zigi himself said
‘I really get so much out of speaking to schools, I want young people to know, especially young people, what happened because of racism and most importantly, hatred.
Like I say to young people, there is nothing we can do about the past, but we can do a lot about the present and the future, and it’s up to young people, the most important people in the world.’[1]
Perhaps it is over-quoted, but Zigi’s sentiment reminded me in part of the words of Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore, that every child born comes with the promise that God has not given up on Humanity. The Harrod clan are certainly doing their bit to light the candles of humanity at the moment, with a brand new cousin being born to Zigi just a couple of weeks ago!
Zigi dedicated much of his time and energy to helping young people understand the horrors that racism and hatred can lead to. Meanwhile our very own Richard Harris, who turns 80 today, has not only been a chair of the synagogue, at a very difficult time of change and rebuilding, he has not only been a president, but until very recently was a wonderful and much loved Bar and Bat Mitzvah tutor, ensuring that the torah that the Nazi’s and the Greeks tried to take away from the world, continues to shine a light for this generation and the next.
We have finished lighting our Chanukah candles for this year. We spent 8 nights urgently trying to increase the light in our dark world by adding more and more candles, by putting them in our windows, by sharing food and hospitality with one another, by being there for one another. We won’t be lighting Chanukah candles for another year, but that doesn’t mean we have to stop increasing the light in the world. There are so many to inspire us, from Richard to Zigi and many many more, but we too can make a difference, and can light our own little candles to add to the glow.
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.
Or as the much missed Zigi Shipper said ‘There is nothing we can do about the past, but we can do a lot about the present and the future’
Shabbat Shalom
