This year, we are lighting a new hanukkiah in my home.

It is a traditional one, meant for oil rather than candles. It was a gift from Keren and Harel, dear friends whose lives and family are rooted in Kibbutz Re’im in the Gaza envelope. It was made there, by hand, from a place that now carries profound grief and unimaginable loss after October 7.

Each night when we fill the small cups with oil, I will think about how deliberate this ritual is. Oil is messier than candles. It requires patience and care. It cannot be rushed. And yet it is oil, not wax, that is at the center of the Hanukkah story.

The miracle of Hanukkah was never just that the oil lasted for eight nights. It was that someone believed it was worth lighting at all.

This Hanukkah, that truth feels especially close.

Since October 7, Jewish communities around the world have been holding grief, fear, anger, and exhaustion — often all at once. We are........

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