Lighting a candle in the dark
Santa Fe’s Jewish community marks beginning of eight-day celebration of Hanukkah
Standing atop a stepladder with a blowtorch in his hand and a large menorah behind him, Rabbi Berel Levertov of the Santa Fe Jewish Center-Chabad explained the miracle of Hanukkah and sang songs with a handful of socially distanced onlookers on the Santa Fe Plaza as Liv Orovich, the director of a local klezmer band, played the fiddle.
Levertov recited the traditional Hanukkah blessings, called brachot in Hebrew, as night fell Thursday and fog shrouded the city after a light dusting of snow earlier in the day.
“Hanukkah celebrates the
victory of the few over the many,” Levertov said.
The Maccabees, who couldn’t practice Judaism some 2,000 years ago, prevailed over the Syrian empire. And although the Temple of Jerusalem was desecrated, Levertov said, and they could not find enough oil that had been sanctified to keep the menorah lit, the small amount of oil they could find lasted for eight days.
It was a miracle.
“And today we’re going through some difficult times,” the rabbi said. “But we’re also hoping for a miracle” — that the vaccine will work and that the dark days of the coronavirus pandemic will soon be behind us, he said.
Although the menorah was lit in the city center, as it has been for years, the Jewish Festival of Lights, which commemorates the rededication of the ancient Temple of Jerusalem by the Maccabees after their victory over the Syrians, this year largely will be celebrated at home and virtually.
Most attendees joined the rabbi in celebrating the beginning of the Jewish holiday virtually through a Zoom meeting that also was broadcast on Facebook Live.
The kindling of the Peace Menorah on the Plaza was followed by Hanukkah greetings from Mayor Alan Webber and Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham.
“The holidays for all of us are a time to recommit to ourselves, to our faith and family, to renew our spirit of compassion,” the governor said.
And although many are alone or isolated from family and friends during this time, the holidays are still a time for “supporting our faith” and to “celebrate with our families,” Lujan Grisham said. “So for the very different Hanukkah, I still wish for everyone that same opportunity to renew the spirit, our faith … and that better days are ahead.”
Hanukkah, which began Thursday and ends Dec. 18, celebrates the miracle of the menorah staying lit for eight days, although the ancient Temple of Jerusalem after 160 B.C. had only enough oil to last for one day, according to the Talmud, the central holy text of Judaism.
During the pandemic, unlike other years, Santa Fe’s largest reform synagogue, Temple Beth Shalom, is celebrating the Festival of Lights digitally, with services broadcast on the temple’s website and a message for each night of Hanukkah from
Temple Beth Shalom Rabbi Neil Amswych to be livestreamed on Facebook.
Temple Beth Shalom and the Santa Fe Jewish Center-Chabad also are distributing Hanukkah care packages for the holiday.
Beth Shalom distributed “over 160 gift bags to our members so that they can celebrate Chanukah from the safety of their homes,” Amswych said in an email.
The city’s Chabad center also distributed numerous care packages to help people celebrate the holiday safely from home.
On each night of Hanukkah, the Jewish Federation of New Mexico will host a Zoom meeting “to help bring Jews from all across New Mexico together over the festival,” Amswych said.
Orovich, who played the violin for the first night of Hanukkah
on the Plaza and directs Los Klezmerados de Santa Fe, said she often goes to the Chabad center.
“It’s my happy place,” she said. This year, of course, it’s different.
“Usually my buds and I are getting together and having a big Hanukkah party at some point during the holiday,” she said. “And obviously that’s not gonna be happening. It’s gonna be a pretty quiet, cozy holiday I think for me and a lot of people.”
But despite the darkness of the pandemic, the Jewish Festival of Lights is a reminder, Levertov said during a Zoom meeting Thursday, that a light remains within each one of us.
And the fuel that keeps the fire alive within us all, even when we think there’s not enough, “can last much longer than we think,” Levertov said.