A Chanukah Message From Maayan Schoen
History repeats itself. It’s easy to feel hopeless; but this time, it’s different. This time, we have Israel.
Maayan Schoen is a senior at Atlanta Jewish Academy.
Recently, I emerged from the Maccabim Reut bus station in Modiin, hometown of those glorious Chanukah heroes of yore. I smiled, because even the public transportation in Israel celebrates our history. With their trials, the Maccabim turned a driving force – persecution – into a beautiful result – eight lights and 200 years of Jewish self-determination.
Even with the rockets and the terror here, I am regularly strengthened by our facts-on-the-ground – our 6.5 million Jewish citizens. Just weeks ago, candles of the Pittsburgh vigil burned bright, instead of the light of the menorah in the Beit HaMikdash. History repeats itself. It’s easy to feel hopeless; but this time, it’s different. This time, we have Israel. Wherever in the world you may be, she keeps you. Our little country is the pure jar of oil, and against all odds we are still glowing. We will not melt in the Middle-Eastern sun.
This time, our driving force is more than persecution. Israel is her own entity, with her own agendas. Berl Katznelson writes in “Revolution and Tradition” that “we cannot live” without two faculties – memory and forgetfulness. Our history is the shamash, and we will remember it. And we move forward.
Technological innovation, humanitarianism, culture, identity and more drive us now. We have our own elected Jewish leader, and we have a nation full of better-equipped Maccabim. Just like Chanukah, our story today is a story of the people and of G-d’s miracles. It may not be recorded in Tanach, but it is one for the ages.
Maayan Schoen is a graduate of Atlanta Jewish Academy who now studies in the Migdal Oz Beit Midrash for Women.
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