Hanukkah’s Hostages

On this Shabbat we begin reading the story about Joseph and his brothers. In this first episode of this story, the brothers plot to kill Joseph but then decide to throw him into a pit to sell him into slavery. This is of course how our people’s story moves from freedom in the land of Israel to bondage in Egypt. The Torah reports these harrowing details, “The brothers stripped Joseph of his ornamented tunic, and took him and cast him into the pit. The pit was empty; there was no water in it.” (Genesis 37) The pit was empty and darkened.

I am thinking about that pit. And I am thinking again about the empty and darkened tunnels and the hundreds of hostages held there for months and years. At this moment, there remains one hostage whose body has yet to be recovered and returned to his family. We pray that the Gvili family might one day soon bury their beloved Ran.

I am also thinking of Hersh Goldberg-Polin and his fellow captives: Carmel Gat, Eden Yerushalmi, Almog Sarusi, Ori Danino and Alex Lobanov. I am thinking about them because the IDF released a captured video of these six brave souls. It was filmed in December 2023 by their Hamas captors as a propaganda video. It is likewise an empty and darkened pit.

In this video Hersh, Carmel, Eden, Almog, Ori and Alex are seen lighting a makeshift Hanukkah menorah. There are smiles and even hesitant laughs from the beautiful six as they have come to be known. They kibbitz, joke, sing and hug. They sing Maoz Tzur and wish all of Israel a Happy Hanukkah. And in one haunting and jarring moment they can be heard singing the Shehechiyanu blessing, “who has given us life, sustained us and brought us to this moment.” “Even in that empty and darkened pit!,” I shouted. Eight months later in August 2024 these six were executed by their Hamas captors only days before IDF soldiers reached them.

As I watched the video it occurred to me that people will by and large have one of two reactions. Both responses stem from our understandable anger.

Those on the left will watch the video and think to themselves, had the Israeli government agreed to the cease fire then on the table that included these six hostages on the list of those to be exchanged for Palestinian prisoners, this year’s December would have witnessed these beautiful six celebrating Hanukkah with their families and enjoying the sufganiyot they jokingly lamented were absent in their tunnel.

Those on the right will also become enraged and say to themselves, Hamas is evil. Here their cruel inhumanity is on full display. They murder our people, torture these young people and then film their religious devotion for propaganda purposes. Had these terrorists had any respect for life they never would have snuffed out the lives of these beautiful souls. They do not believe in peace treaties or cease fires; Hamas only wants to torture the Jewish people and kill us.

Both sides will watch the same video, but soon it will become two different videos. We will see in it confirmations of our preconceived and strongly held beliefs. The right will use it as proof of their opinions. And the left will see it as evidence of their convictions. When we do this, however, we become the very zealots the rabbis feared we might become. This is exactly why the ancient rabbis refashioned the Maccabees’ military victory into a story about God’s miraculous power. The rabbis eschewed the extremes that so often inhabit our lives. They saw in such zealotry the seeds of our own destruction.

Hanukkah is about miracles and lights, the rabbis counsel. When we only see confirmations of our political opinions, we fail to see this harrowing video for what it truly is: testimony to the humanity and courage of six young people.

This video will now stand alongside the countless examples of how we lit the menorah even when facing the darkest of circumstances. We lit menorahs in the camps of Nazi Germany, during the pogroms and the Spanish Inquisition. We lit them in the sixth century, twelfth and the eighteenth. We lit them wherever and whenever we found ourselves. We will add this video testimony to the pantheon of stories of how we celebrated Hanukkah despite the darkness that surrounded us. And we will recall how the menorah’s lights carried us forward.

Hersh, Carmel, Eden, Almog, Ori and Alex’s Hanukkah celebration is evidence and proof of one thing and one thing alone. No matter what is happening around us, no matter what the world is doing to us, lighting the Hanukkah candles has always brought us hope. And these candles will continue to bring us hope.

To quote Alex, “Hanukkah samayach l’kol Yisrael. Happy Hanukkah to all of Israel.”