Praying for New Chanukah Miracles
Pastor Dale Morgan
Praying for New Chanukah Miracles*
11:36 Dec 15, '06 / 24 Kislev 5767
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
Jews begin the eight-day Chanukah festival Friday night. Prayers will
take place at the Western Wall for the health and return of kidnapped
IDF soldiers and for much needed winter rains.
The Festival of Lights holiday features the lighting of candles each
night in memory of two miracles - the victory of the grassroots Jewish
rebellion against the Greek rulers and their Jewish collaborators more
than 2100 years ago and the one-day supply of purified olive oil that
lasted for eight days. Jewish priests found the olive oil while
rededicating the Holy Temple following its systematic defilement by the
Greeks and Hellenists.
Twenty centuries later, Jews are praying for the return of missing and
kidnapped IDF soldiers, including navigator Ron Arad whose whereabouts
are still unknown since his plane was downed over Lebanon more than 20
years ago, and the three soldiers kidnapped in last summer's two-front
war against Hizbullah terrorists in Lebanon and Hamas terrorists in the
south.
Gilad Shalit was abducted by Hamas terrorists in June during an attack
on an Israeli position at a crossing which killed two others soldiers.
The following month, at the outset of the Hizbullah war in the north,
terrorists kidnapped reservists Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev.
The government promised the war would not end before Goldwasser and
Regev were returned, but it quickly backed down from the vow after
government and military strategies failed to defeat the Hizbullah
terrorist army, which possessed advanced weapons not known to
intelligence officials.
Leading rabbis will usher in the holiday with prayers for the return of
the soldiers and for a break in the nearly month-long drought. The level
of the Kinneret (Sea of Galilee) has been receding instead of rising and
there is a growing danger that there will not be enough water for the
summer.
Expelled Jewish residents of the destroyed Samaria communities of Sa-Nur
and Homesh plan to light Chanukah candles on the grounds of their former
homes in a prelude to the rebuilding and reinhabiting of the
communities. They are hoping the army will not try to stop them because
they have no intention of backing down.
Residents of destroyed communities in Gush Katif and northern Gaza also
are planning a candle-lighting ceremony at the Elei Sinai synagogue,
about 50 yards across the Gaza border, or opposite the former community
if the army does not allow them enter.
Click here for an essay by Rabbi David Bar Hayyim on the meaning on
Chanukah.