In ancient times, well before the destruction of the first Temple, it is said that the festival of lights was a solstice celebration welcoming the coming of the light that would carry us away from winter's darkness. As we gather together for Shalom Bayit's tenth candlelighting honoring battered women, let us imagine for a moment the darkness that some of us have had to bear in our lives: the darkness of violence, of fear, of shame and self-blame, of psychological torment. And now we light candles for coming into the light: into empowerment, freedom to control our own lives, an end to violence and powerlessness.
In honor of the fire and light in women's lives, we light the first candle.
2.
Chanukah also celebrates cultural and religious freedom, our success against the forces that wanted Jews to become something we were not. That struggle to hold on to our Jewish identity, and to be open and proud of who we are, has continued throughout history. We see it in the form of the Spanish Inquisition, and again half a millennium later in the Holocaust. Even today Jews still struggle to preserve our Jewishness against a rising tide of pressures to assimilate.
In honor of our struggles to find freedom, preserve selfhood and live without shame, we light the second candle.
3.
We have all come here, to be a part of Shalom Bayit, for different reasons. Many of us have felt in common a desire to integrate our personal and political work against abuse with our spiritual and cultural life in the Jewish community. Weaving those disparate parts of our lives together, we find wholeness and feel at home. We feel understood. We sense connection. Particularly to anyone who has felt invisible as a Jew in battered women's programs, or to anyone who has felt misunderstood by a Jewish community in denial about violence against women in our midst, it has been important to have a place where we can support each other as Jewish women.
In honor of Jewish battered women's groups, we light the third candle.
4.
As a celebration of our ancient struggle for freedom, Chanukah reminds us that life is a struggle, and that we must always stand up for our right to self-determination. As Jews, as women, as survivors of all different kinds of oppression and abuses of power, we are still struggling for our liberation. We fight for ourselves and for each other. Chanukah reminds us to celebrate our individual and collective strength. Chanukah calls upon each of us to honor ourselves as survivors, and to honor those who came before us, who fought for us.
In honor of generation upon generation of our mothers, and of the children who will follow in our paths, we light the fourth candle.
5.
Chanukah is also about miracles. The miracle of the survival of the Jewish people, the miracle of oil that burned for eight days, the miracle of light in our lives. The miracle of women's survival. And the miracle of children, who keep their hearts and minds so open against all odds. Let us take a moment to consider and appreciate the things that we are grateful for in our own lives, even the tiniest miracles with which we have been blessed.
In honor of the miracles that bless us, we light the fifth candle.
6.
It is a miracle that women who are battered can gather enough strength to fight back, to leave, or even just to make it through another day. It is a miracle that a person can experience such horrors and somehow retain who she is on the inside, somehow piece herself and her life back together again, somehow continue to hold down a job or take care of her children, somehow remain a loving person.
In honor of the miraculous strength and courage of all battered women, we light the sixth candle.
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And because we know that many women do not survive...because we feel the weight of that loss heavily in our hearts...because we fear for women around the world every day who are in danger in their own homes...and because we know how great the risks are...we know that every battered woman who makes it, represents a miracle.
In honor of battered women who have died, whose souls call us to keep fighting, and in honor of those who have survived, we light the seventh candle.
8.
On this eighth and final night of Chanukah, let us celebrate our being together to honor:
- the struggles of all people fighting for their freedom
- the miracle of survival
- the coming of light into our lives
- the courage of women and children