I find myself thinking this week about two seemingly unrelated parables. The first is something of a riddle, which originates in the Ethiopian Jewish community:
An aging king wants to give his throne to the wisest of his three children. He creates a challenge for them. He builds three identical rooms in the palace garden, and tells them they each have one week to fill it. Whoever fills the room the most completely will inherit the throne. The eldest son begins carrying in rocks from the garden, filling the room with as many rocks as he can carry. The second son is a little more clever, and begins to fill the room with feathers.
The youngest child, the daughter, sees the two brothers working, and thinks to herself. For six days she leaves her room empty. In the evening of the last day, she enters her room carrying a small pouch. The brothers laugh. She opens the pouch, and takes out a candle and a match. Lighting the candle, she fills the room with light and inherits the kingdom.
The second parable is far more modern, coined by a Jewish activist in the 20th century:
A man is walking near a river when suddenly he hears a cry. There’s a baby floating in the river at risk of drowning! Quickly the man dives in and saves the baby. Suddenly, there’s another cry coming from the river, and again the man dives in to find a baby in need of rescuing. This continues to happen over and over again, with the man diving in to save each baby before they drown.
A friend approaches and sees what’s happening, then quickly begins to run along the river. “Where are you going?” The first man cries, “ I need you to help me dive in and save these babies!”
The friend replies, “I’m heading upstream to stop whoever is throwing all these babies in the river!”
Right now, Australia is still reeling from one of the deadliest terror attacks ever carried out on its shores, the Bondi Beach shooting. This antisemitic attack was carried out by two radical Islamists against a Jewish Hanukkah celebration, killing at least 15 people, and injuring dozens more. Among the victims are a 10 year old girl and a Holocaust survivor.
The Australian Prime Minister very rightly condemned this attack as an act of terrorism, a targeted act of antisemitism, and an act of evil against all Australians.
However, this is not the first proverbial baby in the river. Australians in general, and their leaders in particular, have been slow acknowledge and respond to the rapidly escalating acts of antisemitism against the Jewish communities of Australia in recent years.
During an anti-Israel protest in October 2024, protesters outside the Sydney Opera house chanted antisemitic slogans, yet the Australian police and media obsessed over a debate about whether or not the protesters chanted “Gas the Jews” among their other horrifying chants.
Just a week later, two arson attacks targeted a kosher and another nearby business. The next month, numerous cars were vandalized and set on fire. The next month the synagogue was firebombed.
Jewish schools, businesses, homes, and places of worship have been repeatedly targeted with antisemitic vandalism and violence over the past year.
The unspeakable tragedy at Bondi Beach is just the latest attack against Australian Jews. As the Australian public and politicians have wrung their hands and debated whether or not violence against Jews is a problem in Australia, the Jewish communities have continued to be targeted and harmed.
Leaders in Australia have been paralyzed by inaction, diving in after one tragedy and the next to try and do damage control after the fact. They have been trying to rescue drowning babies without ever looking upstream to the source of the horrors.
Perhaps this grim tragedy will finally be the wake up call Australia needs to begin reckoning with the tumor of antisemitism that has been growing unchecked. Perhaps the local authorities will begin to take the physical and spiritual safety of the Jewish community seriously.
The story of Hanukkah is one that is inextricably linked to violence. The rule of the evil king Antiochus was characterized by both physical and spiritual violence against the Jewish people. Yet that is not the lesson of Hanukkah. That is not the story we tell, nor the miracle we celebrate. We add lights to the Hanukkah menorah each night because light and holiness in the world only increases. The darkness of Antiochus was defeated by the heroes of Hanukkah.
Hanukkah is a celebration of light. Rabbi Eli Schlanger, who was tragically murdered by the Islamist gunmen, was not on the beach that day to confront violence. He – and all of those gathered – were there to celebrate light.
That’s why I’ve been thinking about the other parable.
About 1000 years ago, Rabbi Bahya ibn Pekudah wrote about how to conquer the human urge to violence. He wrote that once we find the strength to stand up to violence, it is powerless to withstand us because, “הַמְּעַט מִן הָאוֹר דּוֹחֶה הַרְבֵּה מִן הַחֹשֶׁךְ.” – “a little bit of light drives out even a great darkness.” (Duties of the Heart)
A tiny candle can fill an entire room, even when piles of stones or feathers cannot.
Despite the terrible darkness that was revealed to the world at that gathering on the first night of Hanukkah, we also saw a lot of little lights.
Jessica Rosen is a pregnant mother, who lost sight of her own son in the confusion and the rain of bullets. While she was frantically searching for her son, she saw a 3 year old girl wandering and looking for her own mother. She pulled the little girl close and consoled her, covering her with her own body as a shield. She saved the little girl’s life and was reunited with her son soon after the shooting stopped.
Reuven Morrison charged one of the terrorists, throwing a brick at him to stop the shooting as a second shooter fired at him. He was killed in the attempt to save others. Boris and Sofia Gurman confronted one of the terrorists and wrestled the gun from his hands before they, too, were murdered. We can never know how many lives were saved by these acts of defiance and light.
Ahmed al Ahmed was not attending the event, but was at a nearby cafe when he rushed to the rescue. A former police officer, he tackled and disarmed one of the terrorists, being shot multiple times in the process. He is recovering in the hospital.
Many heroes protected others, intentionally drew fire, and resisted the terrorists. These heroes saved countless lives and helped to preserve and grow light in the face of unspeakable darkness.
The promise of Hanukkah is that Holiness causes light to increase day by day. It can be difficult in times of unbearable darkness to see the light, but it is always there. Anger and violence cannot dispel violence. Only light can do that.