 So around the year 175 BCE, about 175 years before the common era, the Syrian Greek armies, the armies of the Syrian Greek king, Antiochus Epiphanes, took control of the land of Israel and they issued harsh decrees against Judaism in their quest to Hellenize the lands that they conquered. They eventually seized the holy temple in Jerusalem and they turned it into a pagan shrine. A resistance rose up among a small group of pious Jews who eventually vanquished their occupiers and took back control of the holy temple. Their battle ended on the 25th day of the month of Key Slave which now marks the first day of our holiday of Hanukkah. Now when they retook the temple and they cleansed it, they purified it of its idolatry, they discovered that the Syrian Greeks had purposely contaminated all of the oil that was used for the daily lighting of the menorah in the temple. This is actually a daily ritual in the holy temple of Jerusalem. They lit the menorah, a seven-branch menorah, every day of the year and they tried searching for pure oil. They searched and they searched but it looked like no pure oil was to be had. Nonetheless, they kept on searching and eventually they found a small jar of oil that was still unopened and it was sealed with the seal of the high priest. This is one of the important lessons of Hanukkah that there is no place for despair or giving up in Jewish life. They could have given up. They could have resigned themselves to the fact that they were not going to find any pure oil. But despite all their failures to find any, they kept on searching anyway. And this is what gave Rabbi Akiva the strength to rebuild after the death of his 24,000 students who perished in a very horrible plague. He gathered five students and he began teaching them again, ultimately saving the teachings of the Torah and saving Judaism. It would not be hard imagining how Rabbi Akiva could have given up after that incredible tragedy losing 24,000 of his students but he didn't give in to despair and this is what gave us the strength and led our people to rebuild after the Holocaust. We didn't throw in the towel. A battered people came to the embryonic Jewish state and helped build it in a few short decades into one of the most incredible nations on the planet. The great Yeshivot and rabbinical schools that were decimated in Europe were replanted in North America and in Israel and have prospered dramatically and have grown exponentially. Hasidic dynasties, famous dynasties, going back hundreds of years, were practically snuffed out onto the Nazi fury but they've reemerged and have grown and thrived. This is one of the important lessons of Hanukkah. The miracle of Hanukkah is not just that a small jar of pure oil that was only enough to burn in the menorah for one day ended up lasting for eight days. That's not the only miracle. The miracle is also that the light is still burning. Rabbi Yaakov Emdin writing in the 17th century observed that one of the greatest miracles of the Jewish people has been our survival, still practicing Judaism in the face of ongoing persecution and ongoing pressure for us to assimilate. Think of all the mighty empires of days gone by that can only be found today in museums. Think of the ancient Egyptian empire. Think of the mighty Assyrian, Persian, Babylonian, Greek, and Roman empires among others. Today they're just a memory and incredibly the Jewish people, a small tiny persecuted people scattered all over the world. We continue to exist and to thrive. Yet Hanukkah has become our most ironic holiday. It is one of the most widely celebrated Jewish holidays and without a doubt one of the reasons is its proximity to the winter holiday of gift giving celebrated by the Christian lands where we find ourselves. Some Jewish people even seek to combine the two holidays by setting up a Hanukkah tree or a Hanukkah bush in their homes. We're having a Christmas party. The incredible irony is that Hanukkah is a holiday specifically marking our victory over assimilation. It wasn't only the Syrian Greek armies who were seeking to stifle Judaism. They were joined by massive numbers of Jewish Hellenizers eager to embrace the world view of the Greeks. And so Hanukkah was ultimately a victory against assimilation and the survival of traditional Judaism. In this regard I saw a beautiful thought that was shared by Rabbi Dinothin Sacks, the former chief rabbi of England. He cites a disagreement in the Talmud about using one of the Hanukkah candles to light another candle. Now in practice we avoid this question, we avoid this problem by using a Shamash. A Shamash is not one of the Hanukkah candles. It's a helper candle and with the Shamash we light all of the Hanukkah lights. But what would happen if there was no Shamash to use? Could you use the first candle to light the second candle and to light the third candle, for example? And two great sages debated this question. One named Rav said no, you're not allowed to use one Hanukkah candle to light another. But Shmuel said yes, you are allowed to. Now usually the rule is in Jewish law that when there's a disagreement between Rav and Shmuel we follow the teaching of Rav. But there are three exceptions and this is one of the three exceptions. And here the law goes according to Shmuel that we are allowed to use one Hanukkah candle to light the others. Now what was Rav's reason for prohibiting this? What was his thinking? So according to the Talmud Rav's thinking was that if you use one candle to light another you're going to diminish the light of the first candle. In the process of lighting the other candles inevitably some of the oil or wax will spill and will be wasted. The first candle's light is going to be diminished. Rav is opposed to doing anything that can diminish the light of the candles. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks explained what is the reasoning of Shmuel who permits doing this? Rabbi Sacks asks us to imagine two Jewish people each one very committed to Judaism very steeped in practicing their faith. One might say one of the two might say that he's not going to try and influence and get involved with other Jews who are disconnected from Judaism. One of them might say I'm not going to try to help other Jewish people who are disconnected from Judaism to really embrace their Judaism. I'm not going to try to do that. I'm not going to get involved with them because in the process they're afraid that their standards, their own standards will be diminished, will be affected and their light will be diminished. This is the view of Rav but Shmuel disagrees and he says that if we use the flame of our faith to enlighten someone else's life our Jewishness will grow. It will not be diminished. It grows because now there will be more light more Torah light in the world. When it comes to spiritual goods spiritual commodities the more I share the more I have and so this view of Shmuel that you're allowed to light other candles with one of the Chanukah candles was accepted as the law in Judaism and that's one of the important reasons why we at Jews for Judaism very carefully chose the name of our organization. We didn't name our organization Jews against Jesus or Jews against Christianity. We named it Jews for Judaism. We believe that the most important thing that we as a small organization can do is to help spread more the light of Torah to help spread more of the light of Judaism and we know from our experience that we are not diminished by this in the least. We are greatly blessed. We are greatly enhanced. Our own Jewish lives are greatly increased by this activity and I believe that all of us each one of us in the room any little bit that we can share of our own Jewishness whether it's teaching someone just to read the olive bet or inviting someone to your home for Shabbat or studying with someone studying the Torah with someone anything that we do will not only spread our light to those people it will greatly bless our own spiritual lives and we wish all of us a wonderful, joyous, light-filled Hanukkah.