Thoughts About Chanukah

Last year I was in Jerusalem for Chanukah.  Jemma, Abby, and I traveled there to meet my youngest grandson who had just been born.  It would have been an emotionally exciting trip even without Chanukah, but I must say that there was something exhilarating about being in Jerusalem and seeing the candles burning in the chanukiyot in each household as we walked through the narrow alleyways in Nachalaot.  There was no sense of the holiday being anything other than what it is...a celebration of our religious freedom to worship G-d and live a life of Torah.  I know it won't feel exactly the same to celebrate in Lincoln this year, but I hope that with enough of us gathering during the 8 days, not only in our own homes, but also within the synagogue, that our sense of joy in being a Jewish community that relishes the very same freedom that the Macabees fought for years ago, will sustain us!