CARMEL – Celebrating the first night of Chanukah in Carmel was bittersweet for Rabbi Avi Korer as one of the victims of the Australia massacre was a long-time friend and fellow clergyman.
On a frigid Sunday evening with winds blowing off Lake Gleneida in the county seat and temperatures in the mid-teens, Jews and gentiles gathered to celebrate the first night of the Festival of Lights with the lighting of Putnam County’s grand menorah.
Rabbi Korer of Putnam Chabad officiated over the ceremony, reminding the more than 100 bundled up along the Gleneida lakeshore, “In dark times, Chanukah reminds us that we can bring light into the world while increasing light. It takes a single candle and each night for eight consecutive nights, Jews bring more and more light into the world. May it be that way for all of us regardless of our religious belief. Chanukah celebrates the ‘miracle of the oil.’”
The rabbi said the menorah gives us a message. “It is a beacon of light amidst the darkness around us and this year we must realize more than ever that light overcomes darkness. With our troubled world, we need light more than ever.”
He said our hearts and prayers are with those who were murdered, including a colleague and fellow Chabad Shliach, Rabbi Eli Shlanger. “We also pray for those who were injured and stand in solidarity with the entire Australian Jewish community,” said the spiritual leader.
Rabbi Korer called the tragedy “especially personal for me. I spent a year in Sydney, and I was at that very Menorah lighting at Bondi Beach in 1999. Rabbi Shlanger originally from the UK, was also a neighbor of mine growing up. This is painful. I don’t have the words to fully express my emotions at this moment. But one thing I do know: We will respond the way we always have, by showing up. By adding more light, more pride, more strength, more Jewishness, and more goodness.”
Rabbi Korer said: “Someone tried to extinguish a Chanukah flame. Our answer is to light more.”
Father Robert Quarato, pastor of St. James Church in Carmel, expressed his parish’s “solidarity with Putnam’s Jewish population. We pray for peace in Israel and around the world.”
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