1. Chanukah Lights
I KINDLED my eight little candles,
My Chanukah-candles--and lo!
Fair visions and dreams half-forgotten
To me came of years long ago.
Since the diaspora, coming together at holidays and celebrating Jewish heritage and culture is an important part of a Jew's religious identity and experience. Lighting candles at Hanukah, breaking glasses at weddings to remember the destruction of the Temple, sharing a Seder meal to commemorate the Passover, are all traditions to remember ties to the past and to each other. These rituals tie everyone together in culture, tradition and religion. Sharing in the holidays is a remembrance of millennia of history and customs. They bring the past into the present and Jews from around the world together in one purpose
I KINDLED my eight little candles,
My Chanukah-candles--and lo!
Fair visions and dreams half-forgotten
To me came of years long ago.
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Israel, my people,
God's greatest riddle,
Will thy solution
Ever be told
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I REMEMBER in my childhood
From my grandfather I heard
Charming tales of gone-by ages
That my soul so deeply stirred.
Holiday of new
New Nation
New buds coming out - flowers and leaves
The world mirrors its newness in trees
At Passover, it's matzo mother is making
Because years ago while the bread was baking
Pharaoh came and chased the Jews away
On this somber holiday
6 million people, 12 million hands
Strapped together like rubber bands.
6 million people, 12 million eyes,
Mother and children with last goodbyes.
Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, that turned my life into one long night seven times sealed.
Never shall I forget that smoke.
Never shall I forget the small faces of the children whose bodies I saw transformed into smoke under a silent sky.
Never shall I forget those flames that consumed my faith for ever.
There was peace among the streets
Children playing in the warm summer heat
Husbands greeting wives with a genuine smile