Pirsumei Nisa, the mitzvah of publicizing the miracle, has always been something I’ve felt as central to our observance of Hanukkah. Usually, we extend it to mean placing our Hanukkiyot in our window for neighbors to see. This year, I felt the mitzvah in a new way. After the first night of Hanukkah, I saw pictures circulating of Vice President Harris and Second Gentleman Emhoff lighting the first candle on a Hanukkiya in their residence. I felt the significance of having a Jewish man as the spouse of our Vice President, and what it meant for our holiday, our celebration, our history, to be so publicly displayed. (Though I must admit, my initial reaction was that I wished they’d put a piece of tin foil under the menorah.)
This wasn’t just our government posting a holiday greeting for something that a small minority of Americans observe, this was embracing a celebration that is a part of the family of someone in one of the highest offices in our country. This feels like a whole new level of pirsumei nisa. Having our holiday and our traditions, not just honored, but truly lived and embraced, in Washington, felt significant. The visibility and the completely normal nature of their celebration was not possible in our country for so many years.
I learned a little bit more about the special menorah that they lit that night, that only contributed to my awe. The menorah had been Aaron Feuerstein’s, who owned a textile business, and when a fire decimated his factory in 1995, he refused to lay off any of his workers. As he continued to pay them, he stated boldly and unequivocally that he would not put 3,000 people out of work just weeks before Christmas. Just a week and a half before Hanukkah, Feuerstein got lots of media attention for his actions; this too felt like a version of pirsumei nisa, of publicizing the miracle.
Feuerstein died earlier this year, and a shidduch was made between staffers in Washington and Feuerstein’s home shul in Boston. The story behind the Hanukkiya that they used on that first night bolsters my sense of pride in publicizing our miracle, spreading the message of who we are as Jews and what we stand for. Feuerstein was one who brought light when there could have been unbearable darkness for thousands of people. This is part of the beautiful message broadcast earlier this week, and this is part of our task as Jews as well. I pray that on these last few nights of Hanukkah, we are each able to find ways to publicize the beauty and the message of being Jewish.
Shabbat Shalom, Rabbi Sarit
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