Lights Continue for Generations

Rabbi Yossel Kranz of Chabad of Virginia wrote about his childhood Chanukah memories, and received the response below:

The Chassidic Masters used to say, “Listen to the Chanukah candles; Every one tells a story.”

As we prepare to kindle the special 5th light – when there are more burning candles than not – I would like to share a personal story:

When I was a young teenager, I would often come home from yeshivah to celebrate Chanukah with my family. Inevitably, my father Rabbi Yankel Kranz ob’m, would draft me and my siblings to help with the various community menorah lightings he had arranged.

I remember one Chanukah dressing up as clown, dancing around the mall singing Chanukah songs at a public menorah lighting at the Mall. I remember going to hospitals, jails, and the Beth Shalom Home to hand out metal menorahs and boxes of candles so that everybody who wanted could light the menorah.

But it wasn’t always glamorous. Many winters I stood outside in the freezing cold trying to help my dad install gasoline lanterns on a giant menorah he had built on the corner of Parham and Patterson avenues (a main thoroughfare in Richmond, where one year the Menorah was vandalized.)

My fingers were so numb I couldn’t feel them. I had to put on all the winter clothes I had, just to go outside and refill them. And I remember the stares.

Not the innocent stares that came from non-Jews who had probably never seen a Menorah – let alone two Chassidim at a busy Richmond intersection. But the stares of contempt, and sometimes even anger, from fellow Jews who didn’t like the fact that my father had taken Chanukah out of the closet and placed it on the streets of Richmond for all to see.

As I got older, I became aware of what seemed like an annual debate between my father and the rest of the community; From the Federation to the Rabbis, to many of the lay-leadership, everybody was against public menorahs. My father kept insisting that the message of Chanukah was a universal one – and that the Jewish community should proudly embrace the opportunity to be a “Light unto the Nations,” but he was (literally) fighting City Hall.

Urged on by his mentor and teacher, the Lubavitcher Rebbe ob’m, my father kept those menorahs burning anyway, and at one point, had over a dozen giant Chanukah menorahs on display all over the city.

I was honored yesterday to be invited by our Governor and First Lady, Dorothy and Terry McAuliffe, to a Chanukah celebration and menorah lighting at the Governor’s Mansion. I stood there with our Federation leaders, Rabbis from every denomination, Lay-leadership, Jews and non-Jews alike, and tears came to my eyes as we all sang the blessings and kindled a Menorah (on State property, no less!)

How many of the people here know, I wondered to myself, that this moment was made possible by the tenacity of a single man determined to teach the world to proudly celebrate light?

Even though it was already the fourth night of Chanukah, my heart was bursting with the desire to say the blessing “she’hehcheyanu v’kiyimanu vi’higiyanu l’izman hazeh!”

As I looked around the room and watched my colleagues and friends joyfully and publicly celebrating Chanukah, I couldn’t help but squeeze my fingers and marvel at just how warm it felt inside.

Happy Chanukah!
Rabbi Yossel Kranz

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Dear Rabbi Kranz,

As a follow up to your shared memory of your younger days, decades ago, when you helped your father bring a larger message of the Chanukah lights to Richmond – I offer you the attached simple picture as a small representation of sustainable, intergenerational success.

The menorah you see front and center was given by your father to my grandfather some twenty-five plus years ago when he was sick in a local hospital during a Chanukah season. It was so meaningful to see your father doing the joyous and perseverance-laden outreach that Chabad is famous for today, thanks to the leadership and example of The Rebbe in his lifetime.

Today this same menorah that your father gave him, is part of our family tradition of bringing out many menorahs for everyone to bring to life once again and share the freedom and all the possibilities that the lights represent. For the younger generations especially, it makes a lasting memory when we gather around to light so many Menorahs together and recite the prayers and the words of Shehecheyanu.

My Grandfather came to this country, as an infant in the arms of his mother from Romania. He went on to lead a typical hardscrabble life of the Jewish immigrant in the garment industry of that generation. My beloved grandfather passed away many years ago and now I am a grandfather. We continue to have generations embrace the light of Chanukah and the menorah presented to my grandfather so many years ago is a part of this tradition and continuity of light with all its possibilities.

Thanks to the leadership, actions, and perseverance of the Chabad movement, what some may consider small, can lead to big things we may never even be a witness to in our brief lifetimes. In short, feel good about all that has been and all that is yet to be. The lights that your father created continue on.

Be well,
Sam