Feeling Crushed By Continuous Horrific News? The Maccabees Can Help

*Note on featured image above: This was me at Bondi Beach, Australia in 2015. I was on a speaking tour of Australia through Chabad of Sydney and Melbourne.

This past week was one for the books in the most horrific sense. First, we saw never released footage of six of the hostages who were murdered in Hamas captivity lighting Chanukah candles, still hoping for their rescue, still dreaming of their redemption. Hersh Goldberg-Polin explains in one clip that the verses of “Ma Oz Tzur” (a traditional Chanukah song) is for every enemy that tried to destroy us but failed. A hostage remarks that we need to add another verse. She was correct that Hamas has failed to destroy the Jewish people, but tragically she didn’t get to be part of it. This holy group of souls saw their last days in Hamas’s dungeons of terror. What a heaviness to hold as the festival of lights was days away.

Shabbos ended and we immediately heard about an active shooter at Brown University, who killed two students, injured many more and is still at large. Then came the Bondi Beach Chabad Chanukah party turned massacre. Fifteen people were killed when two gunmen targeted Jews just celebrating what is meant to be a joyous time. Victims include a 10-year-old girl, a British-born rabbi, a retired police officer, and a Holocaust survivor. Many are injured and are in need of our prayers. After that, news broke of famed Jewish writer-actor-director-producer Rob Reiner and his wife Michele being stabbed to death in their Los Angeles home by their son. And today the FBI announced that they thwarted a major terror attack that was being planned in several locations around LA on New Year’s Eve.

I don’t know about you, but I am numb. I should cry but I’ve run out of tears. I should be scared but it seems like nowhere is safe, so how do you live in constant fear? I am emotionally spent. In my feelings of depletion, I think to the Maccabees, the heroes of the Chanukah story, as a way to go on.

Would you set out on an important road trip if you only had enough gas for the first 20 miles and no foreseeable way of filling your car up for a week? If you were a Maccabee you would. Why did these Jews decide to light the menorah with the paltry sum of oil they found. Why bother lighting an eternal light that you know you can’t keep burning? Why not just wait a week until you have enough oil to do the mitzvah properly?

Because when the chance to fulfill a mitzvah comes up, we’re supposed to jump on it, even if it can’t always be done perfectly. So often in life, we miss out on opportunities because the conditions surrounding them aren’t ideal. Only problem is, if you wait around for the perfect scenario, you may end up waiting indefinitely. Perhaps one of the reasons the Maccabees weren’t defeated is because they weren’t defeatists.

They gave all they had when it came to the war even though their chances of winning were impossible. They jumped on the opportunity to rekindle the menorah even though they knew their resources were insufficient. Then they let go and relied on God for the rest. The story of Chanukah is remarkable because God did come through in those two instances (the oil and the war) and repaid the efforts of the Maccabees with miracles. But truth be told, life doesn’t always work out so well.

So why start a task if there’s a good chance that it will get derailed along the way by events that are out of our control – or if you know you don’t have the fortitude, ability, or resources to complete it yourself? Our sages tell us “lo alecha hamlacha ligmor v’lo atah ben chorine le’hebatel meemenah” – we’re not obligated to finish the work, but we’re also not allowed to neglect it.  We can’t let the audaciousness of the task intimidate us and prevent us from doing whatever we can.

What that means on a practical level is that when it comes to accomplishing, the key is jump right in with all of the resources and talents that we do have.  God will (or won’t) step in to do the rest – by miracles or through the help of others – but we’ll have done our part. If we focus only on the end result, we’ll never take that first, trail-blazing step, and the journey will be over before it’s even begun.

We may feel overwhelmed, at a loss, and depleted at the moment, but we must keep trudging forward with the little bit we have left and wait for God to partner with us on the rest. May the injured and the grieving of all the recent attacks have a speedy recovery and comfort from Above and may we merit to see a time of no more sadness and heartache.

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