Prayer for the Light to Continue to Shine

On the eve of the Festival of Lights, the ancient evil of antisemitism rises yet again, wielding its cruel tools of senseless violence, seeking to snuff out the lives of those from a people too familiar with grief, too often called to recite the Mourner’s Kaddish

for the innocent.

May the memory of those who have died be a blessing that steadies and guides us.

May their deaths become a beacon, drawing all humanity toward the holy work of shining the light of love and justice.

May their blood, unjustly shed, thwart the plans of their assassins, and raise up an uncountable host who refuse xenophobia, who reject hatred, who stand as living witnesses against bigotry and fear.

May their unwilled sacrifice expose as folly the lie of accommodation, the soft words that minimize the danger of hate, the excuses that justify inaction and denial.

Let every attempt to belittle this threat be unmasked as a betrayal of our shared humanity.

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness,”

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once proclaimed; “only light can do that.”

So let our light shine.

Let the lives of those taken become a radiant protest against the power and purpose of the darkness.

Let their memory burn in us as a steadfast flame- a light that will not yield,

a light that will not be overcome.