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Short Summary
Main recommendation: Light the Chanukah menorah openly and boldly, even in places marked by the greatest darkness, as a response to hatred, using the menorah at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin as the central example. The video tells the story of Rachel Posner's 1932 photograph of a menorah set against a Nazi swastika flag in Kiel, Germany, and how her family's menorah later became a symbol of Jewish survival. It frames the Berlin menorah lighting in 2018 as a modern reversal of that history.
Key Points
- In December 1932 in Kiel, Germany, Rachel Posner photographed the family menorah in her window, with the Nazi headquarters flag visible across the street, and wrote a note on the back of the picture.
- Her note read: "Judah will die, thus says the flag. Judah will live forever, thus say the lights."
- Weeks after the photo, Hitler became Chancellor of Germany on January 30, 1933, and the next 15 years brought Jewish life close to extinction.
- Rabbi Yehoyada Teichtel, Chief Rabbi of Berlin, said his teacher, the late Lubavitcher Rebbe, taught that the greatest darkness calls for introducing the greatest light into such places. German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier asked for the privilege of kindling the menorah at the Brandenburg Gate; he would light the shamash and hand it to Rabbi Teichtel, who would kindle the first candle.
- The family menorah was saved, brought to Haifa, Israel, and is still lit each year by Yehuda Manzabach, Rachel's grandson, who reads the note aloud to his family.
Details Worth Noting
- Concrete instructions: The video gives no step-by-step preparation, dosage, or checklist. The only actionable guidance is the teaching attributed to the Lubavitcher Rebbe: when facing the greatest darkness, respond by introducing the greatest light into that place or situation, as the Berlin menorah was erected at the Brandenburg Gate.
- The Nazi flag was draped over the headquarters across the street from the Posner home, and the photo was taken on the eighth night of Chanukah, which coincided with Shabbos (Dec. 31, 1932).
- The event marked the 80th anniversary of Kristallnacht, which the speaker described as the onset of the Holocaust (no specific year stated by the speaker beyond this).
- Chanukah's shamash is the helper candle used to light the others; the speaker notes that the President lighting the shamash was an honor.
- Thousands of Jews and others were expected to attend the Berlin lighting that evening.
- The speaker presents the Berlin event as a "miracle," describing it as a German head of state requesting a Chabad rabbi's privilege to light the menorah eight decades after the Holocaust.
Bottom Line
A family's defiant Chanukah candles outlasted a regime that aimed to erase Jewish life, and decades later that same tradition was publicly honored at the site of Nazi rallies.
