Happy Hanukkah and Merry Christmas

Today is the day before Christmas eve and the space underneath our Christmas tree is filling up with wrapped presents waiting to be opened on Christmas morning.

Tonight is also the 3rd night of Hanukkah, the Feast of Dedication. We lit the 3rd candle of the Hanukah Menorah tonight.

Christmas and Hanukkah go together. Jesus celebrated Hanukkah, why shouldn't Christians acknowledge the great miracle that happended when the Temple was rededicated in Jerusalem?

Want to read about a real "Raider of Lost Arks"? I came across this story of a rabbi who spends his time and money finding, rescuing and restoring Torah scrolls (Hand copied Biblical manuscripts) that were buried to hide them from the Nazis during World War II.

He couldn’t look less like Indiana Jones. His black yarmulke glistens after
our four-block walk in the rain from the bookstore—that’s his day job. His
slender body and high, sweet voice make him seem more like a boy than a
43-year-old father of seven. But as he takes off his glasses to wipe away the
droplets, his blue-green eyes sparkle with energy—a hint that looks don’t begin
to tell the story.

“I rescue Torahs—that’s what I have been doing since 1985,” he says.

“It is not just a book,” he says. “A congregation without a Torah is a
congregation without a bond between them and God.”

A Torah is also, in many of the Eastern European towns he visits, the only
tangible remains of communities that were wiped out in World War II. So he is
doing more than commemorating those whose lives were lost—he is bringing
survivors back to life.

Read the entire story: Raider of the Lost Ark by Susan Seliger