LS-1095: TREASURY DEPUTY SECRETARY STUART E. EIZENSTAT REMARKS
AT LIGHTING OF THE NATIONAL CHANUKAH MENORAH
WASHINGTON, DC
posted by Editor at 5/27/2005
1 Comments:
It is an honor and a privilege to come here to the Ellipse again this year to participate in the lighting of the National Chanukah Menorah. For more than 20 years, due to the leadership of the Chabad Lubavitch Movement, a menorah has stood here in our nation's capital as a symbol of the pluralism and religious liberty that are such a precious part of the American heritage.
This joyous Festival of Lights commemorates the rededication of the Jews' Holy Temple and the rekindling of the Temple's sacred oil lamp. Tonight, we light the first candle of the Chanukah Menorah. Each night, we will light one additional candle until, on the last night, all eight candles blaze forth with joy and light. To light the candle, we use the middle or tallest candle, known as the shamash. Through the shamash, all the other candles of the menorah are kindled.
In a figurative sense, this National Chanukah Menorah serves as a shamash itself, the menorah through which so many other menorahs are lit this day. We come together each year in this most visible of places so that through this Menorah's lighting, we can help illuminate menorahs all around the world. For more than 20 years, this annual tradition-one of the most widely viewed Menorah lightings in the world-has rekindled candles and hearts in countless Chanukah celebrations.
My wife Fran and I watched our young sons Jay and Brian light the first National Menorah in 1979 in Lafayette Park with President Jimmy Carter. Since then, I have been privileged to travel across the globe as an ambassador and representative of my country. As I have done so, I have seen more and more Menorahs lit each year in places unthinkable when we first lit this menorah more than 20 years ago. From the former Soviet Union to Eastern Europe to South America and elsewhere, a few more candles are being kindled each year to celebrate Chanukah as more and more people enjoy the freedom to worship according to their own conscience-that inalienable right for which Judah and the Maccabees fought so many years ago
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