Rabbi's Sermons

This sermon was given the shabbos after the Bondi Beach Chanukah Massacre.

Tonight, when you light your Chanukah candles, place them in the window as you always do. But this year, understand: that simple act—putting a menorah where the world can see it—is an act of defiance. An act of courage. It is a declaration. It is exactly what got fifteen Jews murdered in Sydney three days ago.

They gathered at Bondi Beach—a thousand Jews on the first night of Chanukah, singing, dancing, celebrating by the sea. Among them: ten-year-old Matilda. An 87-year-old elder. Rabbi Elkayam, who came to share in the joy of his community. And within minutes, two gunmen opened fire, turning a night of light into unspeakable darkness. Fifteen kedoshim. Forty wounded. Australia's deadliest attack on Jews in history.

The question burns in our hearts: Why? Why were they targeted?

The answer is painfully simple: Not because they were Zionists. Not because of their politics. Because they were publicly Jewish. Because they refused to hide. Because they placed their celebration—like we place our menorot—where everyone could see.

And this brings us directly to the heart of this week's parasha, and to a question Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, zt"l, asked that suddenly feels desperately urgent: How does a Jew speak about God in a world that may hate us for it?

The Two Names, The Two Worlds

When Yosef stands before Pharaoh in our parasha, fresh from the pit of prison, he faces a delicate challenge. He must interpret Pharaoh's dreams, but he must do so in a language Pharaoh can understand. Seven times—always a significant number in Torah—the word Elokim appears in their conversation. Joseph uses it five times:

"אֱלֹקים יַעֲנֶה אֶת־שְׁלוֹם פַּרְעֹה" — "God (Elokim) will give Pharaoh the answer he desires."

"אֱלֹקים הִגִּיד לְפַרְעֹה אֵת אֲשֶׁר־הוּא עֹשֶׂה" — "God (Elokim) has revealed to Pharaoh what He is about to do."

And remarkably, Pharaoh responds in kind: "הֲנִמְצָא כָזֶה אִישׁ אֲשֶׁר רוּחַ אֱלֹקים בּוֹ" — "Can we find anyone like this man, in whom is the spirit of God (Elokim)?"

Notice what's missing. Not once does either man use the four-letter Name we call Hashem. This is the Torah's way of teaching us something profound.

Rabbi Sacks explained that these two names represent two modes of encountering the Divine. Elokim is God as Creator, as the force behind nature, as the moral order that binds all humanity. It's the God that even an Egyptian Pharaoh—raised among countless gods and goddesses—can recognize when he sees justice, wisdom, and truth. Elokim is universal. It speaks to what we all share as human beings created in the Divine image.

But Hashem—that is different. Hashem is the personal Name, God as we encounter Him in revelation, in covenant, in the intimate relationship unique to the Jewish people. It's the Name spoken at Sinai. It's the Name that appears when the Torah describes Yosef's own inner life: "וַיי הָיָה אֶת־יוֹסֵף" — "Hashem was with Joseph"; "וַיָי אִתּוֹ וַאֲשֶׁר־הוּא עֹשֶׂה יְי מַצְלִיחַ" — "Hashem was with him, and Hashem gave him success in everything he did."

When Yosef resists Potiphar's wife's advances, he cries out: "וְאֵיךְ אֶעֱשֶׂה הָרָעָה הַגְּדֹלָה הַזֹּאת וְחָטָאתִי לֵאלֹקים" — "How can I do this great evil and sin against Elokim?" He uses the universal name because even she can understand that there is a moral order to creation. But in the narrator's voice, in Yosef's private spiritual life, it's always Hashem—the God of covenant, of intimate relationship.

The Sacred Tension We Must Hold

Here, then, is the tension Judaism asks us to hold, the tension that Joseph embodied perfectly: We believe Elokim is the God of all humanity. We share this world with billions of others, all created in the Divine image. We are called, like Joseph, to contribute to society, to be a blessing to our neighbors, to work for justice and the common good. The covenant with Noah applies to all people—basic moral laws that make civilization possible.

At the same time, we believe in Hashem—in our particular covenant, our unique mission, our special relationship with the Holy One. We are bound by 613 commandments, not just seven. We have been given a calling unlike that of any other nation: "מַמְלֶכֶת כֹּהֲנִים וְגוֹי קָדוֹשׁ" — to be "a kingdom of priests and a holy nation," to serve as witnesses to the Divine Presence in history.

This is not a contradiction—it's the essence of who we are. Joseph saved Egypt and the entire region from famine. He was Pharaoh's viceroy, speaking the language of Elokim that Egyptians could understand, contributing his wisdom to a society not his own. He was a blessing to people who didn't share his covenant. But he never stopped being connected to Hashem. He never abandoned his particular identity for the sake of universal acceptance.

As Rabbi Sacks wrote: "To be a Jew is to be true to our faith while being a blessing to others regardless of their faith."

This is the balance we're called to strike. And it's this very balance that makes us targets.

When the World Rejects the Light

Because here's what the enemies of the Jewish people—from the Greeks to the ISIS inspired gunmen at Bondi Beach—have never understood: We will not choose. We will not say, "We'll keep Hashem but hide it in private, and only show the world Elokim." We will not make our Judaism invisible to purchase safety.

The Chanukah story is precisely about this refusal. The Greeks didn't want to kill us—they wanted to Hellenize us. They wanted us to be like everyone else, to keep whatever particular practices we insisted on behind closed doors, but to participate fully in Greek culture in public. They didn't mind Elokim—universal values they could respect. What they couldn't tolerate was Hashem—our stubborn insistence on being different, on maintaining a covenant that set us apart.

The Maccabees said no. They said: We will light the menorah in the Temple. We will celebrate in public. We will be visibly, unapologetically, proudly Jewish. And for this, they were willing to fight and die.

Two thousand years later, a thousand Jews gathered at Bondi Beach to do exactly what the Maccabees fought for. To celebrate Chanukah—not in hiding, not in whispers, but openly, joyfully, at one of Sydney's most iconic public spaces. To say: We are here. We are Jews. We will not live in fear.

And for this simple act of public Jewish joy, fifteen of them were murdered.

The Meaning of the Lights

This is why tonight's candle-lighting carries a weight it never has before. When we place our menorot in the window—פִּרְסוּמֵי נִסָּא, to publicize the miracle—we are doing exactly what the Jews of Bondi Beach did. We are saying: This is who we are. We will not hide.

The Talmud teaches: "מִצְוַת נֵר חֲנֻכָּה לְהַרְבּוֹת אוֹר" — "Mitzvat ner Chanukah leharbót or—the commandment of the Chanukah lights is to increase the light." Each night we add another flame. We don't merely maintain—we amplify. We push back the darkness one candle at a time.

This is our answer to Bondi Beach. This is our answer to every pogrom, every expulsion, every attempt to make us disappear. We don't dim our lights—we make them brighter. We don't retreat into hiding—we step further into visibility. We don't abandon our mission—we embrace it more fully.

Like Joseph, we will continue to speak about Elokim to the world. We will contribute to society. We will work for justice. We will be good neighbors, good citizens, a blessing to the nations. We will affirm what we share with all humanity—the universal values, the common moral order, the belief that every person carries the Divine image.

But we will not apologize for Hashem. We will not hide our particular covenant. We will not make our Judaism smaller or quieter or less visible to make others comfortable. We will place our menorot in the windows. We will celebrate in public. We will live as proudly Jewish people, because that is precisely what we were put on this earth to do.

Our Commitment, Their Memory

The Greeks had armies, but they couldn't extinguish the light. The small cruse of oil should have lasted one day, but it burned for eight. Against all logic, against all probability, the light endured.

Tonight, across Australia and around the world, Jews will light Chanukah candles. Some will light them with fear. All will light them with tears. But we will light them. Because we are the people who insist, generation after generation, that darkness does not get the final word.

We will light them for Matilda, age ten, who should have grown up celebrating many more Chanukahs by the sea.

We will light them for Rabbi Elkayam, who came simply to be with his community in joy.

We will light them for all fifteen kedoshim whose only crime was being Jewish in public.

We will light them to say: You did not die in vain. Your courage—the simple courage to celebrate openly—reminds us who we are and what we're called to do.

We will light them because we are the children of Avraham, Yitzchak, and Ya'akov. We are the people who met Hashem at Sinai. We are the nation that carries both names of God—Elokim for the world, Hashem in our hearts—and we will never choose between them.

And we will light them because, as Joseph understood in Egypt and as the Maccabees understood in Jerusalem and as the Jews of Bondi Beach understood three days ago: being a blessing to the world doesn't mean disappearing into it. It means bringing our particular light into the universal darkness.

So tonight, when you light your menorah, place it in the window. Let it shine. Let the world see.

Because that's exactly what got our brothers and sisters killed.

And that's exactly why we must keep doing it. May the neshamas of those 15 killed have aliyot and may their memories be for a blessing.