Newsletter

Light in the Darkness

December 14, 2025

At the time of this writing, our prayers go out to those in Australia who have just endured a horrific, antisemitic, mass shooting at a Hanukkah celebration on a beach. Add to this the killing of U.S. servicemen in Syria and the brutal slaying of students at Brown University—the alma mater of one of my nephews—and one must consider that there is a lot of darkness that needs to be enlightened.

That is the essence of Hanukkah: the eternal light of the LORD being restored to the Temple after the defeat of the enemies of Israel who tried to extinguish that light.
Hanukkah is known as the ‘Feast of Dedication.’ As we illuminate the candles on the ‘Hannukiyah’—the nine-branched Hannukah menorah, let us dedicate ourselves to being ‘the light of the world’ on an earth plagued by much darkness.

May THE light that lightens every man shine upon you and yours on this festival; a celebration marked by miraculous victory in battle by the Maccabees over the Syrian-Greeks and the cleansing and rededication of God’s house after its defilement by Antiochus Epiphanes. The Hanukkah menorah reminds us that Israel is called to be a ‘light to the nations.’ Yeshua, Jesus, is the ‘light of the world,’ and He has called all the sons and daughters of Abraham to be ‘the light of the world.’

Let each candle we kindle on this ‘Feast of Dedication’ illuminate our lives and the lives of those around us; may our way be ‘the path of the just (which) is like the shining sun, that shines ever brighter until the perfect day’; the Day of the return of Yeshua, our ‘Everlasting Light!’

In the midst of much tragedy, heartbreak and unhappiness—may the Lord bless you and your loved ones with a ‘Happy Hanukkah.’

Shalom in HIM-
Marty and Jenny Goetz