We were planning to publish a festive holiday newsletter filled with light and with Partnership endeavors.  But the wildfire that blazed out of control on Mount Carmel turned the Holiday of Lights into a different sort of holiday.  A very different and sad holiday.

But throughout our history, despite the sorrow and bereavement that has befallen us, we have always sought a ray of light.  Today, still in the throes of pain and unbearable loss, we are trying to extract from that terrible place a source of consolation.

Rabbi Ohad Ezrachi, a member of Kibbutz Beit Oren, which absorbed the full fury of the fire, did well to find the light and somehow find solace in the Hanukah story:

"There's something about fire that transcends and bursts through all borders.  Today we are seeing how other borders are being crossed:  All of a sudden, Turkey comes to our assistance; Greece, out of all the countries, was first country-on Hanukah-to come to our assistance.  I think that beyond the dimensions this event has affected, the human, ecological, financial and international ones, there is also the mythological dimension whose importance can't be dismissed.  Perhaps to the Hanukah story, this recent unfolding of events can at least be added?"

And then, after 2300 years, during those days of Hanukah, when the fire threatened to burn without end for all eight days across the mountains of Israel, the people of Greece came to us saying: "Here we are.  We have come to help bring peace to your land, in a spirit of kindheartedness and brotherhood of nations.  Even the people of Troy (Turkey) joined together with the Greeks to come to the aid of Israel."

Perhaps we can finally close this historical account?  Let us add this chapter to the Hanukah story that is told to our children today, and let us perpetuate it for future generations.  Enough-enough of the old wars.

And on this consoling and encouraging note, today when the rain, after weeks of drought, has benevolently returned to douse the last of the fires and to clear the air, let us wish all of our People, and the world, better days of light.