Why do we need Christmas lights & candles?

Is it really better to light a candle than to curse the darkness? Why is there the universal human yearning for lights during the Christmas season for Christians, during the eight-day Hannukah celebration for the Jewish people, and for lanterns and bright, noisy fireworks during the various ancient festivals of the Chinese people? Chinese civilization invented gunpowder for merry-making with fireworks with the goal of scaring away evil spirits, the same way Westerners used to believe that Dracula and other ghouls of darkness are terrified by light.

Are the lights and stars of Christmas, the Jewish Hannukah and other festivals symbolic of the yearning of the human spirit to encompass and express faith and love and hope? At a museum, I once saw a big painting of a winter twilight scene, with trees heavy-laden with snow, and a lonely house set amid a raging storm, but the artist had used a stroke of yellow oil paint to put a small light on one widow, and it transformed the whole scene like magic, evoking comfort, cheer and hope.

Christmas Lights, Star Of Bethlehem, Parols

Westerners in the Middle Ages believed that the moon and other celestial bodies were carried by angels and that the stars were beams of light shining through holes on the floor of Heaven. The Muslims of ancient times believed that meteors were firebrands thrown by angels at evil spirits when they came too close to the gates of paradise. Perhaps Christians who decorate their homes and public places with stars are inspired by the Star that guided the Three Wise Men to the manger in Bethlehem.

Can roadside vendors‚ multi-colored and electric lighted parols, the Christmas glitter in churches and malls, Mayor Lito Atienza’s resplendent new lights along Roxas Boulevard and other parts of Manila drive away the evil darkness of corruption, inane political bickering and the epidemic of pessimism which plague our jueteng republic? Can we still believe in miracles and answered prayers? Is there light at the end of the tunnel for a Philippine economic recovery soon if only more people keep alive the fire of optimism and hope in their hearts?

In 412 B.C., Diogenes made himself unwelcomed in the Greek city of Athens by trudging barefoot without a proper outer robe. He usually carried a lantern during daylight hours, thrusting the lantern in the face of people and saying: "I am looking for an honest man." He reportedly never found the man. Would Diogenes have been more frustrated in Philippine society today?

Barbara Streisand, Spielberg, Einstein, Ralph Lauren, Neil Simon, Kafka

Israel as a self-reliant and courageous nation could teach the rest of the world the power of faith. Though it is not a perfect society, embattled Israel is the only real democracy in the Middle East. It is a country with a colorful history filled with numerous inspiring miracles like the Jewish triumph over the Syrians and the Greeks in 165 B.C., which is commemorated annually as the Hanukkah or the Festival of Lights, or the Purim Festival which yearly commemorates the victory over the Persian Empire, or the Passover Festival which annually commemorates triumph over the Egyptians and the dramatic escape across the Red Sea.

Less than a week after the pall of darkness which came with closures of the embassies and offices of Australia, Canada and the European Commission, Israeli Ambassador Irit Ben-Abba and her embassy staff on December 3 hosted the solemn yet festive celebration of the lighting of the fourth candle of the Hanukkah in her residence in Rockwell, Makati City. In attendance were members of the Filipino Jewish community and invited guests. Among the numerous guests were three of Manila’s most hardworking yet sometimes misunderstood diplomats – U.S. Ambassador Francis Ricciardone, Canadian Ambassador Robert Collete and Australian Ambassador Ruth Pierce.

It was a unique experience to witness the reenactment of a beautiful festival of an ancient civilization and of the courageous Jewish people. Last year, US President George W. Bush did an unprecedented thing, when for the first time in American history, he invited American Jews to light the Hannukah menorah and to celebrate the Festival of Lights in the White House.

As God’s Chosen People, the Jewish people have survived numerous persecutions for 2,000 years as ethnic minorities worldwide, but never forsaking their ethnic and cultural heritage. In 73 A.D., 960 Jews chose mass suicide in the clifftop fortress of Masada rather than surrender to the Roman armies. Egyptian Jewish agent Eli Cohen of the Mossad was a legendary hero who almost became President of Syria, and who died a martyr. The lives of their many achievers have lit up the world with the brilliance of their genius, creativity and passion for freedom.

Among the Jewish achievers are so many Nobel Prize winners like Albert Einstein, numerous doctors including Dr. Barry Cahan (who operated the kidney transplants of President Marcos twice and on Tan Yu once), economists Milton Friedman and Paul Samuelson; bankers from Alan Greenspan to the Rotschilds, fashion icons from Ralph Lauren (real name is Ralph Lifschitz), Helena Rubenstein to Estee Lauder, the finest diplomats Henry Kissinger and Madeleine Albright, athletes like Olympic swimming legend Mark Spitz, World Jewish Congress leader and world’s biggest liquor billionaire Edgar Bronfman, and many others.

Jewish achievers have illuminated the art world with their immeasurable talent. Writers include Elie Wiesel, Bernard Malamud, Saul Bellow, Arthur Miller, Neil Simon, Franz Kafka, Nadine Gordimer and Philip Roth. There are phenomenal singers Barbara Streisand and Barry Manilow, award-winning actors Dustin Hoffman and Goldie Hawn, filmmakers Steven Speilberg and Roman Polanski, painters like Marc Chagall, musicians like Irving Berlin who composed the second US national anthem God Bless America. The Jewish filmmakers behind MGM, Universal, Paramount, 20th Century Fox, Warner Brothers and the others who created Hollywood, while Jewish gangster Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel was the visionary whose dream made desert town Las Vegas into the world’s entertainment and gaming capital. Warren Beatty played his character in the movie Bugsy.

The First Zobel, Gordons, Pioneer Public School Teachers, Harry Stonehill

In the Philippines, Marranos or those Jews who escaped persecution from Spain and who refused to forsake their heritage, arrived in the archipelago in the 1500s. Some of these Marranos were discovered by Spanish friars for continuing their Jewish traditions and in the 1600s, they were deported to Mexico for trial and punishment by the Spanish Inquisition court there. There were Jews who fought with Filipino rebels against Spanish colonial oppression in 1898. During the American colonial era, American Jews were among the first public school teachers in the Philippines who were known as Thomasites. Many American Jewish soldiers fought alongside Filipino soldiers against the Japanese military aggression, as evidenced by the many Star of David markers in the world’s biggest overseas American military cemetery in Makati.After the war, among the places suggested for restllement of Eastern European Jews were Australia, Rhodesia, the Philippines, Alaska and Madagascar, but the favorite place was British-ruled Palestine.

Tourism Secretary Richard Gordon is the grandson of a New York Jewish immigrant whose roots are in Belarus, eastern Europe. The late industrialist and media mogul Hans Menzi was the son of a Swiss Jewish tycoon. The Goldenberg Mansion near Malacañang Palace, which First Lady Imelda Marcos used as special guesthouse for the world’s top VIPs, was once home to a French Jewish tycoon who personally witnessed the 1896 Spanish execution of Dr. Jose Rizal in Luneta. During the American era, hundreds of Russian Jews settled in the Philippines as merchants, and in the 1930s the country welcomed refugees from Hitler’s racist persecutions. The late National Artist for History Carlos Quirino was once commissioned by then Ayala conglomerate boss Enrique Zobel to write an unpublished history of the Zobel-Ayala clan, and he told me that the first immigrant Zobel who came to Manila was of German Jewish heritage.

Anton Tantoco Huang of Stores Specialists, Inc. and Rustan Marketing Corp., who accompanied his mother Nedy Tantoco, told Philippine STAR: "I didn’t know Manila has such a big Jewish community. This is an impressive celebration." Energy Secretary Vince Perez, whose cabinet portfolio makes him the chief guardian of the country’s lights and electricity, commented: "I believe I, share the sentiments of most Filipino people who admire the Jewish people and Israel, both our nations are good friends and share a love for democracy." The media-shy Ramon K. Ilusorio of Multinational Investment Bancorporation said: "The Philippines can learn much from the nation of Israel." General Jaime de los Santos, one of the military’s most independent-minded officers, said: "In war or peace, the Jewish people have manifested their courage, talents and moral integrity through the ages." Diplomat Paul Koh said: "We Singaporean diplomats always attend Israeli diplomatic functions anywhere in the world, because we maintain close relations and cooperation between my country and Israel." Air Philippines chairman Domingo Chua said: "We Asians should emulate the way the Jewish people cherish and remain true to their ethnic identity and culture through the centuries, even when they were in the Diaspora and scattered worldwide."

Business leader John Gokongwei Jr. once told this writer that the Jewish people are truly very smart and world-class entrepreneurs. Businessman Rafael "Dong" Abad Santos said: "For us Christians, we believe what the Bible says about the Jewish people being God’s Chosen People. Look at the way they have won numerous victories despite the most cruel odds against them, from winning the six-day war to surviving the Holocaust with a new independent republic in 1948."

The Festival of Lights celebration in Rockwell Makati was marked by prayers, the recitation of the historic account of how the Maccabees led the Jews to victory, community singing led by elders as well as youth, the lighting of the candles, and eating of traditional delicacies. According to the Talmud, the body of Jewish oral law, the Maccabee heroes who revolted against the Syrians and Greeks had reclaimed their Holy Temple in Jerusalem and were looking for undefiled oil to light the lamps. They only found one small cruse of olive oil inside a chamber of the temple, but it was normally good only to last one night. Miraculously, this small amount of oil kept the temple lights burning for eight nights, the time it took for the temple to be rededicated. This miracle is commemorated yearly by the lighting of of the Hannukah lamp, which is a straight-line candelabrum with nine holders for wax candles or cups for olive oil. The eight holders are used for the ritual, while the ninth is raised or separated from the others to light the other eight.

Christians whether Catholics, Protestants or Orthodox share a love for lights and music as do the Jewish people, because Christianity has as its forebear the Judaism religion of the Old Testament. Like an eternal light in a world incessantly threatened by wars, fears and now terrorism, the remarkable miracle of the Jewish nation’s survival against cruel odds is eloquent proof of the existence of God in history, that people with faith and hope in their hearts can overcome darkness, and that miracles are as real as the stars in the sky.

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