“Speech is a path to peace.”

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, of blessed memory, wrote these words years ago. Today, they are as relevant as ever.

Reading his thoughts this morning, I felt both a sharp pang of regret and a renewed hope. The regret is personal; there is someone in my life with whom there are few words and no peace between us.

The hope was startling too, because Israel and Hamas have once again begun hurling rockets at one another after a brief pause. There has been no direct speech between them, only mediated conversations about prisoner exchanges.

Rabbi Sacks was writing about Joseph and his brothers, whose narrative we begin reading this Shabbat, and which will lead directly to the story of slavery in Egypt. He wanted us to understand that if the brothers had communicated with Joseph, rather than simply resenting him because of their father’s favoritism, things might have gone differently.

I am reminded of the playground chant, “sticks and stones will break my bones, but words can never hurt me.” It is, of course, untrue. Words can hurt terribly, and words received in silence often hurt even more, as the recipient revisits the pain again and again.

Communication ends, and pain continues to fester. In the Torah, it resulted in the brothers hurling Joseph into a pit and leaving him for dead.

We read this story every year at the beginning of Hanukkah. Called the Festival of Lights, it comes at the darkest time of year.

And it has indeed been a dark two months. How can we bring ourselves to celebrate when war rages and more than 100 captives have not been freed? Rabbi Yael Ridberg wrote this about Israelis observing the holiday this year:

“In this moment, what warrants the celebration of Hanukkah is the dedication and rededication of Israelis to one another and the fervent hopes to rebuild their communities and the State as the shamashim – the helper candles – that they are, and that we must be.”

We American Jews also are called to re-dedicate ourselves to one another, to Israel, to standing against antisemitism, and to bringing more light into a dark world.

The Talmud records a disagreement about how to light the hanukiah, the menorah. The Sage Shammai thought that we should light all the candles on the first night, and then decrease the number every night. He was imitating the sacrifices of Sukkot, during which every day there are fewer. And when it came to the Hanukkah miracle, he noticed that the oil that lasted for eight days probably diminished over the course of the week.

But the Sage Hillel disagreed. He said that every night we should light yet another candle, as our amazement at the miracle, and our joy, and our celebration, increases. I think he was right.

Every night of the holiday, we bring more light into the world. May we be blessed to continue to bring light into the world every day of our lives.