On Sunday, Rabbi Levi Shemtov, who in charge of the National Hanukkah Menorah lighting that occurred within yards of the White House, blasted the Obama administration’s decision to allow the United Nations to pass the vicious anti-Israel UN resolution on Friday.
Shemtov, executive vice president of American Friends of Lubavitch, reacted after Adam Szubin, acting treasury undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, who was the Obama administration’s representative, spoke of the significance and symbolism of candles and light as they pertain to Hanukkah, according to The Washington Examiner.
Secretary Szubin spoke before of fighting darkness with light. I remember those words being spoken to a particular man by the Rebbe [Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson] many, many years ago on Simchat Torah, when we rejoiced with the Torah. The Rebbe told him, “You are working in a place where there is great grief and darkness, but remember that in that place of darkness, you can only counter it by lighting a candle. By creating light.”
That man was Benyamin Netanyahu, and he was at the time the ambassador to the United Nations.
So I know that some of us are so sad at what happens there with regard to Israel; we must remember that the way to counter any darkness, any disappointment, is not with harsh rhetoric, not with anger, but by creating light, because when we create light, the darkness dissipates. And we look forward to the day when there will be no more darkness, there will be no more evil, there will be no more disappointment. We will live a life full of life, full of light, full of peace, full of harmony, as we will all be together in the coming of the world to its point of redemption.
“You are working in a place where there is great grief and darkness, but remember that in that place of darkness, you can only counter it by lighting a candle. By creating light.”
Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson to then-Israeli ambassador to the U.N. Benjamin Netanyahu
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