The message is diplomatic, but not hard to decode. While Obama has gathered leftist anti-Israel social justice clergy around him, the Rabbi lighting a menorah outside the White House called for dispelling the darkness that had been created by bringing light.
“I know that some of us are so sad at what happened there with regard to Israel,” said Rabbi Levi Shemtov, an executive at the American Friends of Lubavitch (Chabad), according to the Washington Examiner.
“We must remember that the way to counter any darkness, any disappointment is not with harsh rhetoric, not with anger, but when we create light, the darkness dissipates,” Shemtov added.
The Obama administration’s official representative to the lighting ceremony on the second night of Hanukkah was Adam Szubin, an acting undersecretary at the Department of Treasury. Last year, the White House sent chief of staff Denis McDonough.
That is, shall we say, an obvious downgrade. But Obama needs to spend less time pretending to conduct outreach to Jews. Actual Jews. Not J Street Jews.
“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,” Shemtov told those who had gathered.
“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 Benjamin Netanyahu, and he was at the time the ambassador to the United Nations,” the rabbi added.
Netanyahu went on to quote that advice, describing the UN as a place of great darkness. Under Obama, the White House became a place of great darkness. Let's hope that darkness lifts soon.