Tomorrow night, Jews around the world will begin to celebrate Hanukkah.

As we recall the victory of the Maccabees and the rededication of the Temple after its desecration by the Seleucid Empire, Hanukkah offers a masterclass in how to confront adversity.

From the moment we light the candles and sing the familiar melody of "Maoz Tzur," we are already in touch with the pain of our people’s past. The song, which translates as "Strong Rock"—a reference to the Almighty—is believed to have been composed at the time of the Crusades, an era in which Christian armies marching to Jerusalem targeted Jewish communities for unspeakable atrocities.

For a Jew to compose a song about Divine salvation while living through such a dark chapter of history is profoundly revealing of what Hanukkah represents. As Rabbi David Wolpe once wrote in TIME:

Very few remember when the Temple was first dedicated (on the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, 1 Kings 8:2), but almost all Jews remember when it was rededicated. Hanukkah, the holiday of rededication, teaches us something essential about successful living.

I have known many people—Holocaust survivors, refugees who fled oppression, people plagued with illness, and others to whom life has dealt cruel blows. Some of them lost everything and had to begin again. Despite many reasons to despair, in a crucial turn toward the future, resilient spirits choose renewed hope and rededicated themselves to purposeful living. That ‘Hanukkah’ moment is the inspiration we all need. 

For a Jew living in Toronto today, Hanukkah is experienced in an overall season of festivity. But this is far removed from Hanukkah’s origins. The real lesson of these eight days is that, when faced with desecration and destruction, we can always choose defiance and rededication.

We are likely living in the most privileged era that Jews have experienced in millennia. Few of us can truly imagine the era of the Maccabees—when Jews who circumcised their sons were subject to death—or envision the horrors that may have been witnessed by the author of "Maoz Tzur."

The same can be said for generations of Jews over the centuries. As Rabbi Wolpe noted: 

"It was not always easy: already in the Talmud there are provisions for lighting [the hanukkiah] secretly in times of persecution. But the Jewish commitment to publicizing the miracle of rededication endured."

In some ways, living in a state of positive defiance against what’s wrong in our world can be difficult if our day-to-day lives are mostly filled with what’s right. But as the Maccabees demonstrated, rededication isn’t a state of mind—it’s a mode of action.

Rededication today can mean taking action against poverty by volunteering to help the one in eight Jews in our city who is struggling to meet their basic needs.

It can mean standing proudly against antisemitism by joining rallies, calling our elected officials, or organizing in our workplaces, universities, and unions.

And it can mean defying those who want to isolate the Jewish state by reaching out to check in with our friends in Israel, donating to support Israel’s recovery, and choosing to make Israel the destination of our next overseas trip.

Each of these challenges—poverty, antisemitism, anti-Zionism—is a modern-day desecration of what our world should be. And in each of these areas, I see a Greater Toronto Jewish community in which thousands of people, every single day, rededicate themselves to building a community and society free of them.

May we be successful in lighting up the world, each in our own way, and turning the joy of these eight days into a year defined by rededication.

Chag Hanukkah Sameach,