Last Chanukah, on the eve of the seventh day, Major (in reserves) Maor Lavi Hy”d found a chanukiah in a house in Gaza. He and his fellow soldiers lit candles in it on the last two nights of Chanukah in Gaza. It was to be Maor’s last Chanukah. Two weeks later, at the age of 33, he was killed.
Maor (whose name means luminary) called his brother Yaakov, a rabbi, and asked how to find the rightful owners of the chanukiah. He wanted to do hashevat aveida, the mitzvah of returning a lost object. Maor posted on social media, and recorded an announcement for the radio. In the meantime, he brought the chanukiah home on his furlough, polishing it and restoring it to its former glory. He had no idea how it came to be in Gaza. Perhaps it was stolen during the October 7 pogrom or, perhaps, it had been there since the disengagement in 2005. For him, it symbolized the light in the darkness of this terrible war.
Maor, who lived in the religious settlement of Sussia in the Hevron Mountains, with his wife, Inbar, and their four daughters, had a special connection to Chanukah. He was a carpenter by trade and an artisan. Every year, he created his own chanukiah out of wood.
Maor was a man who indeed brought light into the world. He had a smile for everyone. He volunteered for Hatzalah. He volunteered for Yedidim (Israel’s Chaverim). Everyone called Maor a light. His mother had given him the name Maor based on the verse in Tehillim 74:16: “Yours is the day, Yours is the night, You prepared the luminary and the sun.”
At Maor’s azcara, memorial, three weeks ago, (The azcara was held two weeks before Chanukah because he died during a leap year on the Hebrew calendar so that 12 months had already gone by), the family gave out 200 replicas of the chanukiah he had found, which they commissioned a factory to make in his memory.
Many initiatives were undertaken to remember this man of chesed, and the light he shined on the world, which was tragically extinguished while he was a young man.
This year, Inbar and her daughters will be lighting the chanukiah that Maor found in the darkest of places, a symbol of the hope that has always accompanied the Jewish people as a light to the nations of the world. And another 200 chanukiahs will be lit by Maor’s friends and family in memory of Maor who found it and in commemoration of the miracle of his finding a chanukiah in Gaza among the rubble, just as each year we commemorate the miracle of finding the flask of oil in the Temple.
May we soon be rebuilding both the Jewish communities in Gaza and the Third Temple, and may we welcome back all our soldiers in peace. And may we merit to greet Mashiach, who will restore everything lost to their rightful owners.
Chanukah Sameach!
L’illui nishmat Maor ben Shalom v’Malka.
Rosally Saltsman is a freelance writer, originally from Montreal, who lives in Israel. Come join her!
