At the time of the Maccabees (166BCE), the Temple had been defiled and used as a garbage dump. The Maccabees rededicated it. Very few remember when the first Temple was 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—survivors, refugees – who fled oppression. I know 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. Everyone fails in ways large and small and needs the strength to rise anew.

The student who is failing must rededicate herself. The addict starting each new day of sobriety must rededicate himself. Those of us who battle against hatred must daily rededicate ourselves to the struggle. No single effort or vision will suffice; we must try again and again and again.

Although there was enough oil for one night, which means the miracle was really seven nights, we light for eight. Why? Because the greatest miracle was the determination to light that first candle. Now, the lights have been kindled in millions of homes over thousands of years. It was not always easy: Already in the Talmud, there are provisions for lighting secretly in times of persecution. But our commitment to publicizing the miracle of rededication endured.

The late Rabbi Hugo Gryn was a child in Auschwitz. The holiday of Hanukkah came, and after fashioning a makeshift menorah, his father melted the precious margarine ration to light a wick for the first night. The young Hugo, outraged, protested to his father. How could he use the food which sustained them in the midst of such horror, just to observe the holiday?

Many years later, Rabbi Gryn said that at that moment his father spoke words, he never forgot. His father said: “My child, we know you can live three weeks without food. You can live three days without water. But you cannot live for three minutes without hope.”

We choose hope. The Shamash is the candle that lights the others. Be a Shamash.