The flames of the Temple Menorah have been dark for many centuries, but the flames of the Chanukah menorah can never be extinguished.

Even in the darkest of times, even in Hitler’s camps and in Stalin’s Gulag, those flames shone brightly. 

Even the mighty winds of oppression and of assimilation have never succeeded to tear them from their wicks.

Because the flames of the Temple Menorah were given to us from heaven above. But the flames of the Chanukah Menorah shine by our own achievement on earth below, wrought of Jewish blood and self-sacrifice, of our undying commitment to the generations to come.

A flame gifted from heaven may at times fade, but the flames we have squeezed from the depths of our own souls will shine forever.