FROM THE OFFICE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS

It is an honor and a privilege to come here to the Ellipse again this year to participate in the lighting of the National Chanukah Menorah. For more than 20 years, due to the leadership of the Chabad Lubavitch Movement, a menorah has stood here in our nation's capital as a symbol of the pluralism and religious liberty that are such a precious part of the American heritage.

This joyous Festival of Lights commemorates the rededication of the Jews' Holy Temple and the rekindling of the Temple's sacred oil lamp. Tonight, we light the first candle of the Chanukah Menorah. Each night, we will light one additional candle until, on the last night, all eight candles blaze forth with joy and light. To light the candle, we use the middle or tallest candle, known as the shamash. Through the shamash, all the other candles of the menorah are kindled.

In a figurative sense, this National Chanukah Menorah serves as a shamash itself, the menorah through which so many other menorahs are lit this day. We come together each year in this most visible of places so that through this Menorah's lighting, we can help illuminate menorahs all around the world. For more than 20 years, this annual tradition-one of the most widely viewed Menorah lightings in the world-has rekindled candles and hearts in countless Chanukah celebrations.

My wife Fran and I watched our young sons Jay and Brian light the first National Menorah in 1979 in Lafayette Park with President Jimmy Carter. Since then, I have been privileged to travel across the globe as an ambassador and representative of my country. As I have done so, I have seen more and more Menorahs lit each year in places unthinkable when we first lit this menorah more than 20 years ago. From the former Soviet Union to Eastern Europe to South America and elsewhere, a few more candles are being kindled each year to celebrate Chanukah as more and more people enjoy the freedom to worship according to their own conscience-that inalienable right for which Judah and the Maccabees fought so many years ago.

In 168 B.C.E., the Jews' holy temple was seized and Jewish rituals were banned. Although vastly outnumbered, the Jews refused to reject their faith in God, their customs and their religious tradition. Led by Judah Maccabee, they decided to fight back and emerged victorious after three years of fighting, despite having fewer men and fewer weapons.

The victorious group of soldiers entered the holy Temple on the 25^th day of Kislev 3597 by the Jewish calendar. A powerful story comes to use from that time. The soldiers cleaned and repaired the damaged temple and prepared for a rededication ceremony. They discovered, however, that they could not worship because the ritually pure oils, essential to the service, had been defiled by the invaders. All that remained intact was one vessel of oil, enough to last for only one day. Miraculously, that supply of oil lasted for eight days. And so it was decreed that the eight days beginning the 25^th of Kislev should be a time of rejoicing and of rededication.

Yet, perhaps even more miraculous than the enduring oil of the Chanukah story was that a small band of vastly outnumbered soldiers was able to overcome extraordinary odds and defeat much larger forces of oppression and persecution. Fifty years ago, a small group of Jews again triumphed in the face of overwhelming odds, and thus the State of Israel was born out of the ashes of a decimated European Jewry. The Clinton Administration has championed the effort to bring a measure of justice to those who experienced the darkest days of this century by seeking a moral accounting and providing compensation for those victims of the Holocaust.

Chanukah teaches us that no matter how insurmountable the odds may seem, miracles can come to those full of faith and courage. The hope of achieving peace in the Middle East, especially amid the recent internecine violence, has lately seemed as remote a possibility as victory must have seemed to the Maccabees when they began their revolt just miles north of Jerusalem. Yet, just as they did not lose faith, let all those who may feel beleaguered in the search for peace draw inspiration from the Maccabees and from the lights of this festive day. Let the candles of this Menorah be the shamash that rekindles our commitment, through our prayers and actions, to be the light that casts away the shadow of despair and reveals the path to an everlasting peace.