Are the Days of Suffering Endless? Chanukah in the Shadow of the Sydney Terror Attack

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The well known Chanukah piyyut Maoz Tzur is usually sang as a song of hope and light. Its familiar, lively melody brings a smile to children and adults alike. Yet if we listen carefully, especially to the final stanza, we hear a very different voice, one that is unsettling and deeply thought provoking.

The final stanza of Maoz Tzur is not a song of victory. It is not celebratory. It is a cry. Its words emerge from the heart of Jewish history, from an experience forged through persecution, fear, and the trauma of antisemitism. They express a feeling many Jews know all too well: that suffering returns again and again, that hatred changes its clothing but not its essence, and that the days of darkness seem endless: “Bare Your holy arm and bring near the end of salvation; avenge the blood of Your servants against the wicked nation. For the time has grown long for us, and there seems to be no end to the days of suffering. Cast the enemy aside into the shadow of its idolatry, and raise up for us the seven shepherds.”
These words have always been difficult. In some communities they were sung softly, almost in a whisper. In others they were skipped altogether.

The terror attack this week in Sydney makes it even harder to sing Maoz Tzur innocently. Jews were attacked in a place that should have been safe. Once again, antisemitism and violence burst into the routine of Jewish life. Once again, Chanukah arrived not only with candles and dreidels, but also with fear, mourning, and blood.

How, then, can we celebrate Chanukah, the festival of light, when the darkness once again raises its head and feels so close?

Earlier this week, at our communal Chanukah candle lighting in Be’er Sheva, we chose not to ignore this tension. We did not rush past the final stanza of Maoz Tzur. On the contrary, we chose to sing it anew. One of its lines declares that there is no end to the days of suffering. This year, we transformed that line into a prayer. We did not claim that suffering has already ended, nor did we deny reality. But we prayed that it will end. Not “there is no end to the days of suffering,” but “there is an end to the days of suffering.” This is not naive optimism. It is faith. It is a refusal to believe that Jewish history is an endless cycle of antisemitism. It is an insistence that evil, even when it roars loudly, is not eternal.

This idea lies at the very heart of this week’s parasha, Parashat Miketz. When the parasha opens, Yosef is still imprisoned. Forgotten. Trapped in darkness. The Torah tells us that two full years have passed since the chief cupbearer promised to remember him. Two years of silence. Two years of darkness. Yosef has every reason to believe that this is how his story will end. The time has grown long, and it seems that there is no end to his days of suffering.

And then, suddenly, without warning, everything changes. Pharaoh dreams a dream. A chain of events begins to move. In a single day, Yosef is taken from the depths of the pit and brought before the most powerful man in the world. The darkness does not fade gradually. It shatters. What is striking is that nothing external changed before that moment. Yosef did not escape. He did not fight his way out of prison. He did not see the end approaching. The only thing that changed was time. The time arrived.

This idea is articulated beautifully by the Midrash. On the opening of Parashat Miketz, Bereshit Rabbah 89:1 teaches:” Hashem set an end to the darkness. Hashem fixed a time for Yosef, how many years he would dwell in the gloom of the prison, and when the time arrived, Pharaoh dreamed a dream.”

The Midrash emphasizes that Yosef’s imprisonment was neither random nor endless. Even as he sat forgotten in the depths of the prison, an end to the darkness had already been set. A precise moment had been determined, hidden even from Yosef himself, when he would emerge into the light. This is the depth of Parashat Miketz. Its very name means “end.” Not because the suffering was imaginary, and not because the prison was an illusion, but because even the darkest chapters have a boundary, even if from within we cannot see it. There is, indeed, an end to the days of suffering.

This Chanukah, we choose to focus on that very message. The Hasmoneans lived under religious persecution. The Beit HaMikdash was defiled. Jews were killed for keeping the Torah. The world was not safe then either. And yet the light of Chanukah insists that darkness is never the final word, and that light will ultimately come.

And so this year, we light the candles with heavier hearts, but with deeper intention. We sing Maoz Tzur aware of its shadows, not only its light. And we allow its final words to become a prayer for the victims of Sydney, for Jewish communities everywhere, and for a future in which the days of suffering truly will come to an end. Chanukah never pretended that the world is safe. It was born in a time of oppression, persecution, and bloodshed. Its message is not that darkness does not exist, but that darkness has always been, and will always remain, temporary.

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