Hanukkah shines in Jerusalem.

Byline: FROM HEART TO HEART By Evlyn Gould For The Register-Guard

Hanukkah is the Jewish Festival of Lights, an eight-night celebration that brings light, joy and hope into the darkness of winter.

Last year, I was very fortunate to have been able to share Hanukkah together with members of my Eugene Jewish community in Israel. This was my first visit to the Holy Land and my first experience bathing in the special purple and golden light of Jerusalem about which many a legendary traveler has waxed poetic.

Everywhere we saw Hanukkiyot - the nine-branched candelabras lit in honor of the holiday - before every house, on every street, lit every night in honor of freedom. At the Kotel, the Western Wall - a remnant of the rededicated temple of the Hanukkah legend - one's cellular memory is piqued. As the sound of the imam at Al-Aqbar stirred our most ancient yearnings for peace, all of Jerusalem seemed to gather the first night in a ritual lighting.

Song, exuberance and prayer-through-the-tears, this is the Jewish way. The kinesthetic stimuli were intense, and as I touched the wall, waves of pulsing energy flowed through me toward that endless purple above.

Each night of Hanukkah was more glorious than the one before. But one particular day, a day of stark contrasts, replays often in my mind. Over hummus and tahini, zatar and tomatoes, I met a cousin I had never met before. Aviva had come to Israel as a young woman, and I made the oddly fortuitous mistake of asking her, `Where were you during the war?'

`Oy,' she cried and she went on wiping and crying, speaking and crying, `I just can't stop crying.' Her parents were in the Warsaw ghetto and paid a lady to take care of her - one gold coin a day. But when her parents went into hiding, the lady stopped feeding her, throwing only the bones she had already sucked clean.

`They call me child of luck,' said Aviva. `You can read the whole thing at Yad Vashem (the Holocaust Memorial Center).'

My heart broke open, urging the flooding of Hanukkah light.

That evening I was pensive as we drove to Modi'in, site of the original Hanukkah story: a fight to retain an ethnic and religious otherness within the appealing hegemony of Greek culture.

We reached the Moshav Modi'in for Havdallah - a ritual marking the fragrant, sweet sadness of leaving the Sabbath for a week of work.

The Havdallah celebration always exudes light and scent, music and holiness, but this was the fifth night of Hanukkah and there were some 20 Hanukkiyot shining around the room. Soon the teachings began to unfold.

`When we light a candle with another candle, the flame spreads, but the light of the first candle is not diminished; this is the hope of Hanukkah - the spreading of the light.'

`So as the light of the Holy One reaches down to you, with its purple fullness and golden gaze, feel your own inner light reaching like these candles.' One for each night that we share with delight ... to remind us of days long ago.

Evlyn Gould is chairwoman of Temple Beth Israel's Religious Practices Committee. This column is coordinated by Two Rivers Interfaith Ministries, a network of more than 35 religious and spiritual traditions in the Eugene-Springfield area. For more information, visit www.interfaitheugene.org or call 344-5693.