Parliament Puts Menorah on Permanent Display
New South Wales, Australia — State legislative leaders from both the majority and opposition parties unveiled a permanent display for the Parliament of New South Wales’ prized silver Chanukah menorah.
Hosted by Legislative Council President Don Harwin and Legislative Assembly Speaker Shelley Hancock, the Thursday morning tea ceremony in Parliament House’s historic Parkes Room marked the continued cooperation between the Australian state’s Jewish community and lawmakers in the capital of Sydney.
“We are honored to participate in this small but significant ceremony,” Chabad-Lubavitch Rabbi Pinchus Feldman, dean and spiritual leader of Sydney’s Yeshiva Centre, said before bestowing a blessing on attendees. “Based on a verse in the Bible, we are taught that a person who achieves greatness, meaning a position of importance for society, has all of his or her sins forgiven. This practically means that you would have all started your new career recently with a clean slate from G-d Almighty to enable you to deal with the enormous issues that you face, without any previous baggage.
“If the Almighty places you in a position of authority and responsibility, it means that He has granted you the ability, strength capacity, understanding and all of the other qualities that leadership requires to fulfill these responsibilities with great success,” continued Feldman. “May you all collectively and individually be blessed with good health, happiness and joy from your families and infinite success in taking the state of New South Wales from strength to strength for many years to come.”
Besides Feldman, guests of honor included MP Victor Dominello – who attended on behalf of NSW Premier Barry O’Farrell – Opposition Leader John Robertson, NSW Jewish Board of Deputies president Yair Miller, and Board of Deputies CEO Vic Alhadeff. Other invited guests included parliamentary clerk Lynn Lovelock, Legislative Assembly deputy clerk Mark Swinson, parliamentary administrator Robert Stefanic, and Rabbis Eli Feldman, Yossi Segelman and Dovid Slavin of the Yeshiva Centre.
Before introducing Feldman, Harwin noted the historic significance of the Parkes Room and its many artifacts. It was fitting, he said, for the menorah – a 2009 gift of the Yeshiva Centre that had previously been housed in the Speaker’s Office – to take its place amongst the state’s “valued treasures.”
Hancock, meanwhile, pointed out that the menorah, which has been kindled every year during a Chanukah ceremony for legislators, was actually the second Jewish communal gift to Parliament. Back in 1974, the Board of Deputies donated the Parliament’s ceremonial mace, she said, and both items highlighted the warm relationship that the Jewish community has enjoyed with the wider community of Australians.
For his part, Robertson spoke about the pride he feels when thinking about the thousands of people who will visit Parliament each year and will have the opportunity to be inspired by the menorah’s universal message of light and holiness banishing darkness and negativity.
“As the motto of our state gloriously exclaims, ‘Recently risen, how brightly you shine,’ so may the light of this menorah figuratively shine on all the of the blessed endeavors of our honorable houses of Parliament,” said Feldman.
