Small Gestures

By Pierpaolo Pinhas Punturello

There are small gestures, barely visible, that change the history of the world. One of these happened on a bus in Alabama, when a woman named Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white person. This episode occurred precisely 61 years ago, in December 1955. The lighting of a candle can also become a revolutionary gesture that changes the history of the world. In order for this to happen, it is enough for this candle to be publicly lit in a square in Paris, or Brussels, or Stockholm, in cities where darkness is thickening and, tragically, in order to protect themselves from this darkness people turn off the lights and close the doors of synagogues.

*Pierpaolo Pinhas Punturello is a rabbi. The article was translated by Rossella Tercatin.