Rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg

There's a first time for everything. I've never brought chocolate for undertakers before. But they too, I realised, as we sat socially distancing from the weeping moaners, were risking their health to bury our dead with dignity and compassion. It's not as if I never met them before. My role as rabbi takes me to the cemetery too often. I never properly appreciated them until now.

Sunday evening brings Hanukkah, the Jewish festival of lights. I have childhood memory my mother preparing the Hanukkah candles, which we kindling increasing numbers, one on the first up to eight the final night. I want big ones, not those tiny birthday cake candles, I insisted as any four year old might. I didn't understand then it's not their size, but the light they gave that matters.