Football, Judaism, Chanukah and miracles

If you don’t mind indulging me, please rewind your clock back to 25 May 2024.

My dad and I were at Wembley Stadium, ready to watch the FA Cup Final, a repeat of the 2023 final where City had simply blown United away. I remember queuing up to get our beers and saying to him, “We haven’t got a chance here, Dad.” And yet, although the words came out of my mouth, there was still a tiny spark somewhere inside that whispered, well… you never know.

Against all logic, Manchester United’s hero that day was a 19-year-old academy graduate. Kobbie Mainoo, calm, fearless, and completely unfazed by the moment, scoring the winning goal. On paper, it shouldn’t have happened. And yet, in one instant, half the stadium shifted.

Football has a way of distilling belief, momentum, and possibility into something you can feel collectively. Some might say there’s something about football that mirrors Judaism. It’s tribal. It’s about belonging. It’s hugging complete strangers when your team wins or grabbing hold of someone you’ve never met before to do Israeli dancing at a wedding. It’s why we keep watching. It’s why we keep showing up.

This week marked the start of my role as Development Director at LSJS. It has been a week of countless induction meetings, where playing Jewish geography has often taken priority over learning the finer details of each function. During the week, I was fortunate enough to spend over two and a half hours with Rabbi Dr Raphael Zarum, Dean of LSJS. It sounds like a lot, but it is not easy squeezing 170 years of history into a neat one-hour meeting.

What struck me most wasn’t the scale; it was the continuity. Different generations, different challenges, the same underlying commitment to learning, leadership, and Jewish life. I found myself noticing a different kind of spark, the quieter kind that appears at the edges of new beginnings: in conversations, in corridors, in ideas that are only just starting to take shape.

Rabbi Raphy helped give language to some of what I had been noticing. He spoke about the importance of serious questions, about learning as an act of inquiry rather than certainty, and about how Jewish thought deepens when we allow ourselves to stay curious, open, and engaged.

Working at LSJS, I am beginning to see how much of Jewish life depends on that same principle. Education is rarely about grand gestures. It is about steady investment in people, teachers, leaders, thinkers, whose influence spreads outward over time in ways we can’t always predict or measure immediately.

On Sunday night, we begin the festival of Chanukah, the story of Judah Maccabee, who led a small group in revolt against a far more powerful force, prevailing against overwhelming odds. A reminder that sometimes the expected script doesn’t hold, and belief can count for more than probability.

Next week, I return to Wembley, this time not for football, but for the FA’s Chanukah celebration. Over 400 people gathering, together marking the festival in one of the most public spaces in the country. A visible expression of Jewish life and light, at a time when visibility, pride, and togetherness feel anything but straightforward.

Chanukah doesn’t ask us to believe that miracles happen on their own. It asks us to begin lighting anyway, night by night, trusting that the light will grow. It’s what carried the Maccabees forward against overwhelming odds, and, in a very different way, what made moments like United’s victory at Wembley feel so electrifying.
Faith and belief don’t ignore reality. They refuse to be limited by it.

As I reach the end of my first week at LSJS, that feels like a fitting lesson to carry forward, not a conclusion, but an invitation to notice, to begin, and to keep adding light.

Dan Rickman is the Development Director at LSJS