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From Rabbi Pete Tobias of the Liberal Synagogue, Elstree:

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Today is the twelfth Day of Christmas, known in many Christian traditions as Epiphany. I’m reminded of an occasion exactly twenty years ago when I took a year out from my rabbinic career to return to primary school teaching. I was working in a school with an astonishing mixture of races and I was allowed to lead an assembly every Tuesday morning. So twenty years ago, on Tuesday 6th January, the rabbi got to explain the significance of Epiphany to two hundred plus non-Christian children…

I probably said something about the three wise men completing their journey and bringing their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. But for me the most significant part of the whole event was the multi-cultural nature of the exercise.

In a religious context, of course, epiphany relates specifically to an encounter with the divine. More generally it speaks of a moment of sudden awakening or understanding. An Aha moment - that instant when you realise something and a light goes on in your head.

It’s perhaps ironic that Epiphany, that moment of revelation when a light goes on, is actually the date when Christmas lights go out. The decorations that have kept the darkness of our winter streets at bay will be gone by the end of today.

I wasn’t sure how to conclude that school assembly on the first day of a new term. I told the children that the lights were going out that day. Then I had an Aha moment and decided to end with a prayer from the Liberal Jewish Prayerbook traditionally recited every weekday, but clearly apt for the beginning of a year.

‘Bless this year for us, Eternal God: may its produce bring us well-being. Bestow Your blessing on the earth, that it may have a future and a hope, and that all may share its abundance in peace.’

That would truly be an Aha moment – an epiphany when a light goes on all over the world with the realisation of the potential to share our precious planet in peace.