It's not quite sundown, but the Shabbas horn rings throughout Jerusalem as I sit on the front porch of a friend's apartment waiting to grab her half of the groceries to finish making tonight's Sushi Shabbas dinner. As I sit on the step, the sound of the horn ringing for its full minute, I look up into the windows in the apartment building accross the way. As if planned, 4 of the 5 windows which sit directly on top of eachother are adorned with a Hannukiyah and two candles. Tonigh, we will light the Shabbas candles and the first candles of Hannukah. In the window three stories up I see an older man, kippah on head and bencher in hand, standing at the window. As he takes a match to the Shamash, a young couple and their daughter come into the window frame as well. As the older man lights the Hannukiyah, the younger man puts his arm around his wife and child and an older woman walks into the room, dishtowel in hand, and puts her arm around her husband as he lights the candles...three generations of family together in one window to celebrate the first night of Hannukah and Shabbat.
My friend walks out of her apartment and I quietly point to the family in the window. While she is making me aware of what is in the bag...rice (hopefully the right kind), smoked salmon, cucumbers, ginger, Nary and two Hannukah candles so we can light our own Hannukiyah I am still focused on the family in the 3rd story window, now exchanging kisses and I assume telling eachother Chag Sameach (Happy Holiday) just as my family has done for as long as I remember...we light candles, we kiss...we celebrate together.
Another holiday and I reminded how far away I am from my own family, but there is something incredibly special about that row of windows in which every single pane sits a Hannukiyah waiting to be lit to announce the first night of Hannukah. Just as wreaths adorn every lamppost in the neighborhoods and shopping centers at home, here there is an eight foot tall Menorah on virtually every corner and in most cases on the roof of every house and business in Jerusalem. As I drove past the Knesset this morning (home of the Israeli government) I saw the men on the roof finishing the large Hannukiyah in time for tonight and as I exited Jerusalem the sign that reads Bruchim Ha'ba'im (Welcome Friends) also has a Hannukiyak, so large that the lights are actually full lamposts, lined up one next to eachother making the largest Hanukah Menorah I think I've ever seen.
There is sufganiyot (doughnuts) everywhere and my buddy Yakov has invited me and a few of my friends to make Latkes in the kitchen at his bar one night this week so that the bar can serve up Latkes to its customers in honor of the week's celebration. I love Hannukah, not because even though I am almost 27 my father still insists on sending eight presents, one for each night, to wherever in the world I may be and not because the entire building begins to smell like onions and oil when someone is frying up potato latkes, but because the holiday is meant to celebrate miracles and light.
For each of us we think of something different, but the opportunity ot reflect on both miracles and light is something that I really enjoy and really helps put things into perspective for me. The original celebration of Hannukah may or may not have been the miracle that oil for one day lasted for 8 after the destruction of the first temple in 586 BCE. Actually, in most of our classes and learning, perhaps the only original themse regarding a Hannukah celebration was that of the Jews denouncing of Hellenism and willingness to revolt, even with massive destruction in order to maintain an identity. It is a theme that Jews today must even deal with, even if the Hellenists become the consumerists or the secularists or the overwhelmingly Christian influenced world that we live in in 2006.
Still, the ideas of miracles and light and how they manifest themselves in our daily lives is a topic we can spend much time on. Every day I am lonely or lost in my thoughts I can talk to my friend Brookelin and we'll always end up speaking about working towrads our light and manifesting our goals in that light. Today I went to the unveiling of my good friend's mother's gravestone. Talia spoke about how appropriate today was, because as we welcome Hannukah we are able to see Talia's mom's light shine just as it shone every day she was alive. I think of the Kabbalists and the fundamental notion that we live in a world in which there are millions of rays of light swarming around our universe and the goal of Kabbalah and mystical Judaism is to bring those points of light together, resulting in bringing together the light of the world and knockign out the darkness and evil that it contends with on a daily basis.
Miracles too, whether you choose to label them as coincidences, ironic encounters or just believe in miracles that do happen is another beautiful theme to celebrate for the eight days of Hannukah. Maybe the oil is an old aged story and one that we will never know if it is folklore or true. But, to tansform that concept of thinking there is not enough, be it time, money, food, ability and all of the times in our lives when we have worried so much that it would not work out only to find that we were satisfied and were able to meet our needs. Perhaps that is luck of the draw or maybe it is beautiful to think that these are the way in which miracles make way into our lives when we are not looking for them to be of a divine nature.
So, its time to prepare the sushi and light both the Shabbas and Hannukah candles. Here in Jerusalem there is something beautiful about the omnipresence of the holiday, but I can think of my mom's home and see her electric Hannukiyah in the window with hers, my sisters and my Hannukah Menorah already with two candles picked out from the morning that will be lit and followed by kisses and the exchange of "Happy Hannukah." I think about all of the homes throughout the world who will light candles together tonight and it seems to me that this is the time in which we come together, though we are dispersed in so many different places, to light up where we live and acclaim that we do believe in miracles, we do believe in light and we are blessed to have holidays that bring us together as family in friends to celebrate our light.
Shabbat Shalom
and Chag Chanukah Sameach!
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I can only echo the beauty of Hanukkah that Jess speaks to with such visual definition and clarity. She paints a greeting card that cannot be bought. And for me there is a beauty of holding tradition of eight gifts in todays diaspora. For a period of time, a week, a cammed day, a month, I carefully select eight individual presents for both my daughters. They are small and inexpensive. I wrap them individually, maybe sloppily. I tape on a chocolate kiss or an energy bar. Sometimes I put tags. But throughout this process, in a busy world and busy schedules, I am focused in thoughts of both my children. I laugh when I see something that they will roll their eyes at. I smile when I remember something that they asked for. And I am excited when I can get them something they need. And while a dad helps out throughout the year, for me Hanukkah is not a time of expensive materialism. It is a time when I can make something, pick up a little thing that I had no idea existed or remember something that will make a child happy, no matter how old they are. And throughout this time, I am smiling as I tie uneven ribbons, stretch and tear wrapping paper to make sure it fits over something and finally go to the post office. But I know the box carries and is received with so much more than the eight things I wrapped. This is the joy that Jess speaks to. And the gift for me is knowing that they smile and are probably reminded of how silly I can be sometimes and for this moment in time, again, they are daddy's little girls. And the road to that special feeling is never too far.
Happy Hanukkah to all.
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