The Miracle of Light

I grew up in the Midwest, where being Jewish was a bit of a novelty. One year, a newspaper photographer came to our house—and a picture of our family lighting the Chanukkah candles was featured on the front page of the Lawrence, Kansas Daily Journal world.

In this grainy black and white photo, my father with his bald head and 1970's sideburns— solemnly lights the silver menorah—as he chants the ancient blessing. He is uncharacteristically wearing a dark suit and tie. My mother, sister, brother and I gaze earnestly into the flickering flames. Had the photographer caught us a few minutes later, we would have been acting silly or arguing, but in that moment we were the picture perfect Jewish family observing a ritual passed down from generation to generation for more than two thousand years. We always followed the candle lighting with two songs in Hebrew-- “Maoz Tsur” (or Rock of Ages) and “Mi Yimalel”--which we sang with great gusto. These songs tell of the heroic deeds of our ancestors, in days of old.

In 168 BC, Syrian-Greek soldiers took over the Jewish synagogue, and tried to force the Jewish people to give up their religion of one God, bow down to a statue of Zeus, and to participate in animal sacrifices. Some did it, simply because they were afraid of what would happen to them if they didn't. But a brave band of brothers, known as the Maccabees, led a rebellion against the powerful Greek army—hiding in the hills and using their knowledge of the terrain to attack by surprise, and defeat this much larger foe.

After their victory over the Greeks, when the Jews returned to their Temple, they needed to clean it, not just physically but spiritually—to purify it. They had to rekindle the Eternal Light, which is supposed to be burning always. However they found only a small amount of oil left—barely enough to last a day. According to the story, after lighting the lamp with this tiny bit of oil, an expedition went out to search for more-- travelling by row boat for 8 days and 8 nights. When they got back with more fuel, they were astounded to find that the Eternal light was still burning! Miraculously, that small amount of oil had lasted. This is why we light the menorah, and celebrate Chanukkah for eight nights.

In all my years of lighting the Menorah, first as a child and now as an adult--there is one Chanukkah that stands out in my mind. Some of you will remember the great ice storm of 2002. During this time, my then husband, son and I were without power or water for a week, due to downed tree limbs on power lines. We were fortunate to have a garage/shop adjacent to our house, which was heated with wood. We moved in, and this became our little “cabin in the woods”. We became a pioneer family, making lentil soup and hot chocolate on top of the wood stove, and melting ice to wash up. It was much darker than usual at night, deeply dark, with no street lights or house lights nearby. As we lit our Menorah , the eight small candles gave off a surprisingly significant stream of bright light, illuminating my family's faces, and filling the entire room. As we sang, and played our traditional game of dreydl, I felt connected to Chanukkah, in a way that I had never experienced before. It felt to me as if the flickering light had come alive. It dawned on me how precious light truly is, and how important it was to our ancestors. Before, the miracle of light had been just an old story—not my personal story. As the candles melted down one by one—our one-room-cabin grew gradually dimmer and dimmer, until the last flame extinguished, its tiny plume of smoke rising. All was sadly dark, save for the dim orange glow of the wood stove.

We lit our “hurricane lamp”, which had a wick floating in oil. This lamp, a gift from my ex-mother-in-law, had sat on the shelf for years and had never been used until this ice storm. We didn't even have fuel for it. Some neighbors, who were better prepared for emergencies, gave us a small amount of oil. Amazingly, that small quantity of fuel lasted for the entire week we were without power. It gave out only after the power came back on, when we brought the lamp into our “big house” to use as a centerpiece for our first “welcome back to civilization” dinner! The house, with all the electric lights back on, now seemed enormous and garish.

In the traditional Chanukah blessing, we thank God for performing miracles in this season, in days of old. May the miracle of Light, be truly yours in THIS season today and always...

Blind Date

“A fan from way back wants to meet you”, said the email from my friend Janet. She had copied Joe Accardo on the message. What? I have fans? I couldn't help but feel flattered. Joe used to listen to my radio show, back in the day. And Janet knows him, so he must be all right. “He thinks you're the 'bees knees'” she wrote. I clicked “reply all”. “Do bees have knees? Would hate to disappoint,” I entered.

I heard from Joe the next morning. His email described wonderful memories of hearing me on the radio. There was one day in particular: He was shaping a metal sculpture in his studio. It was early spring and the door was open to sunshine and breeze. He described “the music, the butterflies, the wrens, zipping in and out of my big doors” to the ethereal electronic music of Japanese composer Isao Tomita that I was spinning. He had called to thank me. He had called me a couple of other times at the radio station as well. It was certainly not unusual for us to get calls from listeners—but I thought I perhaps vaguely remembered our conversation about Tomita that day. Joe wrote that he had admired my voice on the radio, and my VOICE—my musical selections. He said that he had always wanted to meet me, and when he came across recent publicity about my playing folk music with Janet, he thought “this is my chance” and asked her to introduce us. He wanted to meet for lunch or coffee.

I felt excited. This was different from Match.com—where someone is looking for a date and checking out various women with certain criteria. No, he wanted to meet ME specifically. Joe sent me a friend request on Facebook. I saw that he was an old hippie, living in the country—a few years older than me. I perused pictures of his interesting metal art—fanciful garden gates and flower sculptures, practical wine racks and fire place tools. He wrote that in addition to being a metal artist, he was a bass player who was just getting back into playing music. I couldn't help myself. I was really looking forward to meeting him, and felt some butterflies myself.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

As I waited inside the door at Fiesta Grill, I kept glancing around to make sure I hadn't missed him. He burst through the door. I thought for a moment it must be St. Nick-- bushy white eyebrows, round belly, full beard and thick white hair. Although I had seen his photo on Facebook, he was much larger than I had expected. When he shook my hand it was rough and weathered from heat and metal. “I'm a little nervous,” he confessed, as the Latina server led us to a table and brought us fresh, warm tortilla chips and salsa.

He started talking right way. Joe told me he had just met this amazing blues singer-- oddly enough, at Lowe's-- buying lumber from his son. They had joked about the warp of the wood, then introduced themselves. He placed her CD on the table, across from me and told me the story of her life—how she had been almost aborted-- then adopted and abused; was recovering from cancer; and had just moved to Chatham County with her new husband—and how her whole life story could be heard in her soulful blues songs. Her music was so powerful, that this lady had inspired him to pick up his bass again, after it sat idle and untouched for a year. He described a previous blues band he'd been in and how he had organized and drawn people together to play—including the “Boss Brass”-- how he was going to do this again, because her talent was so amazing, even though he'd sworn off late night bars and band personality clashes forever.

Joe told me he was ethnic Italian, from New Jersey and had been destined to become a blue collar worker until acid opened his mind. In college he “cherry picked” the studio art classes he wanted, skipping all the boring hoop jumps that would have led to a degree. He tuned in, dropped out, hopped the bus to North Carolina, and wound up living in a commune and creating art. Said he was getting more of an education in farm fields than he had in the classroom. He told me about sitting on the front steps smoking, during a break at a local reggae concert by Rasta Fire. A woman walked up the stairs, casually placing her hand on his head. “I felt an electric shock run through my whole body” he said. He described their courtship, their marriage, their children. The difficult years—building their own home, their poverty, his late nights playing music, his alcoholism, their estrangement when he came to bed reeking of beer at 4AM. The metal work, the forging, the sweat, the summer heat, his wife's affair. How he engaged in a little investigative work to discover who exactly she was seeing—pretending he knew more than he did in conversation-- until the name of her illicit man was unwittingly revealed. Suddenly, he found himself on moral high ground—a place that was new to him. He became so angry that his Italian New Jersey upbringing took him over and he phoned his wife's lover and threatened first to burn down his house, then to sue him for all he was worth.

I munched my Mexican grilled chicken salad in its fluted shell, as I listened. Every once in awhile I smiled or nodded, or asked a question. The salads at Fiesta had certainly improved in the last few years. The lettuce was much fresher and crisper. “Well”, he said “Say something. Tell me a little about yourself”. I couldn't think of a thing to say.

I told him a little about my piano teaching. He spoke again of how he had admired me on the radio, about how my voice had “soul”. “I'm just a normal person”, I said. “Yeah, I get it, ” he answered—like he had finally figured out that I was just an ordinary middle aged piano teacher and church musician, not some exotic, glamorous music guru who would change his life. All I wanted to do was go home and walk my dog.

I felt like a prisoner, waiting for him to remember to put his debit card on the table, after I had given him cash for my share. Now, he was talking about his redemption through AA. Finally, I pointed out that there were people waiting for a table in this small, crowded, popular lunch spot. He finally got up to pay the bill, but then I had to follow him politely to a friend's table—a blues guitarist from Raleigh-- and hear Joe tell him about the awesome blues singer who had inspired him to pick up his bass again. Just when I thought I had made it to the freedom of the parking lot, he asked me if I'd like to sit with him in his car for a little and listen to his lady blues CD. “I really need to get going”, I said. “I'd like to walk my dog before my piano students come,” but perhaps he could email me the files. I climbed into the shelter of my car and slammed the door behind me. It was such a relief to be alone again.

I have never been happier to get home to my little house-- to safety, to stillness, to my wiggling Beagle and my cats. As soon as I set my purse down on the counter I deleted Joe from my phone and then just for good measure, deleted my last the last “lame duck” date. Then I went online and deleted my free trial account from e-harmony.