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...
