The Silver Menorah

 On their wedding day, my great- grandparents gifted my grandmother, Hanni—and her new husband, David with a beautiful silver menorah.  In their wedding photo from Berlin in the 1920’s, the couple stares straight into the camera with slight, posed smiles.  She looks fashionable and elegant in her white gown with the large bow in front—and he dapper in his tweed suit and bow tie.  My grandparents were introduced by a matchmaker.  Both families were part of a large community of Polish Jews who had fled pogroms and persecution to find safety and build prosperous new lives for themselves in this vibrant, cosmopolitan German city.  

 David owned a leather goods store and was an international grand master in chess.  He played on the German national team.  He spent hours and hours playing chess and studying moves.  Hanni was. a secretary in her father’s cardboard box factory.  She loved to dress up and to go out and socialize.  She had no appreciation at all for chess and considered it a complete waste of time.  One day, she grew so furious with David that she shouted and violently knocked all of the chess pieces off the board.  He said nothing, just very calmly picked up the pieces, putting each back on the board exactly where it had been, and continued on with his game.  

When Hitler came to power, my grandparents and extended family (including my father, Jacob—a 7 year old boy) fled Germany---taking the silver menorah with them. They emigrated to Palestine (now Israel).  The base of the menorah is hollow, and in it—they hid a large bar of silver as they escaped the Nazis.  My great-grandfather bought an apartment building in Tel-Aviv—a few blocks from the beach, and many members of the extended family moved in there.  My father spent much of his childhood there— surrounded by cousins, aunts and uncles.  There must have been many festive, large Hanukkah celebrations with the silver menorah.

 Hanni and David wound up getting divorced (which was quite unusual in those days), and my grandmother eventually re-married.  She and her new husband started a wholesale clothing business.  They created ladies dress suits and coats.  My “Opa”, Erich Stock, imported all the materials—including bales of wool from Europe-- and Hanni created the fashions.  They had three tailors working for them, as they sold their clothing to retail stores all over Palestine.   I have a picture of them from this time period with their arms around each other, smiling happily.  Hanni is dressed very elegantly, probably in one of the suits that she designed herself and Erich, too is wearing a suit and tie. 

My father, Jacob, travelled to the United States by ship on a student visa when he was in his early 20’s.  After many varied adventures, he wound up pursuing a graduate degree in physics.  He met my mother, Hilda, while they were students at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.  She fell head over heels for this handsome young man from the new state of Israel—which most Jewish people idealized in the 1950’s as a pioneering nation, a safe haven for the Jews who were returning and rebuilding their ancient lands.   My mother grew up in Green Bay, where her family was part of a thriving Jewish community.   Jacob and Hilda married in a snowstorm in late January, 1954, at the Green Bay synagogue.  Hanni and Erich gave my parents the silver menorah as a wedding gift.  

From Wisconsin, my parents, their growing family, and the silver menorah journeyed to New Mexico (where my father worked at the Los Alamos nuclear lab), then Pennsylvania (where he worked for GE), and finally to the University of Kansas, where he settled into being a professor.  Growing up in Kansas, 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 Hanukkah candles was featured on the front page of the Lawrence 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.  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.   Then came the great excitement of giving and receiving presents!

 The menorah came to live with me in North Carolina a few years ago, after my father died and my mother downsized and moved into a retirement community.  Most years, I either light it alone—or with my grown son, Noah, when he happens to be home.   This year, though, my family is celebrating together for the first time in decades!  We gather virtually on Zoom to light the silver menorah. 

My father, Jacob, is sadly missing—but Noah joins us from Asheville, my sister Tamar from California, my brother, David, from his apartment in Lawrence.  My mother, Hilda, is just across town from him—but  because of the pandemic, they can’t be together.    We use the new technology to chant the ancient songs and blessings.  Due to the online delay, our voices are comically out of sync, and my mother gets the lyrics mixed up-- but we still sing with the same gusto and enjoy the menorah’s candlelight and our time together.

Who could ever have imagined in Berlin in the 1920’s that this silver menorah would make its way from Germany, to Israel and across the United States?  That it would survive the Nazis and be lit during a global pandemic? Who knows where its future journey will take it and what new generations and technologies it will witness??  May its light continue to burn brightly through whatever darkness and chaos and hopes and dreams lie in the years ahead….

 

 

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...