I’ve been searching for the write inspiration for December, and this first night of Chanukah brought things into perspective. A little bit of perspective. While the internet and the news are filled with antisemitism and protests from people intent on gaslighting the Jewish experience and deny Jewish people the indigeneity of their homeland, I have been on a quest to celebrate Chanukah publicly. I’m a little wary about it. I live in a nice neighborhood, but I don’t put my head in the sand and think that it couldn’t happen here. I know it can.

Still….

I went out and bought blue and white lights for outside, something I’ve never done. I have an interactive menorah hanging on my front door, again, something I’ve never done. In fact, since I’ve been on my own (and with my own family) I have not put Chanukah lights in the window. That unfortunately will continue because I know that if I put candles on my windowsill, my mother would come back from the grave and blow them out with a raucous, and loud message of fire safety.

Most people don’t know the story of Chanukah; perhaps some teachers wanting to bring multiculturalism to their classrooms, and now the story of the Maccabees is being co-opted to match the narrative, anything to turn the words of Jews and their history against them. The Festival of Lights isn’t about war. It isn’t about victory. It is about faith. The miracle isn’t that the Maccabees won against their most recent oppressor. The miracle is the lights themselves. When we retook the temple, amid the destruction, they went to light the candelabra to rededicate the temple, the menorah – not the nine-branch one that most are familiar with, but the regular, ordinary menorah that is always lit in the temple. There was only enough oil to keep it lit for one night. There was no other oil. So, what did they do? They lit it anyway.

And it remained lit, not one night, not two, not three or four, not even five or six or seven, but it remained lit for eight days. One day’s oil lasted for eight days. That is the miracle. And that is why we light eight candles on a new type of menorah used just for this holiday: a hanukkiah.

Tonight, I will say the prayers (that I don’t normally say). I will fry the latkes in oil. I will fry the chicken in oil. I will light the first candle on the same menorah that I lit as a child; the one that I grew up watching the candles burn down on the dining room table that was my grandmother’s. It will be placed on that same dining room table in my own house. My kids will see the lights on the same menorah, the same table, and they will be able to see through my eyes, even amidst the clutter that seems to grow multi-generationally on this dining room table.

This year, however, this old menorah has a special, additional meaning. I saw this menorah in Toronto at the Royal Ontario Museum in their Judaica exhibit, in the Chanukah window. A copy/replica of MY Chanukah menorah sits in the largest museum in Canada. The exhibit label states that it is from Gdansk, Poland, brass, from the early 1900s.

Happy Chanukah.

עַם יִשְׂרָאֵל חַי