'Tis the season of miracles.
It’s never been easy for me to believe in miracles. Inexplicable occurrences? Sure. But miracles? I’m a glass-half-empty kind of girl, a doubter and a disbeliever. Burning bushes, parted seas, virgin births -- not so much.
But Chanukah is about a miracle. A great miracle. And religious persecution, of course; it wouldn’t be a Jewish holiday without that.
The story of Chanukah has many versions. It’s an epic battle for religious freedom. It’s the story of the oppressed fighting the powerful. It’s the miracle of one day’s worth of oil that lasted for eight days. My husband used to say it’s the quintessential story of how Jews love a bargain -- eight days for the price of one.
This is the story I was told growing up:
A long, long time ago, (165 BCE) the Jews lived under the tyrannical rule of Antiochus, King of the Syrian Empire. He made them worship his idols and pray to his gods, and he executed those who refused.
But there was, as always, one man who stood up to that mean old Antiochus. Judah Maccabee -- the Hammer -- and his army revolted, and although they were few in number, their will was strong, and they were victorious. They returned to their Temple to find it desecrated and their Eternal Light, symbolic of the light of God, nearly extinguished. There was not enough oil to keep the flame going for even one night, but Nes Gadol Hayah Sham! -- a great miracle happened there! -- and the oil lasted eight days, giving them enough time to make more and to re-dedicate the Temple.
The real point of Chanukah was lost on me as a child. I mean, really, it’s like all the other holidays we celebrate. The Jews were oppressed by an evil ruler, and it sucked, and then one guy was brave enough to stand up to said evil ruler and lead his people to freedom. Let’s eat.
Chanukah isn’t even a major holiday, as far as Jewish holidays go. Retailers have done their best to turn Chanukah into the Jewish Christmas, assuring Jewish consumers that they too can celebrate the birth of Christ festival of lights with a widescreen TV or a power drill or a video game.
Still, it’s an easy holiday (except for making latkes; oy, what a mess). Tell the story, light the candles, say the prayer, and done. Even I, the non-believing, bacon-eating Jew, go through the motions of Chanukah. As I write this, the blue-and-white candles are set in the menorah; apple sauce is cooling on the stove; and my grandmother’s brisket (recipe below) is roasting in the oven. Easy.
I don’t generally give much thought to religious persecution. Certainly no thought of miracles. Especially not this year. It’s been a bad year. A really bad year.
My husband died this year. I’ve spent six months sorting through the debris of his life -- his papers, his finances, his friendships. I’ve cried and ached and curled into a ball on the floor with the box of his ashes and felt the kind of agony I could only express in whimpers and moans.
Sometimes, the loss is incapacitating. The simplest task -- a trip to the post office, for example -- feels insurmountable. I have a growing collection of notices of certified mail addressed to him. I know what will happen when I go to claim his mail. I will be told that only he can pick up the mail addressed to him, and I will have to tell the nice postal worker that he is dead.
Three words I hate more than any others: He is dead.
It crushes me every time I have to say it. Usually, there are tears. Sometimes, if I’m particularly unlucky, I will be forced to show his death certificate. I’ve taken to carrying it with me. It’s mind-numbing how often a widow is forced to prove her husband is dead.
There have been moments, hours, days when I didn’t know how I would go on. That is what he wanted, though. His last words to me were of love, forgiveness, even humor -- and the very explicit instruction to go on with my life.
In those moments, hours, days when I feel like I’m drowning in darkness, his last wish for me is a life raft, a reason to go on, a tiny flickering light of hope. A miracle.
When I think back over the past six months of my life, I think maybe there were other miracles too.
Not parted seas miracles, or water-into-wine miracles, but the tiniest moments of encouragement, of kindness, even of laughter. Somehow, they are a reprieve from the devastation.
Like the woman at the shipping store who used to housesit our cats when we went out of town. We didn’t know each other well, but she wanted to help. Exhausted, filthy, and drained, I took three carloads of stuff to her and a list of addresses -- gifts my husband had left his friends -- that had to be wrapped, boxed and shipped to a dozen different places around the country. She did all of it for me, and she threw in her extra extra extra special discount. Anything else she could do, just ask. And she meant it.
Then there was Nick. A guy from Daily Kos, a guy I’d never met. But I knew he owned a pet store in Seattle, and I thought maybe he’d know how I could find a good home for our two cats who suddenly had no home and couldn’t come live with me. I found Nick’s pet store through his Daily Kos profile, called him up, and said, “I’m calling to ask for your help.”
Nick made phone calls, pulled strings, and found a safe place for my cats. For someone whose real name he didn’t even know. My grandmother calls it a mitzvah, a good deed by a kind stranger. For me, at that moment, it felt like, well, a miracle.
A week after my husband died, a friend found an old video of my husband performing, from memory, the cantina scene from Star Wars. When I miss him, when I need to see his face, to hear his voice, I can watch this video of my husband, at his healthiest and happiest, performing for the camera, rosy-cheeked and grinning. For those two minutes and 17 seconds, he is alive again.
What is that, if not a miracle?
For all the loss, the shattered friendships, the mounting legal bills, and the excruciating agony that has followed my husband’s death, there have been glimmers of hope, even of joy, that have made it possible to go on.
I think about my ancient ancestors and the utter despair they must have felt. They’d been persecuted, tortured, executed, and, having won the war, they had a war-ravaged city and a Temple to restore. They could have given up in the face of the colossal chore of surviving and recovering. Just having to clean all the pig’s blood out of the Temple would have been reason enough to throw their hands up and say the hell with it.
But they didn’t. In those last remaining drops of oil, they found hope. They worked, they persevered, they made more oil, and they survived to live another day (and fight yet more oppressive rulers).
Brisket and dreidels and deals on electronics aside, maybe that is the real point of Chanukah. It’s not really about the oil. It’s about hope. In the face of despair, of loss, of a decimated city, a desecrated Temple, there was just enough hope for them to go on. And miraculously, they did.
And so will I.
...
My grandmother's brisket recipe is below the fold.
Dear Kaili,
Here is my brisket recipe.
Salt, pepper, paprika,garlic--Rub the brisket with these.
Put in roaster pan with 3 sliced onions and 2-3 cups of water and 1-2
boullion cubes and 1 tsp catsup
Put in oven at 325* for 4-5 hours uncovered
Baste often
1/2 way through about 21/2 hours add 1/2 tsp of instant coffee
Cover, continue to baste
Can cook the day before or before that and freeze.
Separate the juices
Add red wine when heating
Have fun with it.
Love and Kisses
Nanny