Lights To Remind Us

Recently a newspaper advice column had a letter from some whiney tsatskelah complaiing of how little emphasis is placed on Hanukah at the shopping malls and places like that. "There are lots of Christmas decorations, and then just one little menorah" she kvetched.

Well, I'm not offended in the least. In fact, what truly offends me is people with "Chanukah bushes" , "eight traditional gifts" and all the other pseudo Christmas stuff disguised in blue trimmings with a Star of David on top!

Chanukah is NOT Christmas anymore than most of what passes for Christmas is a celebration of the birth of Jesus. And if you are celebrating it as a pseudo Christmas, please just admit to it and stop whining about why there is a lot less stuff out there for it. Considering what a small minority Jews are in this country (about 2% of the total population) it's surprising there is as MUCH stuff as there is!

Chanukah for me is a time to make latkes for friends and family, to light the candles on the menorah  and to sing my favorite Chanukah song: "Oh, Hanukah, Oh Hanukah" both in English and in Yiddish, the tongue of my grandparents.

The song ends with "One for each night, they shed a sweet light, to remind us of days long ago"

And as I light the candles I think of the people who are gone. Of my grandfathers, one of whom died long before I was born, and the other who was so elderly when I was born that he is only a vague memory. Of my Grandma Esther, whose latke recipe I use each year for her great-granddaughters. She would have loved to see that I am no longer that skinny little thing who could never eat enough to please her!

I think of Grandma Eda, my mother's remarkable mother who was the grandma I truly loved and lost far too early. There aren't as many memories of her as I could wish, but they're joyful memories.

I think of  Augusta,an elderly Jewish lady who I knew when I worked in the library in the Bronx. She loved to talk about books with me, and I came back to visit her several times after I moved from New York.

And my dear friend Marian, whom  I also knew at the Bronx library.  She was in her early 80s and still going strong, a tiny lady with a tart tongue and a loving heart. She used to come and have tea in the staff room with us almost every day, and had us up to her apartment each year at Rosh Hashonah for a wonderful meal.She told me stories, and taught me crochet stiches. I picked up a lot of the Yiddish I know from Marian, and I think of her as my extra grandma--the one I was lucky enough to have when I was old enough to appreciate her!

I think of all of them, and of other people loved and lost.

I light the candles and I think of them and I am sad, and yet at the same time I feel blessed to have had them all in my life.

I know that's got nothing to do with Adam Sandler songs, or electric menorahs or gaudy gifts.  But that's what it's all about for me.

The light and the love. That's what I want to share with my daughters. As in the words of this song: 

Light one candle for the strength that we need
To never become our own foe
And light one candle for those who are suffering
Pain we learned so long ago
Light one candle for all we believe in
That anger not tear us apart
And light one candle to find us together
With peace as the song in our hearts

Don’t let the light go out!
It’s lasted for so many years!
Don’t let the light go out!
Let it shine through our love and our tears.  

Happy Hanukah. May the lights shine brightly for you and your family....

links: digg this    del.icio.us    technorati    reddit