First night, eleven years on

My new menorah, first night, halachic time (five minutes before Tzet Hakochavim). The candles burned the required 30 minutes after nightfall. This is one of those handmade, “art” menorahs. The traditional menorah designs common among Ashkenazim have never really appealed to me.

 

Chanukkah means “dedication.” I won’t get into the whole backstory or its merits (I did that in previous years, I think), but the basic story is that when the Maccabees took back the (Second) Temple from the Seleucids, there was only enough oil to burn for one night to carry out the purification ritual, but it miraculously burned the required eight days.  So we burn candles (or oil) for eight days in memory of the event.

I had my own minor “miracle” this morning: I didn’t think I had any matches. We had to toss all of them back in 2018, because dad would start a fire and then forget about it and it made us both nervous. But after some scrounging through boxes, I found an old matchbook. My parents must have gotten them on a trip to Las Vegas more than twenty years ago. But they still lit! Amazing that they survived the journey here. I really thought I had been merciless in my discarding process.

Amazing, and frustrating. Because I did realize about a month ago that although I am certain my old menorah moved here with me, I had no idea where it is and no energy to search through boxes to find it. So I got my act together and bought a new one (see above) and ordered candles (important here because there’s no place to just walk into a store and buy them). So finding the matches and them still working after I’d ignored weeks of time to get them and forgetting about it was indeed sort of miraculous. This was good, because my car is going in for repairs tomorrow morning and I have been avoiding using it except for very necessary journeys the last ten days or so. I didn’t want to go out to get them, and I haven’t been in the mood to visit the neighbors.

So here I am, in my own home, lighting Chanukkah candles for the first time. A sort of dedication. (I am still working on mezuzot.) Grief has been unabated — I’ve been surprised at how much I’m grieving — and it feels like this huge, sticky trampoline that’s throwing me around. So I’m not going to wait until I’m in the right mood — I’m just doing the mitzvah. Trying to dedicate, and trying to figure out what to do next.

This is, incidentally, where the Rebbe’s mind is, too. Chabad’s “guide to the holidays” this year for the first night points out the relative “weakness” of lighting only one candle on the first night, and compares it to the small steps that people take in becoming observant. It doesn’t seem like much at first.

I’ve promised myself so many times to resume regularly blogging, and failed (at times because of events, at times because I couldn’t figure out how to get in the mental place to write). For this reason I am not going to promise myself or you anything other than to try to keep taking small steps. There may be more writing about grief and the questions I have in the short term.

I will say: I am really pleased with the menorah.

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Some other first nights: 2010 (in the wake of the good news about the Hobbit); 2011 (the night the world saw the first Hobbit trailer and #richardarmitage trended the first time); 2012 (you can see the exciting sing along Chanukkah video here, if you haven’t); 2013 (nothing special; this was the holiday after my mother died, so there was a lot of other writing around then); in 2014 I made no reference to the holiday at all (although I saw the first screening of BOTFA on the first night, with some special guests); in 2015, I was praying for light on the night before; 2016 was a Chrismukkah, and you can tell from my writing; in 2017, I was sobbing for joy over Doug Jones’ victory over Roy Moore; and between dad’s stroke and now (2018, 2019, 2020) I didn’t find the energy or the peace to think about the holiday at all beyond posting the sing along vid.

~ by Servetus on November 29, 2021.