I remember the matriarch of a family friend, the backs of her hands aglow from candlelight in their dark kitchen, as she covered her eyes and recited the benediction.
I remember standing around the same friend’s table, holding my days-old baby, as their friends joyously and reverently sang the Maoz Tzur, their bellies full of latkes, their faces aglow from candlelight.
Those experiences were on my mind this week as I read Beckett the book Oskar and the Eight Blessings by Richard Simon and Tanya Simon, about a boy whose parents send him from Nazi Germany to New York by himself to find his Aunt Esther. In desperation after Kristallnacht, presumably knowing the risk, they send their young child alone to a big city, knowing it was safer than keeping him with them.
His father’s last words to him were: “Oskar, even in bad times, people can be good. You have to look for the blessings.”
Oskar, a hungry, scared little boy….a refugee, journeyed from the ferry at Battery Park to 103rd street in Manhattan. Along the way he encounters eight “blessings,” people that help him with food, joy, protection, or motivation. With their help, Oskar makes it to his Aunt Esther’s in time for the candlelight of the menorah to glow on his face.
Although we could argue that it had been glowing all along.
I wasn’t raised an observant Jew, except for lighting the menorah each December and spinning the dreidel with my brother and sister for some chocolate coins. But it is a part of my family’s story, which means it’s part of my story. It is why, today, we have mezuzahs mounted in our doorways and a wooden menorah for our kids to play with as we tell the story of Hanukkah each year.
Because they have to know. They have to know what a blessing it is to come not just from power and privilege (which, as little white boys, they do) — but from hope. Hope, and maybe even a little faith, that the light will shine on you in surprising ways whether or not you actually light the candle.
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