Light one candle

A very dear friend of mine just completed a grueling course of chemo to vanquish the cancer that would have killed him had he been born even a few decades earlier. As he left the hospital, he got to ring the bell that he’d heard other patients ring as they finished their treatments.

As he stood there, pealing the bell and smiling, he said the Shehecheyanu, the blessing thanking God for granting us life, sustaining us, and enabling us to reach this time. It’s usually said about doing something new, or for the first time that year — we’ll all be saying it on the first night of Chanukah, just before we light the first candle.

But I looked at the video of my friend saying the blessing and ringing the bell, and I thought about how the blessing marked an end as well as a beginning. It always does, I realize; the blessing marks a liminal time, between the old and the new, no matter what that old and new are.

Chanukah seems to be a liminal time; as we light the first candles, we just begin to fight back against the darkness that threatens us.

That’s always true; Chanukah always comes at the darkest time of the year, and the little candles’ tiny flames do spark golden light. (I wonder what it must feel like in Australia, when you’d have to wait until you’re overready for bed to be able to light them.)

I thought of the story I wrote a few weeks ago, about the Mlotek siblings, who translated Peter, Paul, and Mary’s “Light One Candle” into Yiddish and recorded themselves singing it. The message of hope, of the need to fight back against the dark that resonates in both English and Yiddish, and in every other language, because it transcends even language.

The dark is particularly oppressive this year, because it’s metaphoric and symbolic as well as physical. We are living through a dark time. But we will light our candles, first just one and then two and then three until the menorah is ablaze, and we will take strength from it, and we will not be afraid.

We wish all our readers a joyous, golden, fried-food-filled holiday. Happy Chanukah!

—JP