{"id":10390,"date":"2007-12-06T04:37:00","date_gmt":"2007-12-06T04:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/production.ou.org\/life\/other\/chanukah_eyes_a_mothers_diary\/"},"modified":"2015-10-27T15:38:17","modified_gmt":"2015-10-27T20:38:17","slug":"chanukah_eyes_a_mothers_diary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/inspiration\/chanukah_eyes_a_mothers_diary\/","title":{"rendered":"Chanukah Eyes: A Mother’s Diary"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"image\"<\/div>\n

The fourth night of Chanukah, my husband is late for the candle lighting. My children\u2019s unlit clay menorahs are positioned precariously on the radiator. My second daughter, Elana, stares across the street at the neighbor\u2019s lawn. The Healys have draped their cedar tree with electric blue lights.<\/p>\n

Next door, a deer stands poised with one hoof lifted prettily, as if about to break into a prance. Nearby, a bloated, inflated snowman sways drunkenly in the night air. My six-year-old daughter chews on the end of her plastic dreidel. A wistful look crosses her face. \u201cWhy can\u2019t we have decorations like that?\u201d she asks.<\/p>\n

I remind her how we go \u201call out\u201d on Sukkot. We have fancy lights, murals painted on the walls, and assorted fruit and tchotchkes hanging from the rafters of our Sukkah. But on Chanukah, I tell her, the menorah is all we\u2019ve got.<\/p>\n

\u201cCan\u2019t we have something big?\u201d she begs. \u201cSomething pretty, maybe a lamb or a sheep?\u201d<\/p>\n

Oh great, I think: a paschal lamb on our porch. But that\u2019s the wrong holiday. I gaze down at our rickety display of homemade menorahs. I know they can\u2019t compete with Mrs. Healy\u2019s Christmas tree, the dazzling strings of light and the candy canes and wreaths dangling from telephone poles, not to mention jolly Ole Santa and all the treats in his mysterious fat bag. I guess my daughter wants a swankier holiday.<\/p>\n

Across the street, I see a family at the window putting a match to their oil menorah. I look at my watch. It\u2019s time to light, but my husband won\u2019t be home for a good half hour.<\/p>\n

\u201cCome on, kids,\u201d I suddenly decide. \u201cLet\u2019s go on a menorah hunt.\u201d<\/p>\n

The kids are game. We pack into our minivan. \u201cFifty menorahs,\u201d I say. \u201cAfter we find 50 lit menorahs, we go home to light our own.\u201d There. That\u2019ll pass the time. They press their faces to the window. \u201cThere\u2019s one,\u201d my daughter Elana points. My son easily spots another two. \u201cI see it, I see it,\u201d my youngest one crows, waving her fist. The numbers quickly add up. No surprise there. We live in a Jewish neighborhood in New Jersey. My son hits the jackpot with five menorah houses, back to back, belly to belly.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is too easy,\u201d he scoffs. I think he\u2019s right, and I make a left and a right, and go on a long stretch that turns into a different, more ritzy\u2014dare I say WASPy?\u2014 neighborhood. Here, electric lights blaze forth from every house. Multicolored reindeers poke their hooves into welltended zoysia grass. There are elves or maybe fawns lurking near Holly bushes, and Santas and sleighs clumped around rhododendrons. There are unusual shadow and light displays; some are actually artistic. My kids grow silent at all the holiday splendor.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere are all the menorahs?\u201d my son wonders out loud.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo many Santas,\u201d Elana observes. I wonder when it was she stopped calling Santa the big red Zeide<\/i>.<\/p>\n

\u201cKeep looking,\u201d I say tersely. I turn left, then right.<\/p>\n

Aren\u2019t I setting up the kids for disappointment? Christmas is everywhere. They\u2019re at the age when they\u2019re starting to realize how few of us we are. And in fact, my older daughter says, \u201cHow come there\u2019s so little of us?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, we\u2019re little,\u201d I agree. \u201cSo what? Chanukah celebrates the victory of the few over the many. The few are also strong.\u201d<\/p>\n

But my daughter, steeped in a Jewish education, counters, \u201cGod said we\u2019d be many. \u2018You shall be as numerous as the stars of the heaven,\u2019\u201d she quotes.<\/p>\n

Suddenly Elana shouts, \u201cI see a menorah!\u201d Our heads turn. \u201cWhere, where?\u201d and she points proudly. There indeed it is, sitting in the window of what looks to be someone\u2019s kitchen. On either side of the house is a fantastic network of lights and sleighs and an illuminated nativity scene. And in between sits a dignified little menorah on a Jewish window sill. Feeling like the Maccabees who found that one last vial of oil to light the menorah, we all whoop and cheer. As we make our way back home, we spot another two menorahs, each one a victory. In our own neighborhood, we easily pick up six houses here, seven houses there, surpassing the number of 50 by the time we arrive home.<\/p>\n

When we come inside, my husband is pouring olive oil into glass cups. The breakable colored candles have been twisted into the kids\u2019 clay menorahs. We make the blessings, sing a little, dance a little and then the kids disperse. I linger in front of our homemade display \u2026 and then I remember a custom. The old Hasidic masters used to sit and gaze at the lit candles for a full half hour, even more. They say that staring at the candles expands a person\u2019s vision; how the eyes see the world, what they regard as beautiful.<\/p>\n

I sit now on the couch and try to keep my gaze on the lights. It\u2019s amazing to me how dreidels and sufganiot and potato latkes can keep my kids happily occupied. It feels restful here, watching. While the candles burn, women aren\u2019t supposed to be working anyway\u2014to honor the extra role women had in the miracle of Chanukah. I let my eyes take their fill while my husband fries more latkes.<\/p>\n

Elana wanders over to the radiator and looks across the street at the neighbor\u2019s fancy holiday decorations.<\/p>\n

I say to her in a quiet voice, \u201cLook at our candles, look closely and tell me what you see.\u201d<\/p>\n

She stares for a long time, her big brown eyes grave and finally tells me. The flames are shaped like arrows, they point upward, there\u2019s a dark blue in the center, the flames keep moving here and there but are held in place by the wick, they\u2019re tiny and they\u2019re beautiful to look at. Then she adds, \u201cThe flames are arrows pointing to heaven.\u201d<\/p>\n

The image delights me, and she seems pleased, too, but then I see her eyes return to the window, to the pretty lights across the street.<\/p>\n

I want to tell my daughter how the world tries to grab you with its fancy big lights. They are powerful, and they\u2019ll dazzle you for sure. But the light of the menorah is subtle, it gradually envelops you, and the more you look at it, its inner loveliness will sneak up and take your soul by surprise. That\u2019s what I want to say, but why say anything? She\u2019s only six.<\/p>\n

She\u2019ll find out. \u201cThe fact is, Christmas lights are pretty,\u201d I say out loud.<\/p>\n

She nods, taking in my words, relieved, it seems, that I agree with her.<\/p>\n

My husband likes to say about fireworks that no matter how spectacular, you can\u2019t look at the show for more than an hour. At a certain point the fireworks seem gaudy, a little much for the eyes. But you never get tired of gazing at the stars.<\/p>\n

My daughter yawns and I pat the space on the couch beside me. I realize I have let my eyes drift away from the candles. \u201cCome back, let\u2019s look at the menorah,\u201d I say. She curves in next to me, her eyes tired and a little dreamy, while my own eyes blink and strain to see what she saw, little arrows of light pointing to the sky.<\/p>\n

\n

This article originally appeared in World Jewish Digest 2007. Ruchama King Feuerman is a novelist and book doctor, and has been developing writers for over fifteen years. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, the Jerusalem Post, Midstream, and numerous anthologies and publications, and her novel about matchmaking,<\/i> “Seven Blessings<\/a>,” was published by St. Martin’s Press. For more information about upcoming workshops by tele-conference, go to her blog: <\/i>www.writetogether.typepad.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The fourth night of Chanukah, my husband is late for the candle lighting. My children\u2019s unlit clay menorahs are positioned precariously on the radiator. My second daughter, Elana, stares across the street at the neighbor\u2019s lawn. The Healys have draped their cedar tree with electric blue lights. Next door, a deer stands poised with one<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":169,"featured_media":40628,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[137,85],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chanukah","category-inspiration"],"yoast_head":"\nChanukah Eyes: A Mother's Diary<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The menorah's light is subtle, it gradually envelops you, and the more you look at it, its inner loveliness will sneak up and take your soul by surprise\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/inspiration\/chanukah_eyes_a_mothers_diary\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" 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