Childhood flashbacks

[elfs]

lisakit bravely braved the hellhole known as Southcenter Shopping Mall the other day to help me with some last-minute Christmas shopping and as we were making our way we stopped at a Hallmark store. While she was getting cards for her family, I passed by the little blue ghetto of Hanukkah stuff, always tucked away on the left edge of the store where no one ever goes unless deliberately.

I was unimpressed with most of the display. Hanukkah isn't really that big a deal for Jews; it's a celebration of an Israeli fundamentalist sect, the Maccabees, and their military victory over the Greek occupation of Jerusalem, along with the "Hanukkah miracle" that allowed the Maccabees to light and keep alit the eternal flame at the Jerusalem synagogue for eight days until a resupply of the holy oil could be brought into the city. Kinda cool, but nowhere near the importance of Yom Kippur. It's become a big deal in the US because of its relative proximity to Christmas, of course.

On the top shelf of the display were the candles. Jews light one candle per day to celebrate the miracle. The holiday survived the Roman occupation only in oral form-- it's not recorded in the legalistic writings of the rabbis-- and mostly through the candle lighting ceremony, as a reminder that someday the occupiers would be driven out of the city and the city restored to the Israelis. And while I could remember nothing at all about what my family did during Hanukkah, I could still recite the prayer on the back of the candle box from memory.