As I watched the first Hanukkah candles of the holiday burn low, I began to wonder why Hanukkah, unlike so many other Jewish holidays, has garnered the attention, the fascination, and the cultural importance that it has. In the scope of things, it’s considered a minor holiday–it’s not mentioned in the Torah, the Prophets, or the Writings. So why does the light of Hanukkah shine so much brighter by comparison?
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Sometimes I laugh when friends of mine, who live with their partners, remark how annoying it is and then tell me to “Just wait till you live together.”
As if I haven’t been waiting for over two years, right?
The longest continuous period of time Harel and I had together was three weeks in December 2015. It was my third visit to Mexico City, and it was the first visit we didn’t fill with adventures around the city, to museums and churches and any place.
Instead we lived together. We woke up next to each other, we went grocery shopping, we cooked for each other, we visited friends, we drank, ate, were merry. The way he puts his computer on the kitchen table and plays music while he cooks. The way he doesn’t walk around the house without anything on his feet.
Little things. The things that annoy other people. The things I cherish.
One day it was colder than expected, and we needed to dress up a bit, and the only sweater I had was a purple hoodie–I love it, but it didn’t suit the occasion. So Harel pulled all his sweaters out of the closet and had me try on each of them.
I remember saying the cardigan looked particularly feminine on my figure.
Then yesterday a couple new sweaters I ordered online arrived (I’m not naturally a sweater person, mind you, but being that I’ll be teaching in Milwaukee, where it’s much colder than it is in NC, and being that sweaters can be worn casually and professionally, it seems a fashion sense I should acquire), and as I buttoned up the smokey grey cardigan, I couldn’t help but feel the moment was incomplete without Harel with me.
Most days I scramble out of bed and get dressed in such a hurry, I’m lucky if I put my foot through the right pant leg on my first try. Getting dressed is routine, the necessary machinery to prepare myself for a professional day.
But with Harel, even getting dressed was something special.
(To give some context to our expressions in the picture–in which I’m wearing Harel’s sweater–it was taken right after we found out his parents were visiting. That is, when we found out we were all meeting for the first time.)
Yesterday was a fantastic day. And by yesterday, so we’re clear, I do mean Monday. It’s what happens when I sleep in late and have unexpected things come up in the afternoon and evening. Makes my days drag on and Tune Tuesdays never happen…. Music Mondays? Just not working out. Good thing for Tuesdays, or else my alliterative longing would’ve made maintaining Mondays especially laborious.
Anyways, today’s Tuesday, and I was talking about Monday and how fantastic it was.
Last semester in my religion class I found it funny that (almost) every time a religious group felt they had deviated from the true intent of their Scriptures or beliefs, they would start a new religion and from there build a new way of interpreting their faith.
It made me think of when the autumn comes and I remember how life used to be,. I was a playful yet shy little boy who defined my life in terms of how full my Pokedex was and whether or not I had caught the last episode of Digimon. I miss those days–not for their content, but for their simplicity. There were no such things as deadlines. Vocabularies were smaller. Complex numbers were still just imaginary.
So I did what I always did, in those moments before class began, or before it ended, or before my teacher next spoke: I wrote.
Recently I heard two people say two things about Chanukah, and both of them stayed with me.
The first was said by Bear Bergman when I heard him speak on Wednesday. He said (and I believe he was quoting one of his grandparents, who was talking about the shamash), that helpers aren’t happy if they’re not helping. The second thing was said by my sister, that Chanukah isn’t about presents, it’s about presence.
They were both nice thoughts, and thoughts worth considering more deeply. I’ve done them no justice here, and likewise, I probably won’t. Like any good math book, however, I’ll leave the proof up the reader.
The Writingwolf: Words and Wonders 