I grew up in a mixed family, secular socialist Jews on one side, secular sort-of Christian on the other. My Jewish grandparents lived near us until I was 10, and they didn’t observe the major holidays like Passover and the High Holy Days (Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah). But my zeidi wanted us to know the kids’ holidays, Hanukah and Purim. So for Hanukah, he lit candles, and taught us how to play dreidle games where you could win nuts or raisins, and sometimes he gave us Hanukah gelt (gold-wrapped chocolate coins). I am even less Jewish-observant than they were. But most years, I still light the menorah that my aunt gave me decades ago.
So here’s the story of Hanukah, more or less as I was taught it. (Remember, they’re secular socialists. This may not be the Authorized Version you would learn in Hebrew school, which I never attended.)
There was a big war. The bad invader guys were trying to destroy the people’s culture and everything, so among other things, they totally trashed the Temple and extinguished the Light that symbolized the presence of God. Poof! No Light, so God doesn’t love you any more.
Eventually the good guys got the bad invader guys out, and cleaned the debris out of the Temple. But when they were ready to rekindle the Light, they had a problem. They could only find a little bit of oil that the invaders hadn’t managed to find and trash, just enough for maybe one day. The process for making purified oil for the Temple took . . . eight days. What to do? Light it, and have it go out again? Or wait the eight days?
They decided they needed to get it lit right away. The people needed to see that the Light was there. They’d figure out the next day what to do after that.
But the next day the Light was still burning. How could it? There wasn’t enough oil. But there it was. And the next, and the next, and so on for eight whole days, until the fresh oil was ready.
That’s why every year we celebrate by lighting candles for 1, then 2, then 3, then up to 8 nights. And why the letters on the dreidle are the initials N, G, H, and SH. (SH is a single letter in Hebrew, Shin, the one that looks like a fancy W.) They stand for Nes Gadol Hayah Sham — A Great Miracle Happened There.
So go ahead. Light the light, even when you are sure that there isn’t enough oil. That there isn’t enough of whatever it is that you need to keep going. Just begin. Sometimes, just sometimes, what you think isn’t enough, turns out to be just right.