Night One:
To miracles. To light. To survival. To making it through day by day amid impossibly hard, unfathomably dark times. To illuminating space and time and each other when it matters most. And even to dancing together again at simchas in the not too distant future. 🕯 Chag sameach! Happy Hanukkah!
Night Two:
The candles are dancing on the second night. My momma said to look at their harmony. Ah yes, there is light yet — and magic and miracles (and even vaccines en route here in the USA?!). 🕯🕯Chag Sameach and Shabbat Shalom.
Night Three:
Let there be light! Please, let there be light. 🕯🕯🕯
Night Four:
My momma lights up my life, our community and this world. And on the fourth night of Hannukah, I’m beaming, as she lights our menorah.
Night Five:
We are here. We are still here. We survived. We are alive. And despite the best efforts of too many throughout the ages, we Jews are not going anywhere. I light my candles publicly with pride, tonight and every night, as countless generations before me have done around the world, even in the face of unspeakable danger and unknown risk — like the Posner family in Germany in 1932, who placed their family Hannukah menorah atop the window ledge at their home on a road lined with Nazi flags. On the back of that photograph, Rachel Posner wrote in German: Chanukkah 5962 (1932) "Death to Judah" So the flag says — "Judah will live forever!" So the light answers. The Rabbi, his wife Rachel and their children fled Germany in 1933 for Israel, where his descendants proudly light that very same menorah today. 🕯🕯🕯🕯🕯
Latkes:
We *have* to eat fried, oil-rich foods for 8 days AND gmail is down midday AND the world is insane, so this Jewish girl made latkes and homemade applesauce from scratch with a dollop of vegan sour cream. Because Hanukkah.
Night Six:
My tribe. My people. My light. These humans teach me what unconditional love, tight community, showing up, chosen family truly mean. From simcha to simcha, holidays and unions and birthdays and loves, and also through the trials and tribulations that life throws at us, death and recovery, heartbreak and pain. You light me up 24/7/365 and, of course, for these eight crazy nights. Bring it on… with the Jerusalem stone menorah my grandparents had engraved to me from my youngest of days and evermore. 🕯🕯🕯🕯🕯🕯
Night Seven:
My childhood Jewish identity in a single photo. We lit the menorah in front of the Christmas tree… and that was about it for the whole year. Yet the magic of the light, the prayers, the songs, the dreidels sparked something deep within this Jewish girl, who loved and loves Christmas… and still proudly lights her menorah in front of her tree nightly. 🕯✡️🎄
Sufganiyot:
Sufganiyot! 🕎 Don’t talk to me about the carbon footprint of these Hannukah treats. 🤦🏻♀️ But I *NEEDED* sufganiyot, and the only gluten free, jelly-filled, powdered sugar-covered donuts I could find locally OR shippable were in NYC. ✡️ So thank you Modern Bread and Bagel for this veritable Hannukah miracle — and for the quick delivery and fool-proof step-by-step instructions to reheat in the oven, pipe in the filling, and sugar coat these delectable bites. Chag sameach! 🕯🕯🕯🕯🕯🕯🕯🕯
Night Eight:
Everything is a miracle. This very existence. Our breath, heartbeat, life force. Hanukkah never fails to remind me of what is possible when we rise up, believe and take action, even when our pursuits may seem beyond wildest imagination or against all odds. Faith in something, in anything is powerful. 🕯🕯🕯🕯🕯🕯🕯🕯 May light shine bright far beyond these eight nights, illuminating dark parts of ourselves, fellow humanity and distant corners of the earth. Chag sameach.