Hanukkah Stories in English

Hanukkah is a festival shaped by both ritual and story. Families gather to light the menorah for eight nights, spin dreidels, and enjoy foods that mark the season. 

Alongside these traditions, Hanukkah Stories in English help explain the meaning behind the holiday and the lessons it continues to teach. These stories preserve memory, guide values, and help readers of all ages connect practice with purpose.

This article offers a clear and accessible look at Hanukkah. It includes a brief historical overview, insights from midrash and folklore, child friendly story ideas, and practical suggestions for reading and activities. 

The aim is to keep the language simple, natural, and suitable for classrooms, family settings, or anyone interested in learning more.

Why Stories Matter

Stories shape how a community understands itself. In Jewish life, and especially during Hanukkah, they play an essential role. They do more than entertain. They help people feel connected to history, values, and tradition.

Stories teach what truly matters. Children and adults learn about courage, kindness, hope, and the moral choices that guide daily life.

Stories keep history alive. They turn past events into moments we can picture, making the lessons easier to understand and remember.

Stories explain the holiday. The candles, the dreidel, and the menorah gain depth when there is a clear story behind them.

Stories offer gentle moral examples. Instead of listing rules, they show people facing choices, which helps readers understand right and wrong in a natural way.

Stories create shared family moments. Reading the same tale each year becomes a small tradition that brings people together.

Stories make rituals easier for children. When a child learns why the candles are lit, the action feels meaningful rather than repetitive.

Stories link generations. When parents and grandparents pass along the stories they once heard, the tradition continues in a warm and personal way.

The core historical account

In the second century BCE, Judea was ruled by the Seleucid Empire. King Antiochus IV made laws that limited Jewish religious practices. 

People could not worship or study freely. The Temple in Jerusalem was used for foreign rituals. Life became hard and sometimes dangerous.

From the town of Modi’in, a priest named Mattathias refused to follow these orders. He and his sons started resisting. 

After Mattathias died, his son Judah took over. Judah, called Maccabee, led a small group to fight the larger occupying army. They were able to reclaim the Temple.

When the Temple was cleaned and rededicated, the menorah needed oil to burn. The priests found only a small jar, enough for one day. 

But the oil lasted for eight days, long enough to prepare new oil. The eight nights of Hanukkah celebrate the rededication of the Temple and the menorah’s light.

Hanukkah Stories in English

Ever notice how a room feels different the moment the menorah is lit? That is the perfect time for a story that brings Hanukkah to life.

1. The Light in the Window

Rivka pressed her face against the cold glass.

Outside, snow fell on the narrow street below.

Fat flakes drifted past the streetlamp, each one visible for just a moment before disappearing into the white blanket covering the cobblestones.

In their small apartment in Warsaw, her family had just finished lighting the fifth candle of Hanukkah.

The year was 1938.

Her father had been unusually quiet during the blessings.

His voice, normally strong and clear, had wavered on the words.

Her mother had gripped the edge of the table, her knuckles white.

Even Rivka’s older brother David had seemed subdued, none of his usual jokes about dreidels or presents.

The menorah sat in the window, its five flames steady despite the draft that crept through the old frame.

Beside it, the shamash candle stood taller, its work done for the evening.

“Papa, why do we put the menorah in the window?” Rivka asked.

She was nine years old, old enough to sense that something had changed in recent months but young enough to still ask direct questions.

“Mama says it might not be safe.”

Her mother shot her a look—half warning, half resignation.

They’d had this argument earlier, when her father insisted on placing the menorah where it could be seen from the street.

Her father sat beside Rivka on the worn sofa.

His warm hand covered hers.

She could feel the calluses from his work at the printing press, the slight tremor that had developed in recent weeks.

“There are two reasons we display the menorah, maideleh,” he said, using his pet name for her.

“The first is pirsumei nisa—to publicize the miracle.”

He gestured toward the window.

“We want the world to see that a small amount of oil burned for eight days, that the Temple was reclaimed, that our people survived when survival seemed impossible.”

Rivka nodded, but she sensed there was more.

“But there’s something deeper,” her father continued.

He pointed to the flames reflected in the darkened windowpane.

The glass acted as a mirror, doubling the light, making it seem as if there were two menorahs—one in their apartment, one in the night outside.

“When the Maccabees entered the Temple, they could have hidden.”

Her father’s voice dropped lower.

“They could have lit their oil quietly, in a corner where Greek soldiers wouldn’t see.”

“They could have practiced their faith in secret, waiting for a safer time.”

“But they didn’t.”

“They proclaimed their identity openly, even when it was dangerous.”

“They said: This is who we are. This is what we believe. We will not hide.”

Rivka considered this.

Through the window, she could see Pani Kowalski’s apartment across the street.

Pani Kowalski had stopped greeting them in the hallway three weeks ago.

Last week, someone had painted a word on their building’s door.

Her mother had scrubbed it off before Rivka could read it, but she’d heard her parents whispering about it late at night.

“But Mama’s afraid—” Rivka started.

“Your mama is wise to be cautious,” her father interrupted gently.

“There’s nothing wrong with being careful. There’s nothing wrong with being afraid.”

“Fear is reasonable right now.”

He squeezed her hand.

“But look.”

He gestured toward the street.

In the window of the apartment directly across the way, a menorah suddenly appeared.

Its candles were already lit—five flames plus the shamash, just like theirs.

Mrs. Zilberman’s menorah, Rivka realized.

The old widow who lived alone with her cat.

Then another menorah appeared, two buildings down.

The Goldberg family.

And another, on the third floor of the corner building.

The Rosenthals, who had a daughter Rivka’s age.

One by one, menorahs began appearing in windows up and down the street.

Some were silver, some brass, some simple pottery.

Some had perfectly straight candles, others had candles that leaned at odd angles.

But all of them burned.

All of them visible.

All of them declaring something to the darkness.

“We light in the window so others know they’re not alone,” her father said softly.

His arm came around her shoulders.

“In the darkest times, Rivka, sometimes the bravest thing is simply to let your light be seen.”

“Each flame says: I am here. We are still here. And we will not disappear into the night.”

Rivka counted the menorahs she could see.

Seven. Eight. Nine.

More than she’d expected.

More than seemed safe.

“What if someone breaks our window?” she asked.

Her father was quiet for a long moment.

“That could happen,” he admitted.

“What if soldiers come?”

“That could happen too.”

“Then why—”

“Because,” her father said, “there are things more important than safety.”

“Things more important than keeping our heads down and hoping trouble passes us by.”

His voice grew stronger.

“Our people have survived for thousands of years, Rivka. Not because we hid. Not because we made ourselves invisible. But because, in every generation, some of us chose to stand in the window with a light.”

Her mother joined them at the window.

She didn’t say anything, but she leaned against her husband’s other shoulder.

Even she seemed moved by the sight of all those menorahs burning in defiance of the darkness outside.

“Tell me the story again,” Rivka said. “About the Maccabees.”

Her father smiled.

He’d told this story every year of her life, but tonight it felt different.

Tonight it felt urgent.

“The Temple had been taken from us,” he began.

“Foreign rulers had declared that we couldn’t practice our faith. They desecrated our holiest place. They tried to make us forget who we were.”

“Many people gave up. Many people said: It’s easier to just go along. Easier to worship their gods, adopt their customs, blend in.”

“But a small group refused.”

“They were farmers, mostly. Regular people. Not warriors or heroes.”

“They looked at what was happening and said: No. We will not forget. We will not disappear.”

Rivka had heard this part before, but tonight she listened differently.

“They fought,” her father continued. “A small group against a mighty empire. Everyone said they would lose. Everyone said it was foolish to resist.”

“But they won.”

“Not because they were stronger. Not because they had better weapons.”

“They won because they refused to accept that their light had to go out.”

He pointed to their menorah in the window.

“When they reclaimed the Temple, they found just enough oil to burn for one day. One single day. But they lit it anyway.”

“They didn’t wait for permission. They didn’t wait for conditions to be perfect.”

“They lit what they had, and somehow—somehow—it kept burning.”

“Eight days,” Rivka whispered.

“Eight days,” her father confirmed.

“Long enough to make more oil. Long enough to reconsecrate the Temple. Long enough for the miracle to complete itself.”

Outside, the snow continued to fall.

The street was nearly empty now.

But the windows—the windows blazed with light.

Rivka noticed movement below.

A man had stopped on the sidewalk.

He stood looking up at the menorahs, his hat and coat covered with snow.

He’d been walking quickly, hunched against the cold, but now he’d stopped.

He stood there for a full minute, just looking.

Then he walked on, but differently.

His shoulders were straighter.

His pace was slower, more deliberate.

“Did you see that?” Rivka asked.

“I saw,” her father said.

“That’s why we light in the window. Not just for us. For everyone who walks by and needs to remember that light exists.”

Her brother David spoke up from across the room.

He was sixteen, old enough to understand things Rivka didn’t.

“Papa, at school they said we shouldn’t make ourselves targets.”

“Elijah’s family took their menorah down from the window after the first night.”

Their father sighed.

“I don’t judge anyone for how they choose to survive,” he said.

“These are complicated times. Everyone must make their own decision.”

“But I choose this.”

“I choose to put our menorah where it can be seen.”

“Not to provoke anyone. Not to be reckless.”

“But because I believe that the act of lighting itself is holy.”

“The act of saying: I am here, I am Jewish, I will not pretend otherwise.”

“That act is sacred, and I will not abandon it while I still have the choice.”

Rivka’s mother spoke for the first time.

“We may not always have the choice,” she said quietly.

The room fell silent.

Everyone understood what she meant.

The laws that had been passed. The restrictions that grew tighter each month.

The rumors of what was happening in Germany.

The sense that the world was changing in terrible ways.

“That’s exactly why we must light now,” her father said.

“While we still can. While we still have oil to burn and windows to place it in.”

“If darker times come—and they may—at least we will know we didn’t surrender before we had to.”

“At least we will know we let our light shine when shining was still possible.”

Rivka thought about this.

She was young, but she wasn’t stupid.

She knew that something bad was coming.

She could feel it in the way adults stopped talking when children entered the room.

In the way her mother held her a little tighter when she left for school each morning.

In the way her father stared at the newspaper with an expression she’d never seen before—something beyond worry, approaching despair.

But here, now, in their small apartment with the fifth night’s candles burning, she felt something else too.

Something that pushed back against the fear.

Not hope, exactly.

Something stronger than hope.

Defiance, maybe.

Or maybe just the simple human refusal to go dark before the darkness demanded it.

“I’m glad we put it in the window,” she said finally.

Her father kissed the top of her head.

“So am I, maideleh. So am I.”

They sat together as the candles burned down.

Outside, the snow accumulated on window ledges and rooftops.

The street grew quieter.

One by one, lights in other apartments went dark as families went to bed.

But the menorahs remained.

Nine points of light scattered along the street.

Nine small acts of visibility.

Nine refusals to disappear.

Years later—after the war had taken everything else—Rivka would remember that night.

She would remember the snow and the windows and the way light speaks to light across darkness.

She would remember her father’s hand on hers, warm and steady.

She would remember the exact arrangement of menorahs she could see from their window.

She would remember how it felt to be nine years old and afraid but also, somehow, connected to something larger than fear.

She would remember it in a displaced persons camp in 1945, when someone produced a makeshift menorah from bent wire and found enough oil to light just one night’s worth of candles.

She would remember it in a ship to Palestine in 1946, when refugees lit Hanukkah candles below deck, hiding them from authorities but not from each other.

She would remember it in a small apartment in Tel Aviv in 1950, when she lit candles with her new husband, both of them survivors, both of them carrying ghosts.

She would remember it in 1967, when her own daughter asked: “Mama, why do we put the menorah in the window?”

And Rivka would tell her.

She would tell her about a street in Warsaw where menorahs appeared one by one in windows.

She would tell her about her grandfather, who insisted on visibility even when visibility was dangerous.

She would tell her about the night she learned that sometimes the bravest thing is simply to let your light be seen.

“Light speaks to light,” she would tell her daughter.

“Across distance. Across darkness. Across time.”

“When you light your candle in the window, you’re joining every other light that ever burned in defiance of the dark.”

“You’re saying: I am here. We are still here.”

“And we will not disappear into the night.”

But all of that was still ahead.

On that fifth night of Hanukkah in 1938, Rivka was just a nine-year-old girl sitting with her father, watching snow fall and candles burn.

She didn’t know what the future held.

She didn’t know that three years later her father would be gone.

She didn’t know that she would survive when so many wouldn’t.

She didn’t know that the simple act of placing a menorah in a window would become, in her memory, the dividing line between the world that was and the world that came after.

She only knew that the candles were beautiful.

That her father’s hand was warm.

That outside, in windows up and down the street, other families had made the same choice they had.

To light.

To be seen.

To refuse the darkness while refusal was still possible.

The fifth candle burned.

And across the street, Mrs. Zilberman’s fifth candle burned.

And two buildings down, the Goldbergs’ fifth candles burned.

And on the corner, the Rosenthals’ fifth candles burned.

Light speaking to light.

Each flame saying the same thing: We are here.

Still here.

Not disappeared.

Not forgotten.

Not yet.

2. The Eighth Night Question

Rabbi Yaakov’s students gathered around him on the eighth night of Hanukkah.

The shamash candle was ready in his hand.

His study was warm despite the winter cold outside.

Books lined every wall from floor to ceiling.

The menorah sat on a small table by the window, as it had for seven previous nights.

Tonight, all eight candle holders waited to be filled.

The students—twelve of them, ranging in age from sixteen to twenty-four—settled into their usual semicircle around their teacher.

Some sat on chairs. Others on cushions on the floor.

One leaned against the bookshelf, arms crossed.

They’d been studying together for three years now.

Rabbi Yaakov was known for encouraging questions.

Not just permitting them—actively encouraging them.

“A question,” he often said, “is a form of seeking. And seeking is sacred.”

Tonight, Miriam spoke first.

She was nineteen, the sharpest of his pupils.

Quick-minded and unafraid of challenging received wisdom.

“Rabbi,” she said, “I have a question that troubles me.”

Rabbi Yaakov smiled. “Only one? You’re losing your touch.”

A few students chuckled.

Miriam didn’t smile. This question was serious.

“If the miracle was that one day’s oil burned for eight days,” she began, “then really the miracle was only seven days.”

“The first day, the oil would have burned naturally.”

“One day’s worth of oil burns for one day—there’s no miracle in that.”

“So why do we celebrate eight nights instead of seven?”

The room went quiet.

Several other students nodded.

They’d wondered this too.

It was one of those questions that seemed obvious once someone voiced it, but somehow no one had asked it directly before.

Daniel, a quiet student who rarely spoke, leaned forward. “The Beit Yosef asks this question.”

“Rabbi Yosef Karo, in his commentary. He gives several answers.”

“I know the answers in the books,” Miriam said. “But I want to understand it. Really understand it.”

“Why eight nights when mathematically the miracle was seven?”

Rabbi Yaakov set down the shamash candle.

He wasn’t going to light yet.

This question deserved time.

“Let me answer with a story,” he said.

The students shifted, getting comfortable.

Their rabbi’s stories were never simple parables with obvious morals.

They were puzzles, mazes, invitations to think.

“There was once a wealthy merchant,” Rabbi Yaakov began, “who lived in a prosperous city.”

“He owned three ships that traded in spices and silk.”

“He had warehouses full of goods, partners in every port, more money than he could count.”

“He was not a particularly good man or a particularly bad one.”

“He was ordinary in his virtues and his flaws.”

“One year, disaster struck.”

“One of his ships sank in a storm. Total loss.”

“He grieved for the crew, but he still had two ships. He would recover.”

“Then pirates seized his second ship.”

“Now he was worried, but he still had one ship, and insurance money was coming.”

“Then his largest warehouse caught fire.”

“The insurance company investigated and found evidence of negligence—they wouldn’t pay.”

“His partners, sensing weakness, turned on him. Legal battles ensued.”

“Within six months, he had nothing.”

The students listened intently.

Rabbi Yaakov continued.

“The merchant found himself in a single rented room with nothing but the clothes on his back and one gold coin.”

“One single coin—all that remained of his fortune.”

“He needed food. He needed shelter. He needed to find work.”

“That coin represented perhaps three days’ worth of survival if he spent it wisely.”

“He walked through the market, trying to decide how to use it.”

“And he passed a vendor selling lamps and oil.”

“Without thinking too carefully about it, he spent the entire coin on a small clay lamp and enough oil to fill it.”

Rabbi Yaakov paused.

“His wife was waiting when he returned to their room.”

“She saw he’d returned with no food, no wood for heating, nothing practical.”

“Just a lamp.”

“‘We’re starving,’ she said, ‘and you buy light?'”

The rabbi’s voice shifted slightly, becoming the merchant’s voice.

“‘In darkness,’ he replied, ‘we cannot see the way forward.'”

“‘But with light, I can work through the night.'”

“‘With light, I can read and learn and plan.'”

“‘With light, hope remains possible.'”

“‘Without it, we’re already defeated.'”

Rabbi Yaakov let the words hang in the air.

Miriam was frowning, thinking hard. “But what does this have to do with—”

“Patience,” the rabbi said gently.

“The merchant’s wife was furious, but she said nothing more that night.”

“He lit his lamp.”

“By its light, he took stock of what he still had.”

“His mind. His experience. His knowledge of trade and negotiation.”

“He began to make a plan.”

“He wrote letters by lamplight—to old associates who might still trust him, to potential investors, to anyone who might give him a chance.”

“He studied the market by lamplight, looking for opportunities others had missed.”

“He stayed up through the night, using every hour of illumination.”

“Within a week, he’d found a small opportunity—brokering a single deal between two parties.”

“The commission was tiny, but it was something.”

“He used that to make another small deal.”

“Then another.”

“It took him three years to recover even a fraction of his former wealth.”

“But he recovered.”

Rabbi Yaakov picked up the shamash again.

“The point is this,” he said. “The merchant could have saved that oil.”

“Could have sat in darkness, conserving resources, waiting for conditions to improve.”

“Could have been practical and careful and reasonable.”

“But he chose to light immediately.”

“He chose to begin in darkness rather than wait for dawn.”

“That choice—the decision to kindle light when darkness seemed overwhelming—that was his miracle.”

“Not the oil burning. The lighting of it.”

The students were silent, considering.

“The Maccabees entered a desecrated Temple,” Rabbi Yaakov continued.

“They’d been fighting for years. They were exhausted.”

“The Temple was destroyed. Idols everywhere. Filth and desecration.”

“They had one cruse of pure oil. One.”

“They could have waited.”

“Could have said: Let’s clean thoroughly first. Let’s prepare properly. Let’s wait until we have enough oil to do this right.”

“That would have been sensible.”

“That would have been practical.”

“But they didn’t wait.”

“They lit that single cruse of oil immediately.”

“On the very first night, when they had almost nothing, when success seemed impossible, they chose to begin.”

He looked at each student in turn.

“That was the first miracle,” he said. “The decision to kindle light when darkness seemed overwhelming.”

“The courage to begin before conditions were perfect.”

“The refusal to wait for a better time that might never come.”

Miriam’s eyes widened slightly. “So the eighth night celebrates the beginning?”

“The first candle celebrates the moment someone decides to begin,” Rabbi Yaakov said.

“The other seven celebrate what becomes possible when we do.”

He held up the shamash.

“Think about it. If they hadn’t lit that first night, there would be no story.”

“No miracle of oil burning for eight days.”

“The miracle of persistence required the miracle of initiation.”

“You can’t sustain light you never kindle.”

Daniel spoke up again. “But the Beit Yosef says they divided the oil into eight portions—”

“Yes,” the rabbi interrupted. “That’s one answer. A good answer.”

“They divided the oil, so each night was miraculous, including the first.”

“But I’m offering you a different lens.”

“Not instead of the traditional answers, but alongside them.”

He began placing candles in the menorah.

One in each of the eight holders.

“The question itself—why eight nights when mathematically it should be seven—the question reveals something.”

“It reveals our tendency to focus on the extraordinary parts of the story.”

“The oil that shouldn’t have burned but did.”

“The supernatural extension of natural resources.”

“That’s dramatic. That’s miracle-worthy.”

“But we overlook the more difficult miracle.”

“The decision to light at all.”

Sarah, one of the younger students, raised her hand hesitantly. “I don’t understand. Why is lighting more difficult than burning?”

Rabbi Yaakov smiled. “Tell me, Sarah. You’ve had the chance to begin things in your life. Projects. Relationships. Studies.”

“How many times have you thought: I’ll start when I’m ready. When I have more time. When conditions are better?”

Sarah blushed. “Many times.”

“We all do it,” the rabbi said. “We wait for the perfect moment.”

“The Maccabees didn’t have that luxury.”

“They had to choose: Light now with what we have, or don’t light at all.”

“And they chose to light.”

He struck a match.

The sound was sharp in the quiet room.

“Every beginning requires a moment like this,” he said, watching the match flare.

“A moment when you move from potential to action.”

“From darkness to light.”

“From waiting to doing.”

He lit the shamash.

Its flame caught and held.

“The shamash is interesting too,” he said. “It’s elevated, separate from the other candles.”

“We use it to light the others, but it’s not part of the count.”

“Why?”

No one answered immediately.

“Because,” Rabbi Yaakov continued, “the shamash represents the decision to light.”

“It represents the helper, the enabler, the initiator.”

“It’s the candle that makes all other candles possible.”

“Without it, the other eight remain just sticks of wax.”

He held the shamash to the first candle on the right.

The wick caught.

“One,” he said.

Then the next. “Two.”

Then the third. “Three.”

His voice was meditative, rhythmic.

“Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight.”

The menorah blazed with light.

All eight candles plus the shamash burning together.

The students watched in silence.

The flames flickered but held steady.

“Now,” Rabbi Yaakov said, “I’ll tell you another secret about the eighth night.”

He sat back down.

“It’s the only night when all eight candles burn together.”

“Every other night, we’re building. We’re adding. We’re climbing toward completion.”

“But the eighth night is different.”

“It’s the moment of fullness. Of totality.”

“It’s when we see what we’ve been building toward.”

“And here’s what I think the eighth night teaches us: Endings matter as much as beginnings.”

Miriam frowned. “How so?”

“Because,” the rabbi said, “anyone can start something.”

“The excitement of a new project, a new endeavor, carries you through the first steps.”

“But finishing? Sustaining? Seeing something through to completion?”

“That requires a different kind of miracle.”

“The Maccabees didn’t just light oil on the first night.”

“They maintained it. They tended it. They kept vigil.”

“For eight nights, someone had to ensure the light didn’t go out.”

“That’s not passive. That’s active care.”

He gestured to the burning candles.

“So the eight nights teach us both lessons: The courage to begin, and the persistence to continue.”

“The first night says: Start now, with what you have.”

“The eighth night says: You made it. You sustained it. You saw it through.”

“Both miracles. Both necessary.”

The students sat with this.

Outside, night had fully fallen.

The menorah’s light reflected in the window, visible to anyone passing by.

Miriam spoke slowly, working through her thoughts. “So the answer to my question—”

“—is that the question itself contains the answer,” Rabbi Yaakov finished.

“Why eight nights when the miracle was seven days?”

“Because the miracle was never just about oil defying natural law.”

“It was about people choosing to light when lighting seemed pointless.”

“It was about people maintaining light when everything urged them to give up.”

“It was about beginning and sustaining, initiation and persistence, the first step and the last.”

“All eight nights are miraculous because each represents a choice.”

“The first night: We choose to begin.”

“The second through seventh nights: We choose to continue.”

“The eighth night: We choose to complete.”

He looked at Miriam directly.

“The oil burning was God’s miracle, perhaps.”

“But the lighting of it? The tending of it? The refusal to let it go dark?”

“Those were human miracles.”

“And human miracles count too.”

Sarah spoke again. “So we celebrate eight nights to honor both kinds of miracle?”

“We celebrate eight nights,” Rabbi Yaakov said, “because life requires both kinds of miracle to function.”

“The divine and the human. The supernatural and the natural.”

“The gift and the choice to accept it.”

“The Maccabees were given enough oil for one day. That was their starting point.”

“But they had to choose to use it.”

“They had to choose to light it immediately rather than save it.”

“They had to choose to believe that beginning was worth the risk of failure.”

“And then—whether through divine intervention or human ingenuity or some combination we can’t separate—the oil lasted.”

“Eight nights to honor eight choices. Eight decisions to let light continue.”

The candles burned steadily.

The room was warm now, almost hot from all the flames.

“There’s one more thing,” Rabbi Yaakov said.

“About the number eight itself.”

Daniel perked up. He loved numerology, the hidden meanings in numbers.

“In Jewish mysticism, seven represents completion within nature,” the rabbi explained.

“Seven days of creation. Seven days of the week. Seven branches of the Temple menorah.”

“Seven is the natural order, the cycle that returns to its beginning.”

“But eight?”

He held up eight fingers.

“Eight is beyond nature. Eight is transcendence.”

“It’s the number that breaks the cycle, that exceeds the natural order.”

“A baby boy is circumcised on the eighth day, entering into covenant beyond biological birth.”

“The World to Come, in some teachings, is called the eighth day.”

“Eight represents the supernatural breaking into the natural world.”

“So eight nights of Hanukkah says: What happened here exceeded natural limits.”

“Not just that oil burned longer than it should.”

“But that humans found courage they didn’t know they had.”

“That a small group defeated a vast empire.”

“That the Temple was reclaimed when reclamation seemed impossible.”

“That light persisted when darkness should have prevailed.”

“Eight nights to say: The impossible happened. And we remember.”

Miriam was nodding now, slowly.

“So my question—why eight instead of seven—the question itself is inviting us to think about this?”

“Exactly,” Rabbi Yaakov said. “Your question is excellent because it pushes us beyond the surface story.”

“It makes us ask: What are we really celebrating?”

“And the answer is richer than we first assumed.”

He stood and walked to the window.

The menorah’s reflection glowed in the dark glass.

“Every year we light these candles,” he said quietly.

“Every year we tell the story.”

“And every year, if we’re paying attention, we discover something new in it.”

“Because the miracle wasn’t just historical. It’s ongoing.”

“Every time someone chooses to begin despite uncertainty, that’s the first night.”

“Every time someone persists despite difficulty, that’s nights two through seven.”

“Every time someone completes what they started, that’s the eighth night.”

“We’re not just commemorating what happened in the Temple.”

“We’re participating in what continues to happen.”

“In every generation. In every choice to light rather than curse the darkness.”

The students were quiet, absorbing this.

Finally, they began the traditional songs.

Ma’oz Tzur. HaNerot Halalu. Songs they’d sung since childhood.

But tonight, the words felt different.

More layered. More alive with meaning.

When they finished, Rabbi Yaakov spoke one last time.

“Tomorrow night, the holiday ends,” he said.

“The candles will be put away. The menorah cleaned and stored.”

“But the lesson remains.”

“The question Miriam asked—why eight nights—this question should stay with you.”

“Not because you need a definitive answer.”

“But because asking it opens doors.”

“It helps you see that miracles have layers.”

“That beginning matters. That persistence matters. That completion matters.”

“That human choice and divine intervention are partners in the work of bringing light.”

He looked at each student again.

“So when life asks you to begin something difficult, remember the first night.”

“When life asks you to persist through difficulty, remember nights two through seven.”

“When life asks you to finish what you started, remember the eighth night.”

“And remember that all of it—all of it—is miraculous.”

“Not because it defies natural law, necessarily.”

“But because it defies our tendency toward despair, toward giving up, toward letting darkness win.”

The candles continued burning.

They would burn for another hour at least.

The students would stay, talking and singing, until the flames guttered out.

This was the eighth night.

The night of completion and fullness.

The night when all the light accumulated, when every candle that had been lit across eight evenings seemed to burn together in this final moment.

Miriam looked at the menorah with new eyes.

She’d asked her question expecting a technical answer.

A clarification about oil and days and mathematics.

Instead, she’d received an invitation to see miracle differently.

Not as suspension of natural law but as the courage to act within it.

Not as divine magic but as divine-human partnership.

Not as something that happened once, long ago, but as something that happens every time someone chooses light over darkness.

The eighth night honored all of this.

The beginning, the middle, the end.

The question, the journey, the answer that becomes a new question.

“Thank you, Rabbi,” she said quietly.

Rabbi Yaakov smiled. “Thank you for asking.”

“Never stop asking. Questions are how we keep the light burning.”

Outside, in the streets of their small town, other menorahs burned in other windows.

Eight nights coming to completion in hundreds of homes.

Thousands of candles lit over eight nights.

Thousands of small acts of remembrance and choice.

The miracle, ongoing.

3. The Dreidel Game

In a basement in 1970s Soviet Moscow, children sat in a circle.

Their voices were barely above a whisper.

The concrete floor was cold beneath them despite the thin rug someone had brought.

A single bulb hung from the ceiling, casting shadows that moved with every slight draft.

Upstairs, a lookout watched the street.

Mrs. Levy, elderly and sharp-eyed, sat by the window with her knitting.

To any passerby, she was just an old woman working on a scarf.

But her eyes never stopped moving, scanning for militia patrols, for neighbors who asked too many questions, for anyone who might wonder why children kept arriving at this building on Thursday evenings.

In the basement, eleven-year-old Yael held a wooden dreidel.

Her grandfather had carved it in secret, working late at night when her grandmother was asleep.

It wasn’t fancy. The edges were rough, the Hebrew letters burned in with a heated wire.

But it was theirs.

“Your turn, Sasha,” Yael whispered, handing him the dreidel.

Sasha took it carefully, as if it might break.

He was twelve years old, tall for his age, with dark hair and darker eyes that seemed too serious for a child.

He’d only learned he was Jewish three months ago.

His mother had finally told him the truth one night after his father had left for work.

She’d spoken quickly, urgently, as if the words had been building pressure for years.

“Your grandparents were Jewish. My parents. They died before you were born.”

“We changed our name. We removed the reference from our internal passports when that became possible.”

“We raised you as Russian, as Soviet, because that was safer.”

“But you should know. You have a right to know what you are.”

Sasha had felt the ground shift beneath him that night.

Everything he’d thought he knew about himself suddenly had an asterisk, a hidden layer, a secret history.

Now he sat in this basement with other Jewish children, learning prayers in a language he’d never heard spoken aloud, celebrating holidays he’d never known existed.

Everything was new and strange.

The Hebrew letters he couldn’t read.

The prayers that sounded harsh and beautiful in his mouth.

The weight of a heritage he’d never known he carried.

He spun the dreidel clumsily.

His fingers didn’t quite know how to grip it properly, how to twist and release at the right moment.

The dreidel wobbled across the rug, spinning unevenly, threatening to tip over before it finally fell.

Nun.

The letter nun faced upward.

“Nothing happens,” Yael explained quietly. “You don’t win or lose. You just pass the dreidel to the next person.”

Sasha nodded, but confusion showed on his face.

An older boy named David leaned forward.

He was sixteen, old enough to be arrested if they were caught.

Old enough to understand exactly what risk they were taking by being here.

“Do you know what the letters mean?” David asked.

Sasha shook his head.

“Nun, gimel, hey, shin,” David said, pointing to each side of the dreidel as he named the letters.

“They stand for Nes Gadol Hayah Sham. ‘A great miracle happened there.'”

“There meaning Jerusalem,” Yael added. “Israel. The Land.”

Her voice carried a yearning Sasha was beginning to recognize.

Many of these children spoke about Israel the way others spoke about heaven—a perfect place that existed somewhere beyond reach, where everything would be different, where they could be themselves openly.

“But why do we play this game?” Sasha asked. “It seems silly. Just a spinning top.”

The room went quiet for a moment.

Then David’s grandmother, Sarah, spoke from the corner where she sat keeping watch over the children.

She was seventy-two years old, bent with age, but her mind was sharp.

“When I was young in Poland,” she began, “teaching Torah was forbidden.”

“This was under the Czar, before the Revolution, before any of you were born.”

“Jewish children were not allowed to study our texts openly.”

“So our teachers made it look like we were just playing games with this little top.”

She gestured for David to bring her the dreidel.

He did, and she turned it over in her weathered hands, examining it as if seeing something beyond the wood and burned letters.

“We would sit in circles, just like this,” she continued.

“If soldiers came, if inspectors appeared, we were just children playing.”

“What harm in that? What threat?”

“But each letter was a lesson.”

Her finger traced the nun. “Nun for nes, miracle. We learned that our people’s survival is itself miraculous. Against all odds, against all attempts to destroy us, we persist.”

She rotated the dreidel. “Gimel for gadol, great—and also for geulah, redemption. We learned that the miracle is not small or personal but vast, touching all of history.”

Another rotation. “Hey for hayah, it happened. Past tense. Something real, not just a story or metaphor. Our people actually experienced this. It’s part of our history, our testimony.”

Finally, the last side. “Shin for sham, there. The miracle happened in a specific place, a specific time. It’s rooted in reality, in geography, in the actual world.”

She handed the dreidel back to David.

“But here, in this basement in Moscow, we change the last letter.”

“Here it’s pey instead of shin.”

“Nes Gadol Hayah Poh. A great miracle happened here.”

Sasha frowned. “But we’re not in Jerusalem. There’s no miracle here.”

Sarah smiled, a sad knowing smile.

“Look around this room, child. What do you see?”

Sasha looked.

He saw ten other children, ranging from age seven to seventeen.

He saw David’s grandmother keeping watch.

He saw Yael’s mother in the back, ready to teach them songs after the dreidel game finished.

He saw a menorah wrapped in cloth, waiting for Hanukkah in a few weeks.

He saw prayer books hand-copied in notebooks, Hebrew letters painstakingly transcribed.

He saw children learning their own history in secret, adults risking everything to pass down something they could have abandoned for safety.

“This is the miracle,” Sarah said softly. “That we’re here at all.”

“That despite everything—despite laws and restrictions and fear—we gather.”

“We teach. We learn. We remember.”

“Your mother told you that you’re Jewish three months ago, and now you sit in this circle.”

“That’s a miracle.”

“My grandson risks arrest every week to study Torah in this basement.”

“Miracle.”

“Yael’s grandfather carved this dreidel with his own hands, burning the letters in secret.”

“Miracle.”

“We exist. We persist. We refuse to forget.”

“Nes gadol hayah poh. A great miracle happened here, is happening here, will continue to happen here.”

Sasha felt something tight in his chest.

For three months, since learning the truth about his heritage, he’d felt mostly confusion and resentment.

Why had his parents hidden this? Why did it matter? Why did being Jewish have to be secret and dangerous?

But now, sitting in this circle, he began to understand something else.

This wasn’t just about religious belief or ethnic identity.

It was about the simple, stubborn human refusal to be erased.

David spoke again. “The game teaches us that even in a time of concealment, when we must hide our practice and pretend to be what we’re not, our identity continues.”

“The dreidel spins, and no matter where it lands, the letters remain the same.”

“Nun, gimel, hey, pey. The miracle doesn’t change based on circumstances.”

He picked up the dreidel and spun it himself.

It whirled smoothly under his practiced hand, spinning for several seconds before falling.

Gimel.

“Gimel means you win everything in the pot,” Yael explained to Sasha. “But we’re not playing for money or candy tonight. We’re just learning.”

“Why don’t we play for real?” asked a younger boy, maybe eight years old. His name was Lev.

“Because that’s not why we’re here,” David’s grandmother said gently.

“The game is just the excuse, the cover. What matters is the gathering, the learning, the connection.”

“In Poland, we played for real sometimes. Nuts, usually, or small candies if we had them.”

“The winners would share with everyone at the end.”

“But here, now, we don’t want to create incentives that might lead to arguments.”

“Arguments mean raised voices. Raised voices mean risk.”

The practical reality of their situation was always present.

Every decision they made had to account for the danger of discovery.

Sasha took the dreidel when it came to him again.

This time he spun it more confidently, getting a feel for the motion.

The dreidel spun and fell: hey.

“Hey means you win half the pot,” David said. “So if we were playing for real, you’d take half of whatever’s in the middle.”

“Tell me more about the letters,” Sasha said. “You said they each teach something?”

David smiled. This was what he loved—when someone showed genuine curiosity, genuine hunger to learn.

“Each letter is a door,” he said. “You can walk through it into deeper understanding.”

“Take nun. In Hebrew, nun has a numerical value of fifty. Fifty represents understanding, wisdom. It’s the number of gates of understanding in Kabbalah.”

“So the miracle we celebrate isn’t just a physical event—oil burning. It’s also enlightenment, understanding, the ability to see clearly when darkness surrounds us.”

Yael jumped in. “And gimel has a value of three. Three represents completeness—past, present, future. Creation, preservation, destruction. The three patriarchs.”

“The miracle encompasses all time, all aspects of existence.”

“Hey has a value of five,” added another student, a girl named Ruth. “Five books of Torah. Five fingers on a hand. The hand of God working in history.”

Sasha’s head was spinning. “There’s so much hidden in four letters.”

“That’s the point,” David said. “Judaism isn’t about surface meanings. Everything has layers.”

“The dreidel looks like a child’s toy, but it’s actually a teaching tool.”

“The game looks simple, but it contains theology, history, mathematics, mysticism.”

“That’s how we survived for so long. We learned to hide depth inside simplicity.”

“We learned to make the sacred look ordinary so it could pass beneath the radar of those who wanted to suppress us.”

Sarah spoke again from her corner. “In every generation, we’ve had to find new ways to preserve what matters.”

“In Poland, it was the dreidel game, pretending to play while actually studying.”

“During the Spanish Inquisition, Jews pretended to convert but maintained practices in secret.”

“In Babylon, during the first exile, we invented the synagogue so we could pray without the Temple.”

“Here in Moscow, we gather in basements and pretend to be studying Russian literature while actually learning Torah.”

“The forms change. The methods adapt. But the core remains.”

She held up the dreidel again. “This little piece of wood represents all of that history.”

“Every spin is an act of defiance. Every letter is a connection to our past and a bridge to our future.”

The children continued passing the dreidel around the circle.

Each child spun it, watched it fall, learned which letter appeared.

Nun, gimel, hey, pey.

Miracle, greatness, happened, here.

After a while, they moved on to other activities.

Yael’s mother taught them a song in Hebrew, making them repeat each phrase until they could sing it without looking at the transliterated lyrics.

David read from a hand-copied text about Hanukkah, explaining the history of the Maccabees, the Temple, the miracle of oil.

Ruth shared a story her grandmother had told her about celebrating Hanukkah in a concentration camp, how prisoners had saved tiny amounts of margarine to burn in a makeshift menorah for just one night.

Sasha listened to everything with intense focus.

Three months ago, he’d been a Soviet boy with no particular identity beyond his family and his school.

Now he was discovering that he was part of something vast and ancient, something that had survived empires and armies and countless attempts at destruction.

It was overwhelming.

It was terrifying.

It was also, he was beginning to realize, extraordinary.

When the evening ended, the children left the basement in small groups, spacing out their departures so no one would notice a large gathering dispersing.

Sasha walked home with David, who lived in the same direction.

The streets were dark, cold. Early winter in Moscow, the kind of cold that bites through inadequate coats.

“Are you glad you came?” David asked.

Sasha thought about it. “I don’t know yet. It’s all so much to take in.”

“I understand. When my parents first told me we were Jewish, I was angry. I felt like they’d lied to me for thirteen years.”

“That’s exactly how I feel,” Sasha said.

“It gets easier,” David assured him. “Not easy. But easier.”

“You start to understand why they did it. You start to see that survival sometimes requires hiding.”

“But also—” He paused, choosing his words carefully. “Also, you start to feel connected to something bigger than yourself.”

“You start to understand that you’re part of a story that stretches back thousands of years.”

“That’s heavy,” Sasha said.

“It is. But it’s also beautiful.”

They walked in silence for a while.

Then Sasha spoke again. “Can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“If it’s so dangerous, if we could all be arrested, why do you keep going? Why not just… let it go? Forget about being Jewish and be like everyone else?”

David stopped walking.

They stood under a streetlight, their breath visible in the cold air.

“Because,” David said slowly, “some things matter more than safety.”

“Because my grandparents didn’t survive everything they survived so I could forget who I am.”

“Because if I let fear erase my identity, then everyone who ever tried to destroy us wins.”

“Because that dreidel, those letters, that history—it’s mine. It’s ours. And no government, no law, no threat can change that.”

He started walking again.

“Also,” he added, “because when I sit in that basement and study Torah, when I sing those prayers, when I spin that dreidel—I feel something.”

“I feel connected. I feel part of something that matters.”

“In a world that tells us we’re just Soviet citizens, just workers in the collective machine, just numbers—being Jewish reminds me I’m more than that.”

“I’m part of a people, a tradition, a story.”

“That’s worth the risk.”

Sasha absorbed this.

He picked up the dreidel from his pocket—David had given it to him to practice with at home.

He turned it over in his hands, feeling the rough wood, tracing the burned letters with his fingertip.

Nun, gimel, hey, pey.

A great miracle happened here.

He thought about his mother, keeping this secret for twelve years, finally trusting him with the truth.

He thought about Yael’s grandfather, carving this dreidel in secret.

He thought about David’s grandmother, teaching children in a basement with one eye always on the door.

He thought about all the generations before them who had done similar things—hiding, teaching, preserving, refusing to disappear.

“I think I understand,” he said quietly.

David smiled. “You’re beginning to. It takes time. But you’re beginning.”

They reached Sasha’s building.

“Same time next week?” David asked.

Sasha nodded. “Same time.”

He climbed the stairs to his family’s apartment, the dreidel still in his hand.

Inside, his mother was waiting, trying to look casual but unable to hide her worry.

“How was it?” she asked.

“It was good,” Sasha said.

He showed her the dreidel. “David’s grandmother told us about the letters. About what they mean.”

His mother took the dreidel, and Sasha saw tears in her eyes.

“My father used to play this game with me,” she said softly. “Before the war, when we still lived openly as Jews.”

“I haven’t seen one of these in thirty years.”

She spun it gently on the kitchen table.

It whirled and fell: pey.

“Nes gadol hayah poh,” she whispered. “A great miracle happened here.”

She looked at her son. “You’re the miracle, Sasha. That you’re learning this. That it continues.”

“That despite everything, we’re still here.”

Sasha picked up the dreidel and spun it again.

Around and around it went, a simple wooden top carrying the weight of millennia.

When it fell, it showed the nun.

Miracle.

He was beginning to understand that the dreidel wasn’t teaching him about something that happened long ago in Jerusalem.

It was teaching him about what was happening right now, in this moment, in this place.

Every spin was an act of remembering.

Every letter was a refusal to forget.

Every game played in secret was a declaration: We are here. We continue. We will not disappear.

The dreidel spun, and no matter where it landed, the letters remained the same.

Nun, gimel, hey, pey.

Miracle, greatness, happened, here.

Always here.

Wherever Jews gathered to remember, to teach, to preserve.

The miracle was portable, adaptable, eternal.

It spun through history, landing in different places, different times, different circumstances.

But always carrying the same message.

We persist.

We survive.

We continue.

Nes gadol hayah poh.

A great miracle happened here.

Is happening here.

Will continue to happen here.

As long as someone spins the dreidel and reads the letters and teaches their meaning to the next generation.

The game continues.

The miracle continues.

The light continues.

4. The Shamash’s Burden

In a small synagogue in Charleston, South Carolina, 1825, the shamash candle sat in its elevated holder.

It was the first night of Hanukkah.

The menorah stood on a table near the window, positioned so people passing in the street could see it.

Charleston’s Jewish community was small but vibrant.

Sephardic families who had fled the Inquisition, Ashkenazi merchants who had come seeking opportunity.

They gathered together in this modest building, their differences less important than their shared identity.

The shamash candle watched as the evening service concluded.

If candles could think—and in this story, let us imagine they can—this one thought itself lucky.

It was taller than the other candles, elevated above them in a special holder.

It had an important job: lighting all the others.

The rabbi approached with a match.

He struck it against the box, and flame bloomed.

He touched the match to the shamash’s wick.

The shamash felt the fire catch, felt the warmth spread through the wax near its tip.

Its flame burned steady and bright.

The rabbi lifted the shamash from its holder and used it to light the single candle for the first night.

The rightmost candle on the menorah, standing alone in its socket.

As the shamash touched its flame to the first candle’s wick, it felt a sense of purpose.

This was what it was made for: to serve, to give light to others.

The rabbi returned the shamash to its elevated position.

The blessing was said. The songs were sung.

The shamash and the first night’s candle burned together.

The shamash looked down at the single candle beside it.

“Welcome,” the shamash said. “Your first time burning?”

The first candle flickered in what might have been a nod.

“I’ve been waiting in the box all year for this moment,” the first candle replied.

“It’s briefer than I imagined. Already I can feel myself diminishing.”

“That’s the nature of candles,” the shamash said with what it imagined was wisdom.

“We burn, we give light, we’re consumed. That’s our purpose.”

“But you’re different,” the first candle observed. “You’re taller, elevated. You must be special.”

The shamash felt a warm glow that had nothing to do with the flame.

Yes, it thought. Special. That’s exactly right.

The second night came.

The shamash was lifted again, used to light two candles—the second night’s candle and the first again, since all previously lit nights are re-lit.

Wait, no. That wasn’t right.

The shamash corrected itself: On the second night, two new candles were placed in the menorah.

It lit them both, right to left, though they were arranged left to right.

Now three flames burned: the shamash and two others.

The shamash noticed that it was already shorter than it had been the first night.

A natural consequence of burning, but it seemed unfair somehow.

The two candles it had lit burned merrily, their flames dancing together.

“Look at us,” said the second night’s candle. “We’re making light together. We’re part of the miracle.”

The shamash said nothing, but it thought: I’m the one who made you burn. Without me, you’d still be dark.

The third night arrived.

Three candles now stood in the menorah, plus the shamash.

The shamash was noticeably shorter.

It had burned for three nights while the other candles had each burned only once.

The congregation sang Ma’oz Tzur.

Children played dreidel in the corner.

Someone brought in latkes, and the smell of fried potatoes and onions filled the synagogue.

But the shamash barely noticed.

It was focused on its own diminishment.

Already it was the same height as the regular candles.

Soon it would be shorter.

By the fourth night, the shamash had changed its mind about being lucky.

Four candles now burned beside it, their flames bright and steady.

Children sang songs about them.

Adults stopped to admire their light, pointing out how the menorah grew brighter each night.

But the shamash? It was already diminishing, consumed by its work of lighting others.

It was shorter than the other candles now, its wax dripping steadily down into the holder.

“It isn’t fair,” the shamash whispered to the fourth candle it had just lit.

“You get to burn brightly while people celebrate. I’m just the servant.”

The fourth candle flickered thoughtfully.

“You think I have it better? I burn for one night and I’m gone.”

“Tomorrow they’ll light a fifth candle, and no one will remember me specifically.”

“I’ll just be one of the candles that burned during Hanukkah, indistinguishable from all the others.”

“But you—you’re part of every night. You’re in every story.”

“I’m never the story,” the shamash said bitterly.

“I’m just the one who makes the story possible.”

“Isn’t that more important?” the fourth candle asked.

The shamash didn’t answer.

It didn’t want to think about whether being necessary was the same as being valued.

An old woman approached the menorah to warm her hands by the flames.

Her name was Miriam, and she had escaped Haiti during the revolution there.

She’d been born into slavery, had won her freedom, had fled violence and chaos with nothing but the memories her grandmother had given her.

Among those memories: Hanukkah traditions, prayers in Hebrew, the lighting of candles.

She stood by the menorah now, her weathered hands extended toward the warmth.

“Look how the shamash burns,” she said to her granddaughter, a girl of seven who stood beside her.

“It gives of itself so others can shine. There’s holiness in that kind of service.”

The granddaughter peered at the candles. “But Grandma, it’s burning up. It’s getting so small.”

“Yes,” Miriam agreed. “That’s the nature of service. It costs something.”

“The shamash doesn’t burn for itself. It burns so others can burn.”

“Without it, all those other candles would remain dark.”

“The miracle we celebrate—the oil that lasted eight days—required someone to light it first.”

“Required someone to say: I will start this. I will make this possible.”

The shamash listened to this exchange.

It considered the old woman’s words as it continued burning, its wax dripping, its flame steady.

Was there truth in what she said?

Was being consumed in service actually meaningful, or was that just something people said to make servants feel better about serving?

The fifth night came, then the sixth.

The shamash grew shorter and shorter.

By the seventh night, it was barely more than a stub, its flame low and struggling.

Seven tall candles stood in the menorah, fresh and bright.

The shamash could barely see over the edge of its holder.

“I’m disappearing,” it said to the seventh candle.

“By tomorrow night, I’ll be almost nothing. Just a puddle of wax with a weak flame.”

The seventh candle was quiet for a moment.

Then it said something unexpected: “Do you know what happens after the eighth night?”

“What do you mean?”

“We all go out. All the candles—the eight night candles and you. We all burn down to nothing and then we’re gone.”

“The difference is that you’ll have burned for eight full nights. You’ll have been present for the entire miracle.”

“Each of us individual candles only knows one night. One evening of light and then darkness.”

“But you know all eight nights. You carry the continuity.”

The shamash hadn’t thought of it that way.

“Still,” it said, “no one writes songs about the shamash. No one counts it when they count the nights.”

“No,” the seventh candle agreed. “But everyone uses it. Everyone depends on it.”

“Every miracle needs a beginning. Every light needs a lighter.”

“You think that’s insignificant?”

Before the shamash could answer, the eighth night arrived.

It was barely a nub now, its wick exposed, its flame weak and wavering.

But it was still burning.

Eight fresh candles stood in the menorah, waiting.

The shamash looked at them—eight tall, proud candles, ready for their moment.

The rabbi approached with a match, as he had every night.

He lit the shamash’s weak flame, coaxing it back to strength with the fresh fire.

Then he lifted the shamash from its holder.

Despite its diminished state, despite being nearly consumed, the shamash’s flame burned bright enough to do its work.

One by one, the rabbi touched the shamash to each of the eight candles.

Right to left: eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one.

Each wick caught. Each flame joined the growing brightness.

When all eight were lit, the rabbi returned the shamash to its elevated position.

The synagogue blazed with light.

Nine flames total—eight for the nights of Hanukkah, one for service.

The congregation sang with particular enthusiasm on this final night.

The children’s voices rose high and clear.

The adults harmonized, their voices carrying years of tradition, memory, longing, joy.

The shamash, barely more than a stub, burned alongside the eight tall candles.

And in that moment, it finally understood.

Below, the eight candles of the menorah waited in their holders.

But they hadn’t always been waiting. They’d been lit. And the shamash had lit them.

Each one waiting for purpose, for the moment it would be chosen, for the shamash to lean close and share its flame.

Without the shamash, they would have remained what they’d been before: potential, not actual. Wax and wick, but not light.

“Perhaps,” thought the shamash, “the greatest light isn’t the one that shines for itself, but the one that kindles light in others.”

It looked at the eight flames burning beside it.

Each one was technically separate—its own candle, its own wick, its own small pool of melting wax.

But they’d all come from the shamash’s flame.

The light they gave was, in a sense, the shamash’s light, multiplied and distributed.

The shamash hadn’t lost its light by sharing it.

It had multiplied its light through sharing it.

One flame had become nine.

The old woman, Miriam, approached the menorah again on this eighth night.

Her granddaughter was with her, as always.

“Grandma,” the girl said, “why is the helper candle so small? It looks like it’s almost gone.”

“Because it’s been working hard,” Miriam said. “For eight nights, it’s been serving. Giving of itself.”

“But look—” She pointed to the eight bright flames. “Look what it created.”

“All this light exists because the shamash was willing to burn.”

“In my life,” Miriam continued, her voice soft with memory, “I’ve known people like the shamash.”

“My grandmother was like that. She taught me everything she knew, poured all her knowledge into me.”

“By the time I was grown, she was old, worn down by hard work and harder life.”

“But what she’d given me—the prayers, the stories, the traditions—that became light in my life.”

“And now I pass it to you.”

She squeezed her granddaughter’s hand.

“That’s what the shamash teaches us. That service isn’t weakness. It’s strength.”

“That giving of yourself isn’t loss. It’s multiplication.”

“That burning for others isn’t being consumed. It’s becoming more than you could be alone.”

The shamash listened to this and felt something shift inside itself.

All week it had been focused on its own diminishment.

On being shorter, smaller, less impressive than the candles it served.

On not being counted, not being celebrated, not being the main event.

But now it saw differently.

It wasn’t less than the other candles. It was different from them.

It had a different role, a different purpose, a different kind of importance.

The eight candles represented the miracle—the oil that shouldn’t have lasted but did.

But the shamash represented something else: the choice to light the oil in the first place.

The decision to begin. The willingness to serve. The act of enabling.

Without the eight candles, there would be no commemoration of the miracle.

But without the shamash, there would be no eight candles burning at all.

Both were necessary. Both were sacred.

Just in different ways.

A young boy approached the menorah, maybe five years old.

He stared at the flames with wide eyes.

“Papa,” he said to his father, “why is that one so small?”

His father knelt beside him. “That’s the shamash. The helper candle.”

“What does it help with?”

“It lights all the others. See how it’s elevated, above the rest? That’s so it’s easy to take out and use.”

“But it’s so little now.”

“Yes,” the father said. “Because it’s been working hard. It’s been burning every night so the other candles could be lit.”

“Is it sad?” the boy asked.

The father considered this. “I don’t think so. I think it’s proud.”

“Look at all the light it helped create.”

The boy nodded slowly, though he didn’t seem entirely convinced.

“When I grow up,” he said, “I want to be like the tall candles.”

His father smiled. “That’s good. But remember—someone has to be the shamash too.”

“Someone has to be willing to serve, to help, to light others.”

“That’s just as important as burning bright yourself.”

The boy thought about this, then turned back to watch the flames.

The shamash continued burning, its flame small but steady.

It had perhaps another hour before it would gutter out entirely.

The eight candles beside it would last longer—they’d been lit more recently, had more wax to burn.

But eventually, they too would exhaust themselves.

By morning, all nine flames would be extinguished.

The menorah would be empty, the holiday over for another year.

But for now, in this moment, all nine flames burned together.

The shamash spoke to the eight candles one last time.

“I understand now,” it said. “I was angry about diminishing, about not being celebrated, about serving instead of being served.”

“But I see now that I had it backward.”

“The miracle isn’t that I’m consumed. The miracle is that my consumption creates light.”

“The miracle isn’t that I serve. The miracle is that through service, I become part of something larger than myself.”

“Alone, I’m just one candle with one flame.”

“But through giving my fire to others, I become nine flames. I become the entire menorah’s light.”

The eighth candle, the last to be lit, spoke up.

“You also teach us something important,” it said. “You teach us that being first isn’t about glory.”

“You’re lit first every night, but not so people will admire you.”

“You’re lit first so you can light others.”

“Being first is about responsibility, not privilege.”

The shamash had never thought of it that way.

It had seen its elevation, its priority, as a sign of importance.

And maybe it was—but not the kind of importance it had assumed.

Not importance that meant being admired or celebrated.

Importance that meant being useful. Being necessary. Being the one that makes everything else possible.

Another congregant approached—an elderly man named Samuel, who had been lighting Hanukkah candles for seventy years.

He stood before the menorah, his hands clasped behind his back, his eyes reflecting the flames.

“Every year,” he said to no one in particular, “I look at the shamash and think about my father.”

His voice was soft, contemplative.

“He was a shamash too, in a way. Not of a candle, but of our family.”

“He worked himself to exhaustion so his children could have opportunities he never had.”

“He lit our futures with his labor, his sacrifice, his determination.”

“By the time he died, he was worn down, used up, much like this little candle here.”

“But look what he created.” Samuel gestured broadly, as if indicating something beyond the room.

“Four children who went to university. Twelve grandchildren. Now great-grandchildren. All of us carrying forward what he started.”

“He would have loved to see this. All this light from his one flame.”

Samuel wiped his eyes.

“The shamash isn’t sad to be consumed. It’s proud to have kindled so much brightness.”

He leaned closer to the menorah, addressing the shamash directly, as if it could hear him.

“Thank you,” he whispered. “For teaching me about my father. For teaching me about service.”

“For reminding me that the most important work is often the work that diminishes us but enlarges the world.”

The shamash felt something it hadn’t felt all week: gratitude for its role.

Not despite its service, but because of it.

Not despite its consumption, but because its consumption had meaning.

It was being used up, yes. But it was being used up for something.

For light. For others. For the miracle to continue.

The flames burned steadily as the evening progressed.

People came and went, offering prayers, sharing food, telling stories.

Children played near the menorah, their faces illuminated by the nine flames.

Adults talked in clusters, discussing business, family, the life of their small community.

And through it all, the candles burned.

The shamash and the eight it had lit, all giving light together.

Finally, near midnight, the synagogue began to empty.

Families departed for their homes. The rabbi locked the doors.

Only the candles remained, burning in the window.

The shamash was now barely more than a puddle of wax with a struggling wick.

Its flame was weak, flickering in the slight draft.

“I’m almost gone,” it said to the eight candles.

“Thank you,” the first candle replied. “For lighting me. For making my burning possible.”

“Thank you,” echoed the second, the third, the fourth.

All eight candles expressed gratitude to the shamash for the service it had provided.

“You gave us purpose,” the eighth candle said. “Without you, we would have remained potential forever. You made us actual. You made us light.”

The shamash’s flame flickered lower.

“I thought I was just a servant,” it said. “But I see now I was a catalyst. A beginning. An enabler.”

“You were all of those things,” the candles replied in unison. “And all of those things are sacred.”

The shamash’s flame guttered once, twice.

Then, with a final flicker, it went out.

The eight candles continued burning for another hour.

Then they too, one by one, exhausted their wax and went dark.

By morning, the menorah stood empty and silent.

The holiday was over for another year.

But something remained—not in the candles themselves, which were gone, but in the light they’d given.

In the prayers that had been said by their glow.

In the memories formed in their brightness.

In the warmth they’d provided on cold December nights.

In the hope they’d rekindled, the miracle they’d proclaimed, the defiance they’d embodied.

The shamash’s service had made all of that possible.

Not despite its diminishment, but through it.

The lesson remained, embedded in the ritual itself:

That service is sacred.

That giving light to others is the highest purpose.

That being consumed in the act of kindling is not loss but multiplication.

That the shamash’s burden is also the shamash’s blessing.

To burn so others may burn.

To diminish so others may grow.

To serve so others may shine.

Next year, a new shamash would take its place.

A new candle would be elevated, would light the others, would be consumed in service.

And the lesson would be taught again.

Every year, in every menorah, in every home and synagogue and window.

The shamash burning, giving, serving.

Creating light from light.

Multiplying one flame into eight.

Proving that the greatest miracle isn’t lasting forever.

The greatest miracle is lighting something that continues after you’re gone.

5. The Latke Recipe

Hannah stood in her kitchen in Tel Aviv, staring at her grandmother’s handwritten recipe card.

The year was 2024, and the apartment was bright with November sunshine streaming through the windows.

But Hannah felt cold inside.

The recipe card trembled slightly in her hands.

The edges were browned, the paper soft from decades of handling.

Oil stains marked various spots where cooking hands had touched it.

Some of the ink had faded, smudged by time and use.

At the top, in handwriting that wavered between Yiddish, Hebrew, and Polish, it read: “Bubbe Chava’s Latkes.”

Her grandmother had died last month.

Heart failure, the doctors said. Quick and relatively painless at the end.

But Hannah knew better. Her grandmother hadn’t died from heart failure.

She’d died from accumulation—ninety-three years of living, remembering, surviving, carrying.

Ninety-three years of stories that now existed only in fragments, scattered among family members who each held different pieces.

This would be the first Hanukkah without her.

The first year that Bubbe Chava wouldn’t be standing at the stove, grating potatoes with her ancient grater.

The first year her voice wouldn’t lead the blessings, accented and strong despite her age.

The first year the family wouldn’t gather in her small apartment in Haifa, crowding around her table, fighting good-naturedly over the last latke.

Hannah’s phone buzzed on the counter.

A video call from her cousin Rachel in Montreal.

She answered, propping the phone against the wall.

“Did you find it?” Rachel asked immediately. “The recipe?”

Rachel’s face filled the screen—she had their grandmother’s eyes, dark and intense.

Behind her, Hannah could see a kitchen in mid-preparation, bowls and utensils scattered across counters.

“I found it,” Hannah said, holding up the card to the camera. “But Rachel, I don’t think I can read her handwriting.”

“And some of this is in Yiddish, some in Hebrew, some in Polish—”

She felt tears starting and blinked them back angrily.

She’d cried enough this month. Today was supposed to be about doing, about continuing, about making latkes because that’s what you did on Hanukkah.

“Take a picture,” Rachel said firmly. “Send it to the family chat. We’ll figure it out together.”

Hannah photographed the recipe card from multiple angles, capturing every faded word, every cryptic instruction.

She sent the images to the family WhatsApp group that had been formed after the funeral.

“Family Recipes and Memories,” they’d named it, as if giving it an official title would help preserve what they were afraid of losing.

Within minutes, the responses began flooding in.

First was Aunt Miriam in Buenos Aires, the eldest of Bubbe Chava’s grandchildren.

“The first line is Yiddish. ‘Six potatoes, large ones, the kind with brown skin.'”

Then Uncle David in Berlin: “The second part, in Polish, says something about onions. One large onion or two small. She always preferred white onions, never yellow.”

Hannah’s brother Jacob, calling from California where he was a chef: “That scribble on the side? That’s her note about eggs. Two eggs, beaten well. But I remember she always added an extra yolk if the mixture seemed too wet.”

More messages poured in.

Cousin Sarah in London identified the Hebrew instructions about flour—or was it matzo meal? The word was ambiguous.

Second cousin Michael in New York confirmed it was flour, but added: “During Passover she used matzo meal instead. It still works.”

Hannah’s phone chimed continuously as the family network activated across four continents, across twelve time zones.

Each person contributing their piece of the collective memory.

Each one holding a fragment of their grandmother’s kitchen wisdom.

Hannah set up her laptop beside the stove, opening a video call that could include multiple family members.

One by one, faces appeared on the screen.

Rachel in Montreal, already grating potatoes.

Aunt Miriam in Buenos Aires, her reading glasses perched on her nose as she squinted at her own copy of the recipe.

Jacob in San Francisco, even though it was early morning there and his restaurant didn’t open for hours.

Sarah in London, her children visible in the background, watching with interest.

Cousin Daniel in Toronto, his wife beside him.

More faces joining, more voices overlapping.

“Okay,” Hannah said, addressing the screen full of relatives. “Let’s do this together. Walk me through it.”

She pulled out her grandmother’s ancient grater from the drawer.

It was a rectangular metal grater, old-fashioned, with different sized holes on each side.

The metal was worn smooth in places from decades of use.

Her grandmother had brought this grater with her from Hungary in 1947.

One of the few physical objects that survived her displacement.

“Start with the potatoes,” Aunt Miriam instructed. “She always used the largest holes on the grater, and she always grated by hand. Never a food processor.”

“Why not?” asked one of the younger cousins, a teenager named Maya.

“Because the texture is different,” Jacob explained from California. “Hand-grated has more variation, more character. Food processors make everything too uniform.”

Hannah began grating the first potato.

The rhythmic scrape of potato against metal was immediately familiar.

This sound had filled her childhood—Saturday mornings at Bubbe’s house, Hanukkah preparations, occasional weeknight dinners when latkes appeared because someone needed comfort food.

“Don’t grate your knuckles,” Rachel warned from Montreal, and several people on the call laughed.

“Bubbe always said that,” someone commented.

“She said the latkes taste better with a little blood,” Jacob joked, and more people laughed, though the laughter had a edge of tears to it.

As Hannah grated, messages continued arriving in the family chat from relatives who couldn’t join the video call but wanted to contribute.

“Bubbe used matzo meal when we ran out of flour during Pesach, it still works”

“Don’t forget, she always made extra for the neighbors”

“She sang while she cooked—usually that one song about the dreidel”

“In Hungary, her mother added paprika”

“No, not paprika, that was for something else”

“Yes paprika! I remember watching her great-grandmother make them with paprika before the war”

Hannah’s hands worked steadily, grating potato after potato.

The pile of shredded potato grew in the bowl before her.

“Now the onion,” Aunt Miriam said. “This is where people cry.”

“Bubbe never cried,” Rachel said. “I asked her once how she did it, and she said after everything she’d seen, one onion couldn’t make her cry.”

The video call went quiet for a moment.

They all knew what “everything she’d seen” meant.

The war. The camps. The losses that she spoke about only rarely, and then only in fragments.

Hannah cut into the onion and felt tears spring to her eyes immediately.

“There we go,” she said, trying to make her voice light. “Crying for both of us, Bubbe.”

She grated the onion into the potatoes, the sharp smell filling her kitchen.

“The secret that’s not written down,” Jacob said, his voice carrying across the call, “is that she always added a tiny bit of nutmeg.”

“Nutmeg?” several people asked simultaneously.

“I never knew that,” Aunt Miriam said, surprised.

“She never told anyone,” Jacob explained. “But I spent more time in her kitchen than any of you. I was always there after school, watching her cook.”

“I watched her add it dozens of times. Just a pinch, barely anything. But it makes a difference.”

“What else didn’t she write down?” Hannah asked.

There was a pause as people considered.

Then the contributions began flowing again.

“She always squeezed the potato mixture through a kitchen towel to remove excess liquid,” Rachel said.

“She let the mixture rest for five minutes before frying,” added Daniel.

“She heated the oil until a tiny piece of potato would sizzle immediately when dropped in,” said Sarah.

“She never crowded the pan,” Jacob contributed. “Only three or four latkes at a time, with space between them.”

“She flipped them only once,” Aunt Miriam added. “Never multiple times. Once, when the edges were golden.”

“She drained them on actual newspaper,” someone else said. “Paper towels weren’t absorbent enough, she claimed.”

Hannah realized that the recipe card in her hand was incomplete.

The real recipe existed in the collective memory of her family.

Each person holding a piece of their grandmother, each detail a small light against forgetting.

She added the eggs to the mixture, beaten well as the recipe indicated.

Then flour—just enough to bind, not too much or the latkes would be heavy.

Salt, a generous amount.

Pepper, freshly ground.

And at Jacob’s insistence, a tiny pinch of nutmeg, so small it was almost invisible.

“Now the hard part,” she said. “Actually frying them.”

She heated oil in a pan—her grandmother’s old cast iron skillet, brought from Haifa along with the recipe card and the grater.

The oil shimmered, ready.

Hannah formed the first latke in her hands, feeling the cool mixture between her fingers.

She shaped it flat, about half an inch thick, ragged edges.

“Not too perfect,” Aunt Miriam cautioned from the screen. “They should look rustic, homemade.”

Hannah set the latke carefully into the sizzling oil.

The sound was immediate and satisfying—a sharp sizzle that filled the kitchen.

She added three more latkes to the pan, spacing them evenly.

“Now you wait,” Jacob said. “Don’t touch them. Don’t press them. Just let them fry.”

The smell began to rise from the pan.

Onions, potatoes, oil, salt—simple ingredients creating something that smelled like home, like childhood, like memory made tangible.

Hannah closed her eyes and was immediately transported.

She was seven years old, standing on a stool in her grandmother’s kitchen in Haifa.

Bubbe was at the stove, exactly where Hannah stood now, tending a pan of sizzling latkes.

“You must be patient, sheifale,” Bubbe had said, using her pet name for Hannah. “Good latkes require patience. You rush them, they burn outside and stay raw inside.”

“How do you know when to flip them?” seven-year-old Hannah had asked.

“You look at the edges. When they turn golden and crispy, when you can smell that they’re ready, then you flip. Only once. You flip more than once, you make them tough.”

The memory was so vivid that Hannah could almost feel her grandmother’s presence beside her.

“Hannah?” Rachel’s voice brought her back to the present. “Are they ready to flip?”

Hannah checked the edges. Golden, crispy, perfect.

She slid a spatula under the first latke and flipped it in one smooth motion.

The top was golden-brown, crispy, beautiful.

She flipped the other three, then stepped back to let them finish cooking on the second side.

On the video call, her family watched intently.

Some were crying. Some were smiling. Some were doing both.

“She would be so proud,” Aunt Miriam said softly.

Hannah removed the first batch of latkes from the oil and set them to drain.

She immediately started forming the next batch.

The rhythm became meditative—form, place in oil, wait, flip, remove, drain.

Form, place, wait, flip, remove, drain.

Her hands moved with increasing confidence, muscle memory taking over even though she’d never made latkes alone before.

Had always made them with Bubbe, under Bubbe’s direction, as Bubbe’s assistant.

But somehow her hands knew what to do.

As if they carried their own memory of all those times in her grandmother’s kitchen.

“Tell us a story,” Sarah said from London. “While you cook. Tell us something about Bubbe.”

Hannah thought while she worked.

“She told me once,” Hannah began, “about making latkes in the displaced persons camp after the war.”

“She was nineteen years old. She’d survived Auschwitz, survived the death march, survived everything.”

“The camp had almost nothing. But it was Hanukkah, and someone had managed to get potatoes. Just a few.”

“And someone else had saved a tiny bit of oil. Precious oil, worth its weight in gold.”

“They didn’t have a grater. They used a knife to cut the potatoes into the smallest pieces they could.”

“They didn’t have eggs or flour. Just potatoes and salt and that precious oil.”

“But they made latkes. In a tin can over a makeshift fire. The worst latkes ever made, she said. Falling apart, barely holding together.”

“But everyone who ate them cried.”

Hannah paused to flip another batch of latkes.

“She said those were the most important latkes she ever made. Because they were the first time after liberation that she felt human again.”

“The first time she participated in a tradition, maintained a connection to who she’d been before the world tried to erase her.”

“Food is memory,” she’d told me. “When you make latkes, you’re not just making potatoes. You’re making continuity. You’re making survival. You’re saying: They tried to destroy us, and here we are, still making our grandmother’s recipes.”

The video call was silent except for the sound of latkes frying.

Jacob spoke first. “I didn’t know that story.”

“She told different stories to different people,” Aunt Miriam said. “Each of us has pieces she shared. That’s why we need to talk to each other, share what we know. Otherwise it fragments, gets lost.”

“We should write everything down,” someone suggested.

“Yes,” Hannah agreed, flipping more latkes. “But not just the recipes. The stories too. The context. Why things matter.”

She continued cooking, batch after batch of latkes.

Her kitchen grew warm from the stove, fragrant from the frying.

On the video call, other family members began cooking too.

Rachel in Montreal, forming her latkes with confident hands.

Sarah in London, her children helping now, learning.

Jacob in California, cooking despite the early hour because this was important.

Even Aunt Miriam in Buenos Aires started preparing ingredients, walking her phone through her kitchen so everyone could see.

They cooked together across continents, across time zones.

Talking, sharing memories, correcting each other’s techniques, arguing good-naturedly about the right way to do things.

“Bubbe added more salt,” someone would say.

“No, that was just when she cooked for Papa, he liked more salt.”

“The oil should be hotter.”

“No, medium-high heat, too hot and they burn.”

Back and forth, the conversation flowing like it had at every family gathering, everyone an expert, everyone with an opinion.

It was deeply, recognizably, essentially their family.

The arguing was love. The corrections were connection. The cooking was communion.

Hannah finished frying the last latke and stepped back from the stove.

She had a platter piled high with golden latkes, steam still rising from them.

More than she could eat alone. Far more.

“Now what?” she asked the screen.

“Now you taste them,” Jacob said. “Tell us if we got it right.”

Hannah picked up a latke, still warm, and bit into it.

The outside was crispy, almost crackling under her teeth.

The inside was soft, tender, the potato and onion melding together.

The salt was perfectly balanced.

And underneath it all, so subtle she might have imagined it, was the nutmeg—just a whisper, a ghost of flavor.

It tasted exactly right.

Exactly like her grandmother’s latkes.

Exactly like home.

“It’s perfect,” she said, and her voice broke slightly.

“Of course it is,” Aunt Miriam said. “We all made it together.”

That night, Hannah video-called the family again.

This time, everyone had lit their menorahs.

In Montreal, Rachel’s menorah glowed in her window.

In Buenos Aires, Aunt Miriam’s menorah—Bubbe Chava’s original menorah from Hungary—stood on her table.

In California, Jacob’s menorah burned beside a plate of latkes he’d made for his restaurant staff.

In London, Sarah’s children sang the blessings in accented Hebrew, learning the words.

Across the world, in living rooms and kitchens, on tables and windowsills, menorahs burned.

And beside many of them sat plates of latkes.

Some had added paprika, remembering the Hungarian tradition.

Some had used matzo meal instead of flour.

Some had made them thicker, some thinner.

Each variation was slightly different, adapted to local ingredients, personal preferences, individual memories.

But all were recognizably Bubbe Chava’s latkes.

All carried her forward.

“This is the miracle,” Aunt Miriam said, watching her great-grandchildren eat latkes in Montreal via video. “Not that oil burned for eight days. That light does.”

“That traditions continue. That recipes get passed down. That we remember.”

Hannah looked at the recipe card, understanding it differently now.

It wasn’t just instructions for latkes.

It was a map of survival, each crossed-out line showing where the family had traveled.

Each addition revealing how they’d adapted, how they’d persisted.

How they’d kept something alive through everything that tried to extinguish it.

The card showed the layering of languages—Yiddish from Eastern Europe, Polish from the years in Poland, Hebrew from Israel.

Each language marking a chapter, a displacement, a new beginning.

The oil stains were evidence of use, of continuation, of a recipe that didn’t stay preserved in a drawer but lived in kitchens across decades.

She picked up a pen and added her own note to the card in English:

“Made by Hannah, Tel Aviv, 2024. Shared with family across the world via video call: Rachel in Montreal, Miriam in Buenos Aires, Jacob in California, Sarah in London, Daniel in Toronto, and others. Still perfect.”

Then she added: “Jacob’s secret—pinch of nutmeg. Bubbe never wrote it down but always added it.”

She photographed the updated recipe card and sent it to the family chat.

“Everyone should write their notes,” she said on the video call. “What you remember, what you add, what works for you.”

“Then we’ll compile everything. Make a complete version that includes all our knowledge.”

“The full recipe, not just what Bubbe wrote down, but everything we all know.”

“Yes,” Rachel agreed. “That’s perfect. That’s what she would want.”

Over the next few days, contributions arrived.

Uncle David sent detailed instructions about oil temperature with diagrams.

Jacob sent notes about variations—adding lemon zest, using sweet potatoes, making them smaller for appetizers.

Sarah sent her children’s questions and Hannah’s answers, creating a FAQ section.

Cousin Daniel sent historical notes about latkes, explaining why they’re associated with Hanukkah, connecting the oil of cooking to the oil of the miracle.

Each addition enriched the recipe, turning it from a simple set of instructions into a living document.

A family archive. A testimony. A bridge between generations.

On the eighth night of Hanukkah, Hannah lit all eight candles plus the shamash.

Her apartment blazed with light.

She’d invited neighbors over—other Israeli families, some Jewish, some not, all drawn by the smell of latkes frying.

She’d made three batches, using ingredients from the Tel Aviv market.

Israeli potatoes, slightly different from the Hungarian potatoes her grandmother had used.

Local onions, sharper and smaller.

Olive oil from the Galilee instead of the vegetable oil Bubbe had used.

But the technique was the same. The love was the same.

The intention—to create light, sustain tradition, share abundance—was the same.

As people ate and talked and laughed in her small apartment, Hannah thought about her grandmother.

Bubbe Chava had been born in Hungary in 1931.

Had survived the war as a teenager.

Had come to Israel with nothing but memories and determination.

Had built a life, raised a family, passed down traditions.

Had died peacefully in her sleep last month, ninety-three years old, surrounded by evidence of a life well-lived.

Photos of children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren covered her walls.

Her shelves held books in four languages.

Her kitchen, until the end, had been the heart of the family—the place everyone gathered, the place where food transformed into love and connection.

Now Hannah stood in her own kitchen, continuing what Bubbe had started.

Making latkes from her grandmother’s recipe, adapted and updated but recognizably the same.

Lighting candles as her grandmother had taught her.

Creating a space for family, for tradition, for the act of gathering and remembering.

The recipe card sat on her counter, protected now in a plastic sleeve.

She would keep it safe, pass it down someday to her own children if she had them.

Or to her nieces and nephews.

Or to whoever in the next generation wanted to learn, wanted to continue, wanted to carry forward.

But she knew now that the recipe card was just a starting point.

The real recipe lived in the collective memory of the family.

In video calls across continents.

In corrected techniques and added secrets.

In stories told while cooking.

In the smell of onions and potatoes frying in oil.

In hands that knew, without thinking, how to form a latke the right thickness, the right shape.

In the understanding that food is never just food.

It’s memory. It’s identity. It’s resistance against forgetting.

It’s light passed from generation to generation.

Like the shamash lighting the other candles.

Like the oil that shouldn’t have lasted but did.

Like a recipe written in three languages by a grandmother who survived everything.

Hannah picked up a latke and held it up to the menorah’s light.

“Thank you, Bubbe,” she said quietly.

For the recipe. For the traditions. For surviving long enough to pass them forward.

For teaching that the greatest act of resistance is simply to continue.

To light candles when darkness threatens.

To make latkes when it would be easier to forget.

To gather family, across whatever distance separates them, and say: We are still here.

Still cooking our grandmother’s recipes.

Still lighting our candles.

Still telling our stories.

Still surviving, still persisting, still carrying forward.

Nes gadol hayah poh.

A great miracle happened here.

Is happening here.

Will continue to happen here.

In every kitchen where someone makes their grandmother’s latkes.

In every video call connecting family across the world.

In every recipe card worn soft by time and love.

In every bite that tastes exactly like memory.

The miracle continues.

The light continues.

The latkes continue.

Golden, crispy, perfect.

Made with potatoes, onions, eggs, flour, salt, pepper, and a secret pinch of nutmeg.

But mostly made with love.

And memory.

And the stubborn, beautiful determination to keep light burning.

6. The Extra Candle

In a nursing home in Brooklyn, Morris sat alone in his room on the sixth night of Hanukkah.

The year was 2023, and his room was small but comfortable.

A single bed with railings, a dresser with photographs, a television he rarely watched.

A window that looked out onto a courtyard where, in warmer months, residents sat on benches and talked.

Now, in December, the courtyard was empty except for bare trees and patches of dirty snow.

Morris was ninety-four years old.

His children were busy—always busy.

His son David was a lawyer in Manhattan, consumed by a major case.

His daughter Rebecca lived in Boston, managing her own family, her own complications.

They called regularly. They meant well. They loved him.

But love, Morris had learned, didn’t always translate into presence.

They’d promised to visit on the eighth night.

A guilt visit, Morris knew, though he didn’t say that to them.

They felt bad about not coming earlier, so they’d make the effort for the final night.

Bring the grandchildren, make a fuss, take photos.

Then another year would pass before they managed a proper visit.

But Morris had set up his menorah on the windowsill anyway.

He did it every year, had done it for more years than he could count.

At ninety-four, he’d lit Hanukkah candles through depression, war, displacement, the death of his wife.

Through the slow dissolution of his community, the scattering of his friends.

Through moves from apartment to smaller apartment to, finally, this room in a nursing home.

He’d light them until he couldn’t anymore.

Until his hands shook too much or his mind failed or his heart simply stopped.

But not yet. Not tonight.

Tonight was the sixth night, and he had candles to light.

He’d arranged everything carefully on the windowsill.

His menorah—brass, old, brought from Poland by his parents in 1921.

The candles—Hanukkah candles he’d bought himself from a shop on Avenue J, taking the bus there despite how difficult it was.

Matches in a box, easier to manage than a lighter with his arthritic fingers.

A small cup of water nearby, safety precaution in case anything caught fire.

At precisely six o’clock, as the winter darkness settled over Brooklyn, Morris prepared to light.

He said the blessings quietly, his voice rough with age.

The Hebrew came automatically, words he’d known since childhood, words that required no conscious thought.

His accent was Polish, unchanged despite seven decades in America.

Some things, he’d learned, stay with you no matter how far you travel.

He lit the shamash, then used it to light six candles, right to left.

The flames caught and held, small bright points against the darkening window.

Morris returned the shamash to its elevated position and stood looking at the seven flames.

Seven small lights in a large darkness.

He was about to sit down when there was a knock at his door.

“Mr. Morris, time for your pills.”

Jerome entered, wheeling his medication cart.

He was the night aide, had been for three years now.

A tall Black man in his forties, with gentle hands and a patient manner.

He worked double shifts regularly to support his daughter, who was in college.

Morris had known Jerome longer than he’d known most people these days.

Friends died. Family grew distant. But Jerome came every night at six-fifteen with medications.

There was something reassuring about that constancy.

Jerome had noticed the menorah the first night and asked questions—genuine questions, not the polite kind people asked when they didn’t really care.

He’d wanted to know what the holiday meant, why eight nights, what the candles represented.

Morris had explained, and Jerome had listened.

Really listened, the way Morris’s own grandchildren rarely did anymore.

Each night since, Jerome had timed his rounds to arrive during the lighting.

He’d watch, ask more questions, learn.

Tonight, as Jerome handed Morris his pills with a small cup of water, Morris made a sudden decision.

“Jerome,” he said, “would you light a candle with me tonight?”

Jerome paused, the empty pill cup still in his hand.

“Mr. Morris, I’m not Jewish. I wouldn’t know what to do.”

“So? I’ll teach you. You think I was born knowing?”

Jerome glanced at the hallway.

His cart was only half-emptied. He had ten more residents to see before his rounds were complete.

“I have five minutes before I’m behind schedule,” he said.

Morris smiled, the expression lighting up his weathered face.

“Five minutes is enough for miracles,” he said. “That’s the whole story of Hanukkah.”

Jerome looked at the old man’s hopeful face and made his decision.

He stepped fully into the room and closed the door slightly.

“Okay,” he said. “Teach me.”

Morris gestured toward the menorah. “Come, stand beside me.”

Jerome moved to the window, and Morris explained the arrangement.

“Nine candles total. Eight for the nights, one for lighting—the shamash, we call it. The helper.”

“The shamash is elevated, see? Different from the others. It lights them all.”

He showed Jerome how to light the shamash first, how to hold it.

Jerome’s hands were large, dwarfing the small candle, but he held it carefully.

“Now we light the others,” Morris said. “Right to left. Six tonight, because it’s the sixth night.”

“But why right to left?” Jerome asked.

“Because Hebrew reads right to left. And because we add one candle each night on the right side, so we light the newest one first. We honor what’s newest while remembering what came before.”

Jerome nodded slowly, understanding the logic.

Morris guided his hand to the first candle. “Touch the shamash’s flame to the wick. Gentle.”

Jerome did as instructed.

The wick caught, flame spreading along it, blooming into light.

“There,” Morris said. “You’ve lit a Hanukkah candle. Now the next one.”

They moved along the row, Jerome lighting each candle under Morris’s guidance.

His movements were slow, careful, reverent even though he didn’t share the tradition.

When all six were lit, Morris returned the shamash to its holder.

Seven flames now burned in the window, their light reflecting in the glass, doubling their brightness.

“The sixth candle is special,” Morris said. “It’s the turning point—more than half the holiday completed, the light beginning to dominate the darkness.”

“In Kabbalah—that’s Jewish mysticism—six represents the physical world, the everyday.”

“It’s the number of work and effort.”

Jerome looked at his hands, roughened from constant washing and sanitizing, from helping residents move, from the physical labor of caregiving.

“I know about work,” he said quietly.

“You do,” Morris agreed. “You know what these candles really commemorate? Not magic oil. Determination.”

“The Maccabees worked to reclaim what mattered to them. They cleaned that Temple themselves—actual physical labor.”

“They didn’t wait for a miracle. They created the conditions for one.”

Jerome considered this. “My pastor says something similar. That faith without works is dead.”

“Your pastor is a wise man,” Morris said. “It’s the same teaching in different words.”

“God helps those who help themselves, but first you have to help yourself.”

“The Maccabees found one day’s worth of oil and said: We’ll light it anyway. We’ll do our part. We’ll work while it burns and prepare more.”

“They didn’t sit and wait for oil to appear. They acted.”

The candles burned steadily, their flames undisturbed in the windowed alcove.

Outside, evening settled over Brooklyn.

Street lights came on. Cars passed. People walked by, bundled against the cold.

Some glanced up at the lit windows of the nursing home, but most didn’t notice.

Morris and Jerome stood together in comfortable silence, watching the flames.

Finally, Jerome spoke. “Mr. Morris, why did you ask me to light with you tonight?”

Morris was quiet for a long moment, considering how to answer.

“My grandfather told me something,” he began. “He said we light in the window so others can see, yes. But also so we can see out.”

“To remind ourselves there’s a world beyond our own walls, and our light is meant to reach it.”

He looked at Jerome directly.

“You’re here every night, Jerome. You check on people nobody else visits. You notice when someone is sad.”

“You remember what matters to each person. You asked me about Hanukkah because you actually wanted to know, not because you were being polite.”

“Your daughter is lucky to have you working so hard for her.”

Jerome’s eyes grew bright. “She’s in her second year at Howard. Pre-med. First in our family to go to college.”

Pride and exhaustion mixed in his voice.

“You see?” Morris said. “You’re keeping a light burning for her. That’s the miracle—not that oil lasted eight days, but that people find ways to keep light going for those who come after them.”

Jerome was quiet, absorbing this.

“My grandfather worked in a factory,” Morris continued. “Twelve, fourteen hour days. Terrible conditions. Barely any pay.”

“But he did it so my father could go to school. My father worked himself to exhaustion so I could go to college.”

“I worked hard so my children could have opportunities I never had.”

“That’s the real miracle of Hanukkah. Not supernatural oil, though that’s a good story.”

“The real miracle is ordinary people doing extraordinary things for the people they love.”

“Working extra shifts so a daughter can study medicine.”

“Cleaning a desecrated Temple so worship can continue.”

“Lighting candles in a nursing home window even when you’re ninety-four and your children are too busy to visit.”

“It’s all the same miracle. The refusal to let darkness win.”

Jerome nodded slowly. “I never thought of it that way.”

“Most people don’t,” Morris said. “They hear the story about oil and think it’s about magic.”

“But my grandfather—who lived through pogroms in Poland, who brought his family to America with nothing, who worked until his hands were permanently bent from factory work—he told me the oil lasting was the smaller miracle.”

“The bigger miracle was that the Maccabees chose to light it in the first place.”

“That they said: We’re going to rededicate this Temple even though we’re exhausted, even though we barely won the war, even though we don’t have enough oil.”

“They chose to begin. That’s where miracles start—with the choice to begin despite insufficient resources.”

A call button lit up on Jerome’s cart outside the door.

He glanced at it, then back at Morris.

“I should go,” he said. “Mrs. Schwartz, she needs help getting to the bathroom before bed.”

“Of course,” Morris said. “Thank you for lighting with me.”

Jerome paused at the door. “Mr. Morris? Can I ask you something?”

“Anything.”

“Do you get lonely? I mean, being here, your kids not visiting much?”

Morris considered the question honestly.

“Yes,” he said. “I get lonely. I’m ninety-four years old, in a nursing home, and most days I sit in this room remembering people who are gone.”

“But lighting these candles helps. It connects me to something larger than my loneliness.”

“It reminds me I’m part of a story that doesn’t end with me.”

“My grandfather lit these candles. My father lit them. I’ve lit them. Somewhere, my grandchildren will light them, even if I’m not there to see it.”

“The light continues. That’s the opposite of loneliness.”

Jerome nodded, understanding more than Morris had said.

“I’ll see you tomorrow night,” he said. “Seventh night?”

“Seventh night,” Morris confirmed. “And Jerome? Thank you. For asking. For caring. For being here.”

After Jerome left, Morris sat with the candles a while longer.

He thought about his life, about the arc of it.

Born in Brooklyn in 1929 to Polish immigrants who’d fled poverty and persecution.

Grew up during the Depression, watching his parents struggle.

Fought in Korea, came home with wounds both visible and invisible.

Met Sarah at a dance in 1953, married her three months later.

Raised two children while working as an accountant.

Watched the neighborhood change, the Jewish community disperse, the world transform.

Buried Sarah seven years ago after fifty-eight years of marriage.

And now here, in this small room, lighting candles at ninety-four.

The arc seemed complete, like a story reaching its conclusion.

But tonight, having Jerome light a candle with him, Morris felt something shift.

Maybe the story wasn’t concluding. Maybe it was just changing form.

Maybe the light he’d carried was finding new hands to hold it.

Not his grandchildren, who were growing up secular and disconnected from tradition.

But Jerome, who asked questions and listened to answers.

Who saw meaning in an old man’s ritual.

Who understood, without being told, that work and faith were connected.

That miracles required human participation.

Morris had always thought he was lighting candles to maintain his connection to the past.

To honor his grandfather, his father, his tradition.

But maybe—maybe he was also lighting them for the future.

For whoever came after, whoever needed to see that light could persist in darkness.

That one person could make a difference.

That choosing to begin, even with insufficient resources, even in difficult circumstances, was itself miraculous.

The next night, the seventh, Jerome arrived precisely at six-fifteen.

Morris had already lit the shamash and was about to begin lighting the seven candles.

“Wait,” Jerome said. “Can I help again?”

Morris smiled. “I was hoping you’d ask.”

They lit the candles together, Jerome’s large hands steadier this time, more confident.

Seven flames plus the shamash. Eight lights total.

“Tomorrow is the last night,” Jerome observed.

“Yes,” Morris said. “Eight candles. The fullness. The completion.”

“Your children are coming?”

“They say they are. We’ll see.”

Jerome heard the resignation in Morris’s voice and understood it.

He saw it often in this place—children who meant well but couldn’t manage to show up.

Who loved from a distance because presence was difficult.

“I’ll be here,” Jerome said. “Even if they come. I want to see all eight candles lit.”

Morris felt something warm in his chest. “I’d like that.”

The eighth night arrived.

Morris prepared his menorah with special care.

Eight new candles arranged in their holders, waiting to be lit.

The shamash elevated above them, ready to serve.

His children had called that afternoon.

David’s case had gone to trial—he couldn’t make it, so sorry, Dad, we’ll come next week.

Rebecca’s son was sick—nothing serious, just a cold, but she couldn’t leave him, Dad understands, right?

Morris understood. He always understood.

But understanding didn’t make the disappointment less sharp.

At six o’clock, he began the blessings alone.

His voice wavered on the Hebrew, emotion threatening to crack through.

He lit the shamash, lifted it to light the first candle.

And then there was a knock at his door.

Jerome entered, but he wasn’t alone.

Behind him came his daughter, Keisha—twenty years old, bright-eyed, wearing a Howard University sweatshirt.

“Mr. Morris,” Jerome said, “this is my daughter. I told her about you, about the candles. She wanted to meet you.”

“And see the eighth night,” Keisha added. “Dad said it was important.”

Morris felt tears prick his eyes. “You brought your daughter?”

“She’s home for winter break. And I thought—well, you taught me something this week. About keeping light going for the next generation.”

“I wanted her to see that. To understand that traditions matter, even ones that aren’t our own.”

“To see that an old Jewish man and a Black aide can find common ground in light.”

Keisha stepped forward. “My father says you’re teaching him about miracles. About how they require work, not just faith.”

“That’s what my professors talk about in my classes—taking action, not just hoping things get better.”

“Dad said you might teach me too, if you don’t mind.”

Morris looked at these two—father and daughter, neither one Jewish, neither one family—and saw in them something precious.

He saw curiosity. Respect. Genuine interest in understanding.

He saw Jerome, who could have just done his job but instead chose to engage, to ask, to learn.

He saw Keisha, who could have spent her winter break anywhere but chose to visit a nursing home to meet an old man and see his candles.

“I would be honored,” Morris said, his voice thick. “Please, come. Stand with me.”

The three of them gathered around the menorah.

Morris explained the significance of the eighth night.

“It’s the culmination. The moment when all the light we’ve been building reaches its fullness.”

“Eight is a special number in Judaism. Seven represents completion within nature—seven days of creation, seven days of the week.”

“But eight transcends nature. Eight represents the supernatural, the miraculous, the divine breaking into the ordinary world.”

He handed Jerome the shamash. “You light tonight. And your daughter can help.”

Jerome took the shamash, and Keisha stood beside him.

Together, they lit the eight candles, one by one.

Morris guided them, his voice steady now, strong with purpose.

“Right to left. Good. Now the next. Yes, like that. Beautiful.”

When all eight were lit, the menorah blazed with light.

Nine flames total—eight plus the shamash—bright enough to illuminate the entire room.

Bright enough to be seen clearly from the street outside.

Morris, Jerome, and Keisha stood together, looking at the light they’d created.

“In Hebrew,” Morris said, “we have a phrase: l’dor vador. From generation to generation.”

“That’s what these candles represent. Not just what happened in the past, but what continues.”

“Light passing from hand to hand. From my grandfather to my father to me.”

“And now—” He looked at Jerome and Keisha. “Now to you, if you want it.”

“Even though we’re not Jewish?” Keisha asked.

“Light doesn’t belong to any one people,” Morris said. “The Jewish people have been its guardians, yes. We’ve carried it through difficult times.”

“But light itself—the refusal to accept darkness, the choice to work toward something better, the determination to create beauty and meaning in hard circumstances—that belongs to everyone.”

“You can carry that forward in your own way. In your own tradition.”

Jerome spoke quietly. “My daughter is going to be a doctor. She’s going to spend her life healing people.”

“That’s carrying light forward.”

“Yes,” Morris agreed. “Exactly that.”

They stood together as the candles burned.

Outside, snow began to fall, light flakes drifting past the window.

Inside, three people from different generations, different backgrounds, different traditions, watched light shine in darkness.

After a while, Keisha asked, “Mr. Morris, can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“My dad told me your kids couldn’t make it tonight. That made me sad for you.”

“But then I thought—maybe it’s not sad. Maybe it’s just different than expected.”

“Because you’re not alone. We’re here. And maybe that’s also a kind of miracle?”

Morris looked at this young woman, so perceptive, so kind.

“You’re very wise,” he said. “Yes. This is exactly a miracle.”

“I was expecting one thing—my children, my grandchildren, the family I made.”

“But what I got was something I didn’t know I needed. Connection across difference. Understanding from unexpected places.”

“You and your father choosing to be here when you didn’t have to.”

“That’s miraculous.”

Jerome checked his watch. “I really do have to finish my rounds. But Keisha can stay if that’s okay?”

“I’d like that,” Morris said.

Jerome left, and Morris and Keisha sat in the two chairs near the window.

The candles continued burning, their light steady.

“Tell me about your studies,” Morris said. “What kind of doctor do you want to be?”

Keisha launched into an explanation of her interest in community medicine, in serving underserved populations.

Morris listened, asking questions, genuinely interested.

She told him about her classes, her professors, her dreams.

He told her about his work as an accountant, about Sarah, about raising children in Brooklyn in the fifties and sixties.

They talked for over an hour, until the candles burned low.

“I should go,” Keisha said finally. “Let you rest.”

“Thank you for staying,” Morris said. “You made this eighth night special.”

“Thank you for teaching us,” Keisha replied. “I’ll remember this. When things get hard in medical school, when I want to quit, I’ll remember what you said.”

“About creating conditions for miracles. About choosing to begin even with insufficient resources.”

“Good,” Morris said. “That’s all an old man can hope for—that something he says matters to someone who comes after.”

After Keisha left, Morris sat alone with the burning candles.

But he didn’t feel alone.

He felt connected—to his past, yes, but also to a future he wouldn’t see.

To Keisha and her studies and her future patients.

To Jerome and his dedication to his work and his daughter.

To all the people who chose, every day, to keep light burning in whatever way they could.

The candles burned down to stubs, then to puddles of wax, then guttered out one by one.

By nine o’clock, all the flames were extinguished.

The holiday was over for another year.

Morris cleaned the menorah, wiping away the wax, preparing to store it until next Hanukkah.

If he lived that long. At ninety-four, each year was uncertain.

But as he wrapped the menorah in cloth and placed it in his drawer, he felt something he hadn’t expected.

Hope.

Not hope that his children would visit more—they were who they were, and he’d made peace with that.

Not hope that he’d live forever—he was old and tired and ready to rest when the time came.

But hope that the light continued.

That somewhere, someone would remember an old man in a nursing home who lit candles in the window.

That Jerome would tell his daughter stories about these nights.

That Keisha would carry forward the lesson about creating conditions for miracles.

That light, once kindled, didn’t actually go out.

It just changed form, passing from hand to hand, from generation to generation.

L’dor vador.

Morris turned off his room light and got ready for bed.

As he lay in the darkness, he thought about the week.

Eight nights of Hanukkah.

The first night, lighting alone, expecting to be alone all week.

The second night, Jerome asking questions.

The third through fifth nights, teaching, explaining, connecting.

The sixth night, inviting Jerome to light with him.

The seventh night, Jerome returning on his own.

The eighth night, Jerome bringing his daughter, creating unexpected family.

The arc of the holiday mirrored the miracle it celebrated.

Starting with almost nothing—one old man, alone, lighting candles no one would see.

Ending with abundance—connection, teaching, light shared across difference.

Not the family he’d expected, but family nonetheless.

Not the conclusion he’d anticipated, but completion all the same.

Morris closed his eyes and fell asleep with a smile on his weathered face.

In the drawer, the menorah rested, its work done for another year.

But the light it had created continued.

In Jerome’s memory.

In Keisha’s future.

In the story they would tell others about an old Jewish man who taught them about miracles.

About how miracles aren’t magic.

They’re choice.

The choice to light a candle even when you’re ninety-four and alone.

The choice to ask questions even when it’s not your tradition.

The choice to bring your daughter to meet a stranger because you think they might learn something from each other.

The choice to see connection where you expected isolation.

To find family where you expected loneliness.

To create light where there was only darkness.

These are the real miracles.

Small acts of human kindness and curiosity and determination.

Oil that lasts eight days is impressive.

But a nursing home aide who takes time to light candles with an old man?

A daughter who spends her evening with a stranger because her father asked?

An old man who invites people into his tradition without gatekeeping or exclusion?

Those are miracles too.

Maybe even greater ones.

Because they happen by choice, not by supernatural intervention.

Because they require us to act, not just to believe.

Because they create light that continues long after the candles burn out.

Morris slept peacefully that night.

And in the morning, when Jerome came by with breakfast, Morris told him, “Thank you. For being here. For your daughter. For everything.”

Jerome smiled. “Thank you for teaching us. Keisha talked about you all the way home. About miracles and medical school and not giving up when things are hard.”

“You made a difference to her. To both of us.”

“That’s all I wanted,” Morris said. “To make a difference. To keep the light going.”

“You did,” Jerome assured him. “You absolutely did.”

And Morris believed him.

Because sometimes miracles don’t look like what you expect.

Sometimes they look like a night aide and his daughter standing beside you while candles burn in a window.

Sometimes they look like connection across difference, understanding across generations, light shared freely with anyone willing to receive it.

Sometimes the extra candle—the shamash, the helper, the one that serves others—isn’t extra at all.

It’s essential.

It’s the one that makes everything else possible.

And sometimes you’re the shamash, burning yourself down to light others.

And that’s not a burden.

That’s a blessing.

The greatest blessing.

To give light that continues long after you’re gone.

L’dor vador.

From generation to generation.

The light continues.

7. The Last Night

The eight candles stood in their holders, waiting.

It was the eighth night of Hanukkah, and in this particular menorah—an old brass one that had survived three continents and two wars—the candles had developed opinions.

If candles could think, feel, and speak to one another, then these candles were a small community unto themselves.

They’d been manufactured in the same factory in New Jersey three months ago.

Packed in the same box. Shipped to the same store in Philadelphia.

Purchased together by a woman named Rachel who’d carefully selected the deepest blue candles she could find.

Blue like the Israeli flag. Blue like her grandmother’s favorite color. Blue like memory.

Now they waited in their holders, arranged left to right across the menorah.

The family—Rachel’s family—would arrive soon for the lighting.

But for now, in the quiet of the late afternoon, the candles had time to talk.

“Finally,” said the eighth candle, positioned on the far left. “I’ve been waiting all week while the rest of you got your moment.”

The eighth candle had watched from the box as, one by one, its companions were selected, placed in holders, lit, and burned.

It had waited with increasing impatience for its turn.

“It’s not that special,” muttered the first candle, now just a puddle of wax in its holder on the far right.

Its wick was gone, consumed. Its body melted into an irregular pool.

“You burn, people sing, you melt. That’s it.”

The first candle had been the original, lit on every night of Hanukkah.

It had burned eight times while the others burned once or not at all.

It had served its purpose completely.

The third candle disagreed. “But eighth night is the grand finale. Maximum light. Everyone makes a big deal about it.”

The third candle had burned on the third night and every night after.

Six times total. It was nearly gone, worn down to a stub.

But it retained its shape, its dignity, its sense of importance.

“All eight candles together—that’s something to see,” it continued. “That’s the moment everyone’s been building toward.”

“Plus, on the eighth night, people give the best presents. I’ve heard them talking about it.”

The fifth candle, which had burned four times, spoke up. “Presents aren’t the point. The light is the point.”

“Easy for you to say,” the third candle retorted. “You’re practically new still. Wait until you’ve burned six times and see how philosophical you feel.”

The eighth candle, listening to this exchange, felt its confidence beginning to waver.

It had imagined its moment would be transcendent.

The culmination of the entire holiday. The peak. The climax.

But hearing the other candles bicker, seeing the first candle reduced to a wax puddle, it wondered if perhaps it had built the moment up too much in its imagination.

The shamash, bent and worn from eight nights of service, spoke quietly from its elevated position.

“I’ve watched this family for all eight nights. Let me tell you what I’ve seen.”

The candles fell silent, listening.

The shamash was different from them—taller, separate, elevated.

It had burned every single night, had lit every single one of them.

If anyone understood the full arc of Hanukkah, it was the shamash.

“The first night,” the shamash began, its voice carrying the weariness of much use, “they were excited but distracted.”

“Rachel lit me, her husband David helped the children with the blessings, they sang quickly, then everyone scattered.”

“The kids went back to their phones. The parents went back to the kitchen. The grandparents sat on the couch and talked about the news.”

“The candle—” it nodded toward the first candle’s remains, “—burned beautifully. But barely anyone watched.”

The first candle’s wax pool seemed to ripple slightly, as if nodding in sad agreement.

“The second night,” the shamash continued, “one child asked questions—the younger one, Sarah, she’s seven.”

“‘Why eight nights? Why these blessings? What does Hanukkah mean?'”

“Rachel started to answer, but David’s phone rang—work emergency—and he had to take the call.”

“Rachel got distracted managing the children. The grandparents tried to explain but the children weren’t really listening.”

“Good questions, no good answers. Everyone too tired, too busy.”

The second candle, worn down to a nub, sighed. “I remember that. I burned while Sarah asked questions no one really answered.”

“The third night,” the shamash went on, “they almost forgot entirely.”

“They remembered at eleven PM. Everyone was in pajamas, ready for bed.”

“Rachel rushed to the menorah, lit me, lit the candles, said the blessings so fast the words blurred together.”

“Then everyone went to sleep. The candles burned unwatched in the living room.”

“That was my night,” the third candle said quietly. “I burned alone. No songs. No stories. Just flame in an empty room.”

“The fourth night,” the shamash said, “guests came. Rachel’s sister and her family.”

“It was loud, chaotic. Lots of people, lots of food. The lighting became part of the party.”

“Everyone sang Ma’oz Tzur too loud and off-key. Someone spilled wine on the table. The children ran around shrieking.”

“It was more about the party than the meaning.”

The fourth candle, still relatively intact, spoke up. “But there was joy that night. Laughter. Connection. Isn’t that worth something?”

“Of course,” the shamash agreed. “I’m not saying these nights were failures. I’m showing the variety. The full range of how people experience this holiday.”

“The fifth night,” it continued, “only the grandmother showed up—everyone else was too busy.”

“Rachel had a work deadline. David took the kids to a basketball game—they’d had the tickets for months.”

“So Grandmother stood alone at the menorah with me. Just her.”

“She lit the candles herself, said the blessings in a voice that shook. Then she sat and watched them burn.”

“She cried,” the shamash added softly. “Quiet tears. She didn’t make a sound, but I saw them.”

The fifth candle was silent. It remembered that night—the old woman’s weathered hands, her tears catching the candlelight, her whispered words in a language the candle didn’t understand.

Yiddish, maybe. Or Hebrew. Words that carried weight.

“The sixth night,” the shamash said, “the grandmother came again, but this time she brought the youngest child. Just the two of them.”

“And she told stories. Real stories—about her childhood in Poland, about lighting candles in harder times.”

“About how her own grandmother had made a menorah from a potato during the war.”

“About how light had meant something different then—not decoration, but defiance.”

“Sarah listened. Really listened. Asked more questions. And this time, someone answered them properly.”

The sixth candle stirred slightly in its holder. “That was my night. I burned while history was passed down. While a child learned what came before her.”

“The seventh night,” the shamash continued, its voice growing heavier, “the whole family fought.”

“David’s mother criticized how Rachel was raising the children. Rachel got defensive.”

“David tried to mediate and ended up making everyone angrier. The children watched, confused and upset.”

“They lit the candles in tense silence. No songs. No joy. Just obligation and resentment.”

“They argued about politics, about religion, about everything. It got ugly.”

“But—” the shamash paused, “—they were all there. Together. Even in conflict, even angry, they gathered.”

“They maintained the tradition even when maintaining relationships was difficult.”

The seventh candle, which had witnessed this, said nothing. What was there to say?

The eighth candle felt its confidence completely deflated now.

“So what’s the lesson?” it asked. “That none of this matters? That people go through the motions but nothing changes?”

“No,” said the shamash firmly. “That all of it matters.”

“The perfect nights and the imperfect ones. The times when people pay attention and the times they barely notice.”

“The celebration and the forgetting, the gathering and the conflict, the questions asked and the questions unanswered.”

“That’s what eight nights gives us—enough time for the full range of human experience.”

“Enough time to fail and try again. Enough time to start distracted and end present.”

“Enough time to forget and remember. To break and repair.”

The shamash’s flame would have flickered if it had been lit, as if emphasizing its point.

“One night would be too simple,” it said. “One perfect moment of lighting candles and feeling inspired.”

“But life isn’t one perfect moment. Life is messy and complicated and full of distractions and conflicts and busy schedules and forgotten obligations.”

“Eight nights gives us room for all of that. Room to be human.”

“Room to mess up on night three and try again on night six.”

“Room to be too busy and then make time. To ask questions without answers and then find someone who can answer them.”

The candles considered this in silence.

The eighth candle spoke again, more thoughtfully now. “So my night isn’t about being the best night or the most important. It’s just about being the completion?”

“Yes,” the shamash said. “But completion is its own kind of importance.”

“Think about it—most things people start, they don’t finish. Most diets fail. Most New Year’s resolutions abandoned by February.”

“Most people intend to do things they never actually do.”

“But tonight, this family will light all eight candles. They’ll have made it through the entire holiday.”

“Despite busy schedules and distractions and conflicts and tiredness, they’ll have shown up eight nights in a row.”

“That’s not nothing. That’s actually remarkable.”

The fourth candle spoke up. “I never thought of it that way. That just finishing is an accomplishment.”

“Most things worth doing require persistence,” the shamash said. “And persistence is just the choice to continue, made over and over.”

“Eight nights teaches that. You don’t have to be perfect every night. You just have to show up.”

“Night three can be rushed and distracted. Night seven can be full of conflict. That’s okay.”

“As long as you come back for night eight. As long as you complete the cycle.”

The sound of a key in the front door interrupted their conversation.

The family was arriving.

The candles fell silent, taking their places, preparing for their purpose.

Rachel entered first, carrying grocery bags filled with food for dinner.

Her husband David followed with their two children—Sarah, seven, and Jacob, ten.

David’s mother, the grandmother who had come on the fifth and sixth nights, arrived a few minutes later.

Rachel’s sister and her family would come later, they’d texted. Running late but definitely coming.

The house filled with the familiar noise of family—coats being hung, children arguing about whose turn it was to help set the table, adults discussing what still needed to be done before dinner.

Rachel moved through the chaos with practiced efficiency, directing traffic, delegating tasks.

But when six o’clock approached, she called everyone to the living room.

“Time to light,” she announced. “Come on, everyone. Put phones away. We’re doing this properly tonight.”

“It’s the last night.”

The family gathered around the menorah slowly, reluctantly.

The children dragged their feet. David was checking his phone one last time. The grandmother settled into a chair nearby.

But they gathered.

Rachel’s husband began placing the eight new candles in their holders.

Blue candles, fresh from the box, each one identical.

The eighth candle felt a flutter of something—nervousness? Anticipation? Purpose?

It was lifted from the box, placed in the leftmost holder.

Seven other candles joined it, filling the menorah from left to right.

Then the shamash was lifted from its resting place—worn down, used up, barely more than a stub.

But still functional. Still able to serve one more time.

Rachel struck a match and lit the shamash.

Its flame caught weakly, then strengthened.

She lifted the shamash from its holder and prepared to light the other candles.

“Wait,” said Sarah, the seven-year-old. “Can I help?”

Rachel smiled. “Of course.”

She guided Sarah’s hand, and together they touched the shamash to the eighth candle’s wick.

The eighth candle felt the flame touch it, felt the heat spread, felt its wick catch and bloom into light.

It was burning.

Finally, after a week of waiting, it was fulfilling its purpose.

And it was—

It was ordinary.

Not transcendent. Not magical. Just burning, like any candle burns.

The flame consumed the wax near the wick, creating a small pool of melted blue wax around it.

Heat rose. Light spread.

But it felt surprisingly normal.

Mother and daughter moved to the next candle, then the next.

Eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one.

Each wick caught in turn. Each flame joined the growing brightness.

When all eight were lit, Rachel returned the shamash to its elevated position.

The family began the traditional blessings.

“Baruch atah Adonai…“

Their voices overlapped, some confident, some hesitant, some just mouthing the words.

Sarah sang loudest, proud that she’d helped light the candles.

Jacob mumbled the blessings, clearly wanting to be somewhere else.

David said the words by rote, his mind probably on work.

The grandmother’s voice was strongest, carrying decades of practice, of memory, of meaning.

Rachel’s voice wavered slightly on the third blessing—shehecheyanu, thanking God for bringing them to this moment.

Every year that blessing hit her differently.

Thank you for keeping us alive, sustaining us, bringing us to this season.

This year, it felt heavier. Her father had died in March. This was the first Hanukkah without him.

But they were here. Alive. Sustained. Brought to this season despite loss.

The blessings concluded, and the family stood looking at the menorah.

Nine flames—eight plus the shamash—blazed in the window.

The brightness was remarkable. After seven nights of gradually increasing light, the eighth night’s fullness was almost shocking.

The room, which had seemed adequately lit by lamps, was transformed.

Shadows were pushed back. Corners were illuminated. Everything seemed clearer, sharper, more present.

“Wow,” Sarah said, her voice filled with genuine wonder. “That’s so much light.”

“That’s the point,” her grandmother said softly. “To increase the light every night until darkness is overwhelmed.”

“To refuse to accept that darkness is stronger. To insist that light, even small light, can push back against any shadow.”

The family stood together, transfixed despite themselves.

Even Jacob, who’d been resistant, stopped fidgeting and just looked.

There was something about the eighth night’s light that demanded attention.

Rachel felt tears prick her eyes.

She missed her father. Missed his presence at family gatherings, his off-key singing, his terrible jokes.

But standing here with her children, her husband, her mother-in-law, watching eight candles burn in the window—she felt connected to something larger than her grief.

“Tell me the story again,” Sarah said suddenly. “About the Maccabees.”

David groaned slightly—they’d told this story seven times already this week.

But the grandmother settled deeper into her chair and began.

“The Temple had been taken from us,” she said, her accented voice taking on the rhythm of a tale told many times. “Foreign rulers said we couldn’t practice our faith. They tried to make us forget who we were.”

Sarah had heard this before, but tonight she listened differently.

Maybe because it was the last night. Maybe because she’d helped light the candles. Maybe just because she was seven and things clicked at unexpected moments.

“Some people gave up,” the grandmother continued. “They said it was easier to blend in, to forget.”

“But a small group refused. They fought back. They reclaimed the Temple.”

“And when they went to relight the menorah, they found only enough oil for one day.”

“But they lit it anyway.”

“They didn’t wait for more oil. They didn’t wait for conditions to be perfect.”

“They lit what they had. And somehow—somehow—it kept burning.”

“Eight days,” Sarah whispered, looking at the eight candles.

“Eight days,” her grandmother confirmed. “Long enough to prepare more oil. Long enough for the miracle to complete itself.”

“But here’s what I think,” the grandmother added, “the real miracle wasn’t the oil.”

Everyone looked at her.

“The real miracle was the decision to light it. To begin. To say: We will restore what was broken, even if we don’t have everything we need.”

“The oil lasting was wonderful. But the courage to light the first night—that was the foundation of everything else.”

The eighth candle, burning in its holder, understood suddenly what the shamash had meant.

It wasn’t the most important candle. None of them were individually most important.

They were all part of a progression, a journey, a story that required all eight nights to tell completely.

The first night was the beginning—the courage to start.

The middle nights were the persistence—the choice to continue despite difficulty.

The eighth night was the completion—the satisfaction of finishing what you started.

All necessary. All meaningful. All part of the whole.

As the candles burned, the family began to relax.

They moved from the formal gathering around the menorah to a more natural arrangement.

The children sat on the floor near the window, watching the flames and the snow that had begun to fall outside.

The adults settled onto couches and chairs, talking in the comfortable shorthand of people who know each other well.

“How’s work?” David’s mother asked Rachel.

“Exhausting,” Rachel admitted. “But good. The project I’ve been leading finally launched last week.”

“I’m proud of you,” her mother-in-law said, and Rachel felt a warmth that had nothing to do with the candles.

Their relationship hadn’t always been easy—the fight on the seventh night had been real, painful.

But here they were on the eighth night, trying again. Choosing connection despite conflict.

David’s phone buzzed. He glanced at it, then deliberately put it face-down on the coffee table.

Work could wait. His family, gathered on the last night of Hanukkah, could not.

Rachel noticed and squeezed his hand gratefully.

Sarah, still watching the candles, spoke without looking away from them. “Grandma?”

“Yes, sheifale?”

“When you were little, did you light Hanukkah candles?”

The grandmother was quiet for a long moment.

“When I was very little, yes. In Poland, before the war.”

“My mother would light them in the window of our apartment. We lived on the third floor, and I would look down at the street and see other families’ menorahs in other windows.”

“It felt like we were all connected. All part of something larger than our individual families.”

“What happened during the war?” Sarah asked.

Rachel tensed. This was difficult territory. Her mother-in-law didn’t talk about the war often.

But the grandmother answered simply. “During the war, we couldn’t light candles. It wasn’t safe. We had to hide.”

“But I remembered them. Even in the darkest times, I remembered the light.”

“I promised myself that if I survived, I would light Hanukkah candles every year for the rest of my life.”

“And I have. Sixty-eight years now, I’ve kept that promise.”

She looked at the eight burning candles. “Tonight makes it sixty-eight years of eighth nights. Sixty-eight completions.”

“Sixty-eight times I’ve made it through all eight days and lit the final candles.”

“That’s a lot of light,” Sarah said.

“Yes,” her grandmother agreed. “That’s a lot of light.”

The eighth candle listened to this and felt something shift in its understanding.

It wasn’t just burning for tonight. It was part of sixty-eight years of eighth nights.

Part of a chain stretching back through time, through history, through survival and persistence and determined remembering.

The grandmother had lit candles in post-war displacement camps.

In her first apartment in America.

In the house where she’d raised her children.

In synagogues and living rooms and, one year when she was traveling, in a hotel room in Chicago.

Sixty-eight years of showing up. Sixty-eight years of completing the cycle.

And this eighth candle was part of that continuation.

The doorbell rang. Rachel’s sister and her family had finally arrived.

More noise, more people, more hugs and greetings and taking off of coats.

The house swelled with family—three generations now, spanning decades, connected by blood and tradition and the simple choice to gather.

They ate dinner together, latkes and brisket and salad, everyone talking over each other in the way large families do.

But throughout the meal, the candles burned in the window.

Eight flames plus the shamash, visible to anyone passing outside.

A declaration: We are here. We remember. We continue.

After dinner, as adults cleaned up and children played dreidel in the living room, the eighth candle felt itself diminishing.

Its wax was melting steadily. Its flame was consuming it.

In an hour, maybe less, it would be gone.

“Are you afraid?” the seventh candle asked quietly. It was nearly gone itself, just a stub with a flickering flame.

“Of burning out?” the eighth candle asked. “No. Not anymore.”

“I thought my night would be special because I was last. Because I was the culmination.”

“But I understand now—I’m not more important than the first night or the fifth or any of them.”

“I’m just the completion. The closing of a circle. The final note in a song.”

“All notes in a song are necessary,” the shamash interjected, its own flame barely a flicker now. “But the last note has a particular job. It has to bring resolution. Has to say: This is finished, this is complete.”

“That’s what you’re doing. Providing completion.”

The eighth candle looked at the family gathered in the living room.

They’d started the week distracted, busy, going through the motions.

But something had shifted over eight nights.

Sarah had asked questions and finally gotten answers.

Jacob had resisted but eventually engaged.

Rachel had mourned her father but found connection with her living family.

David had put down his phone and chosen presence.

The grandmother had passed down stories, ensured continuity.

Eight nights had given them all space to move from obligation to meaning.

From routine to intention. From distraction to presence.

“The miracle,” the eighth candle said slowly, working it out as it spoke, “was never really about oil lasting longer than it should.”

“It was about this—about people showing up, night after night, despite everything that makes showing up difficult.”

“About families gathering even when they’re busy, lighting candles even when they’re tired.”

“About maintaining tradition even when tradition feels like an obligation.”

“About making space for the sacred even in ordinary life.”

The shamash’s flame flickered in what might have been agreement.

“The oil burning was God’s part,” it said. “But the lighting of it, the tending of it, the showing up every night—that’s the human part.”

“And human miracles count too.”

“Maybe human miracles count more, because they require choice.”

“Oil burning supernaturally is impressive. But a family making time eight nights in a row to light candles together? That’s miraculous in its own way.”

The candles continued burning as the evening progressed.

People came and went from the living room. Children grew sleepy. Adults grew quiet.

Someone made tea. Someone else found cookies. The grandmother dozed in her chair.

And through it all, the candles burned.

The eighth candle burned proudly alongside its companions, all nine flames reflecting in the window, visible to the whole dark street outside.

And it understood now what it hadn’t understood at the beginning of the evening.

Its light was no brighter than the first candle’s had been.

But together, collectively, they created something that one candle never could.

A defiant abundance of light. A multiplication of hope. A message that said: We are here. We continue. We increase in brightness rather than diminish.

Outside, a man walking his dog stopped on the sidewalk.

He stood looking up at the menorah in the window—nine flames burning bright against the darkness.

He wasn’t Jewish. He didn’t know the story of Hanukkah beyond vague cultural references.

But standing in the cold December night, watching those candles burn, he felt something.

Hope, maybe. Or connection. Or just the simple human appreciation for light in darkness.

He stood there for a full minute before walking on, but something in his step was different.

Lighter. More purposeful.

Inside, none of the family saw him stop and watch.

But the eighth candle saw.

And understood yet another layer of meaning.

The light wasn’t just for the family lighting it. It was for anyone who needed to see it.

For the stranger on the street who needed a reminder that light exists.

For the person walking through their own darkness who needed evidence that others have survived their own winters.

For anyone, anywhere, who needed to see proof that people still choose light over darkness.

That we still gather. Still remember. Still insist that small acts of illumination matter.

“The miracle,” whispered the eighth candle to the shamash as both their flames began to gutter, “was never about lasting forever.”

“The miracle was shining together. Refusing to accept darkness. Creating light that continues after we’re gone.”

“Yes,” the shamash agreed, its voice barely a whisper now. “The miracle is the continuation. Not any individual candle, but the chain of light stretching back through time and forward into the future.”

“We’re just one link in that chain. But we’re a necessary link.”

The eighth candle’s flame flickered once, twice.

Then, with a final flare, it went out.

The seventh candle followed moments later. Then the sixth.

One by one, the candles exhausted their wax and went dark.

The shamash was last, burning alone for a few final minutes, providing light until the very end.

Then it too flickered out.

The menorah stood dark and silent, its work done for another year.

In the living room, Rachel noticed the candles had gone out.

“That’s it,” she said softly. “Hanukkah is over.”

Sarah looked sad. “Already?”

“Already,” Rachel confirmed. “But it comes again next year.”

“Will we light candles again?” Sarah asked.

“Yes,” her grandmother said firmly. “We will. Every year, as long as we’re able.”

“That’s the promise. The continuation.”

Rachel began gathering the used candles, scraping wax from the menorah, preparing to put everything away until next year.

As she worked, she thought about the week.

Eight nights that had started as obligation and ended as meaning.

Eight chances to gather, to connect, to remember what mattered.

Eight small acts of defiance against the darkness of winter, of grief, of ordinary forgetting.

She wrapped the menorah carefully in cloth and placed it in its box.

The shamash, worn down to almost nothing, she hesitated over.

“Save it,” her mother-in-law said. “It served faithfully. Let it rest until next year.”

Rachel tucked the shamash stub into the box with the menorah, a reminder of service rendered, of purpose fulfilled.

That night, as the family departed—Rachel’s sister with her children, David’s mother to her own apartment—the house grew quiet.

Rachel and David tucked their children into bed, Jacob protesting that he wasn’t tired, Sarah asking more questions about the Maccabees.

When the house was finally silent, Rachel stood at the window where the menorah had been.

No light there now. Just darkness and falling snow.

But in her memory, the light remained.

Eight nights of candles burning. Eight nights of family gathering.

Eight nights of choosing light despite everything that makes choosing light difficult.

She thought about her father, absent this year for the first time.

But she thought also about her children, present and learning, carrying forward what was passed to them.

The light continues, she thought. Even when individual flames go out.

Even when people we love are gone. Even when traditions feel hard to maintain.

The light continues because people choose to continue it.

Generation after generation, making the same choice: to light the candles, to tell the stories, to gather the family.

To create light in darkness.

To insist that small acts of remembrance matter.

To refuse to let the flame go out.

L’dor vador, she thought, remembering the Hebrew phrase her father used to say.

From generation to generation.

The light passes down like the shamash lighting candles.

One flame becoming many. One family becoming generations.

One small act of lighting becoming a tradition that survives empires, wars, displacements, and losses.

Becoming something that continues as long as someone chooses to continue it.

Rachel turned from the window and went to bed.

Tomorrow, life would return to normal. Work, school, the ordinary rush of everyday existence.

But tonight, on this last night of Hanukkah, she’d stood with her family and lit eight candles.

She’d watched them burn and understood what they represented.

Not perfection. Not constant inspiration. Not unbroken devotion.

But persistence. Continuation. The choice, made again and again, to show up and light the candles.

To gather the family. To tell the stories. To keep the light going.

Even when it’s hard. Even when it’s inconvenient. Even when you’re tired and busy and distracted.

You light the candles.

You complete all eight nights.

You carry the light forward.

And that—that choice, repeated across eight nights, across generations, across centuries—that’s the real miracle.

Not oil that burned supernaturally long.

But people who chose, night after night, year after year, to keep the light burning.

To refuse the darkness.

To insist on continuation.

To light candles in windows so others can see that light exists.

The eighth night was over.

But the light it created—that light continues.

In memory. In tradition. In the choice that next year’s family will make to light candles again.

In the chain of light stretching backward through time and forward into a future not yet written.

The candles are gone. The flames are extinguished. The wax has melted.

But the light?

The light never truly goes out.

It just changes form, passing from hand to hand, from generation to generation, from flame to flame.

Forever burning. Forever continuing.

Forever insisting that darkness, no matter how deep, can never fully extinguish the light of people who refuse to stop lighting candles.

Nes gadol hayah poh.

A great miracle happened here.

Is happening here.

Will happen here next year, and the year after, and the year after that.

As long as someone lights the candles.

As long as someone tells the stories.

As long as someone chooses light over darkness.

The miracle continues.

Midrash, folklore, and tradition

Beyond the main historical account, midrashic and folkloric narratives have shaped how communities interpret Hanukkah. These narratives are interpretive rather than documentary. They offer moral, ethical, and cultural meaning.

One example is the story of Hannah and her seven sons, an early account of steadfast faith under coercion. The narrative became an emblem of resolve in later tradition. Another tale, that of Judith, tells of a woman who delivered her people through strategy and courage; in some communities her story is linked to customs of the holiday.

Talmudic explanations give rise to familiar practices. The dreidel is commonly said to originate from secret study under Greek rule; when students were discovered, they would pretend to play with spinning tops. The letters on the dreidel—Nun, Gimel, Hei, Shin—are read as an abbreviation of the phrase “Nes Gadol Hayah Sham” (“A great miracle happened there”).

These stories deepen the meaning of the holiday and provide parents and teachers with different ways to frame the observance.

Folktales and imaginative retellings

Folktales adapt Hanukkah motifs for children and for local settings. These stories preserve the essential elements—light, courage, and renewal—while presenting them in concrete, memorable forms.

A folktale might follow an heirloom cruse of oil as it passes between generations. Another tale might describe candles that burn beyond expectation, symbolizing endurance. Such narratives are symbolic; they are intended to teach and to provide images that children can recall.

Folktales are flexible in place and detail. The setting can be an ancient village, a wartime shelter, or a modern apartment. The structure remains: a challenge, an act of fidelity or courage, and a renewal of light. That adaptability allows families in different contexts to find the story that speaks to them.

Hanukkah across time and place

Hanukkah has been observed in many regions and adapted to local conditions. Stories traveled with Jewish communities and changed in response to new environments.

In medieval Europe, Hanukkah tales share space with histories of precarious life. In the twentieth century, accounts of clandestine menorah lightings in ghettos and in Soviet apartments became powerful symbols of resistance. In contexts of persecution, lighting a menorah served as a private and public claim to identity.

In the modern State of Israel, Hanukkah has also acquired civic dimensions. Soldiers lighting candles and public menorah ceremonies tie the holiday to national memory and resilience. At the same time, Jewish communities in India, Ethiopia, and elsewhere preserve distinctive practices. The same basic themes—light, resistance, renewal—are present across cultures, while their expression varies.

Selection principles

Children’s literature plays a central role in English-language Hanukkah storytelling. Picture books and short tales present the holiday in clear language and also provide points for family discussion.

When choosing or telling a story for children, follow three principles:

• Clarity. Use simple language and concrete images. Young children respond to repetition and clear visuals.
• Appropriateness. Short, predictable plots suit preschoolers. Older children can handle more historical detail and moral nuance.
• Connection. Stories that relate directly to menorah lighting, dreidel play, or food make ritual immediate and meaningful.

Reading and activities: practical guidance

How a story is presented affects comprehension and retention.

• Prepare the setting. Reduce distractions. Consider lighting the menorah to give immediate context.
• Read clearly and at a measured pace. Allow pauses for images to form.
• Use moderate voice variation. Distinct but restrained character voices aid understanding.
• Ask brief reflective questions. Invite one or two responses, such as “What would you do?” or “Which part mattered most?”
• Follow with an activity. Light the next candle, play dreidel, prepare a simple food, or craft a paper menorah. These acts link story to practice.

Suggested activities that reinforce the story: dreidel play with simple rules, candle or paper crafts, a family story night to record memories, shared cooking of latkes or sufganiyot, and drawing or short writing exercises.

Central themes

Across many tellings, four themes recur:

• Light over darkness: The menorah’s flame stands for hope and continuity.
• The strength of the few: Small groups can preserve practice under pressure.
• Freedom of practice: Stories stress the right to live according to one’s beliefs.
• Small acts, wide effects: Modest resources and actions can have lasting results.

These themes give Hanukkah stories a lasting, adaptable meaning.

Conclusion

Hanukkah stories explain ritual, teach values, and preserve memory. They range from the historical account of the Maccabees and the oil to midrashic tales and contemporary children’s books.

Choosing a story that fits the audience, telling it with care, and following it with a simple activity turns narrative into lived experience. Each telling is an act of continuity. May the lights you kindle be steady, and may the stories you tell remain meaningful for those who hear them.