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Grown-Up Chanukah

As the years went by, without quite realizing it, I\'d been stylistically left behind. My poor brass menorah was outclassed by the exquisite handmade silver set made in Hungary, or even the Agam knockoff (himself inspired by the commentator Rambam) with the diagonal arms now available at places like Bed, Bath and Beyond.
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December 14, 2000

I bought my first menorah when I was a graduate student. My roommate, Pat, was the first non-Jew with whom I’d ever shared a kitchen, and my celebration was predictably tentative. The chanukiyah was disposable, made of a cheap paper-like tin, and unstable, needing to sit on a glass plate. I fried latkes for Pat, who never understood why we ate them with both applesauce and sour cream. After the eight days of candle burning, every nook and cranny of the foil cups was coated with wax, and the get-up was easily tossed.

My other chanukiyot have not been so easily disposed of. There’s the regulation brass menorah I bought when we first got married, still crusted with blue and red tallow despite more than two decades in and out of the dishwasher.

What a testimony to how styles of worship have changed. My “married menorah” is functional; it stands nine inches tall, with the semicircular upswept arms known to Jewish homes since time immemorial. Its three-tiered base is stamped with ersatz menorot, as “creative” and inspiring as the Jell-O glasses embossed with Disney characters my family used for juice when I was a child. Chanukah in the ’70s was an also-ran holiday, second best to Christmas. My husband and I were acting “natural” in those days, trying out sweet potato latkes with friends, some of whom had living pine trees next to the fireplace. It was the days of Dansk salad bowls, of handmade coffee mugs bought at local art fairs, of parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme, when not caring about style was a style all its own.

Then came the child-blazing years. Samantha made a new menorah each winter, first at preschool, then at Hebrew school. At age 3 she decorated an untreated 2-inch-high slab of oak with six Popsicle sticks formed into a Star of David; metal nuts served as candle holders. At 4, she painted the wood slab a deep chocolate brown and pasted a tall wood spindle as the shamash. About 5 she got festive, sprinkling blue glitter on a thin white wood strip and painting the metal nuts pink! We were gourmets by then, eating Caesar salad and homemade cheesecake, filled with cheer.

Soon it was the age of Renewal. Our friends caught fire with the holiday spirit, which came to symbolize both tolerance and the triumph of individuality over repression. We took the Midrash literally, explaining that while there had to be at least one menorah per household, there could be one menorah per person. My dining room was aflame with candles, and it was no longer a burden to use up the entire box of 44 multicolored tapers. We were busy families. I learned to make latkes the Sunday before and freeze them.

As the years went by, without quite realizing it, I’d been stylistically left behind. My poor brass menorah was outclassed by the exquisite handmade silver set made in Hungary, or even the Agam knockoff (himself inspired by the commentator Rambam) with the diagonal arms now available at places like Bed, Bath and Beyond. My mother bought us a “Happy Chanukah” hanging quilt, in which multicolored Velcro tapers and detachable yellow-and-red flames are placed each night in shiny golden lame pockets. No heat but a decorative delight.

How fast the candles were burning, and not just because Chanukah flames last less than an hour. I didn’t see it happening, for love of the glow. One year we burned our candles with Hillel, adding one each night until there are nine. The next we tried Shammai, decreasing the flares until there were just two. In the end, Edna St. Vincent Millay was right: burning candles at both ends gives a lovely light.

Where does this leave me now, now that my daughter has grown up and the days of the metal-nut candleholder are gone? It leaves me on fire, that’s what, to finally get the menorah that I deserve.
So I did what any Jewish shopper does seeking ritual solace: I went online to anymenorah.com (really!) for a journey into the might-have-been and the what-will-be.

I wonder how our lives might have changed if we had, at our family table, not our Home Depot creations but the Curious George menorah, featuring not just the beloved monkey but the Man in the Tall Hat. Could I have resisted Pooh’s Latke Party, in which the adored bear joins Rabbit, Tiger, Roo and Eeyore for a party of scrumptious latkes? What about the “ball and bat” menorah, available in both aluminum and “poly resin,” for the Little League years?

As for adult fantasy, I could choose (but won’t) the “Golf menorah” (club and ball), nor the “Fiddler on the Roof,” “Lower East Side,” or “Dreidel at the Western Wall” varieties, the Starbucks-inspired “Coffee Time!” with crystal mugs nor the Mah Jongg menorahs in clear or fake ivory.

I am drawn to an expensive menorah, which commemorates lost Jewish communities of Eastern Europe, and to a silver-plated number called the “Tree of Life.” I’ve got eight on my wish list, and time to choose, choice being the first step of personal freedom.

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