They journeyed to the strains of “Ani Maamin” and “Habeit miShamayim ure’eh… necheshavnu katzon latevach,” sung with raw emotion by a people heading, like sheep to slaughter, to an uncertain fate.

The train pulled up in Bergen-Belsen on the 23rd of Kislev, only two days after the Satmar Rebbe — their close cousin — had been released via the Kastner transport and sent to Switzerland. My grandfather’s entire family wound up in the very barracks where the Rebbe had been confined. That knowledge was a consolation.

The Rebbe had been interned in one of two “beautified” barracks, Barracks 10 and 11, which were used by the Nazis to deceive the Red Cross. Inhumane conditions permeated the rest of the concentration camp, where disease and the extremely unsanitary conditions claimed thousands of lives. However, even at the “better” barracks, prisoners endured starvation and disease.

My great-grandfather, the Sorvosher Rav, Rav Chaim Meisels ztz”l, longed to sleep not just on the same bunk the venerated Rebbe had occupied, but in the actual spot on the upper wooden planks. The despondent inmates, freshly orphaned of the Satmar Rebbe, were only too happy to have a replacement rav in their midst who would uplift and mentor them, and they granted the Sorvosher Rav the coveted few inches.

Chanukah was just one night away. As the inmates huddled together on the hard bunks, starving and gaunt, they wondered how they might sneak a semblance of Chanukah into their barracks. In hushed but passionate tones, they brainstormed how to improvise the lecht. Ideas were discussed, tactics devised, as their hoarse voices floated up to the hollow-beamed roof above them.

Suddenly, there was a thud. Something had fallen from the roof — and hit my great-grandfather on his nose. He sat up with a start and, curiosity overcoming the pain, began to rummage around for the mysterious object. What he found shocked him: a package of candles. My great-grandfather lifted the package and gazed at it as if he had just unearthed a rare diamond.

A gasp filled the room. The weary inmates also sat up, dazed. They too recognized the tremendous miracle that had just come into their hands.

“Where is this from?” asked the Sorvosher Rav, breaking the stunned silence. “Who could have hidden this up there?”

No one claimed responsibility. But it didn’t take long to figure out that it must have been the Satmar Rebbe who had hidden the treasure — on the roof beam right above the spot where he had slept. Throughout his stay, the Rebbe’s chassidim spared no effort to procure him provisions like a siddur, tallis, tefillin, shofar — even a gartel and challah knife —and these candles must have been on their list for Chanukah. They didn’t know that the Rebbe would be safe in Switzerland by then.

An electric joy rippled through the room, igniting the Yidden with hope. When morning came, they spread word throughout the camp that there would be Chanukah lighting with the Sorvosher Rav that night.

On the 25th of Kislev 1944, throngs of walking skeletons crept toward the barracks to mark the first night of Chanukah. The Sorvosher Rav, facing the makeshift menorah of candles, announced to the gathering that now he had an answer to the Beis Yosef’s famous kashe of why there are eight, not seven, nights of Chanukah. After all, it was only the seven ensuing nights — not the first — that were nissim, because on the first night there was oil.

Many answers have been given, but that night, in the crowded barracks, he declared, “Finding these candles is our neis of the first night!”

Then, he touched flame to wick. The soothing glow of Chanukah dispelled the deep shadows of their gloomy quarters.

My grandfather’s family was liberated a few months later. In 1950, after they made their way to America, he went with his father to give shulem to the Satmar Rebbe, who was also living in New York.

“My father told him about the neis of his candles,” my grandfather told me. “The Rebbe was a great anav who never flaunted his own deeds, but when he heard our story, he gave us a knowing smile.”

Years later, on Chol Hamoed Succos, when the Sorvosher Rav again visited the Rebbe, he was sitting in the succah together with the Riskiver Rebbe, and bits of schach were falling onto their plates. The Rebbe commented that he felt bad for his guests. The Riskiver Rebbe observed that pieces were falling onto his plate, but nothing was falling onto the Rebbe’s.

“Riskiver Rebbe, you say that by the Rebbe nothing falls,” said the Sorvosher Rav. “I will tell you when something did fall by the Rebbe!” My great-grandfather then proceeded to tell the story of the Chanukah lecht.

Again, the Rebbe smiled.

3. Missile of Fire

Ahava Ehrenpreis

“V’chitasu charvosom l’petitim — and they will beat their swords into plowshares,” says the famous pasuk from Yeshaya. In Sderot, come Chanukah, those holy words echo in a modern rendition: You shall turn their Kassam rockets of destruction into the light of the menorah.

The story of Sderot’s special menorah began when Rabbi David Fendel, rosh yeshivah of the Hesder Yeshiva of Sderot, decided to transform the thousands of deadly Kassam rockets battering their community into something positive. In 2007, he contacted artist Yaron Bob, a sculptor who works with metal and lives in Yated, a yishuv not far from Sderot, and began turning his plan into reality.

Yaron used empty rocket shells collected by the army and police force of Sderot to construct a giant menorah. Once completed, it was placed on the roof of the yeshivah’s rocket-proof beis medrash, the highest point in the area. Now the menorah’s light can be seen across the region, including by Hamas, the inadvertent “donors” of its raw material.

Kassam (also spelled Qassam) rockets are named after the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the military division of Hamas. Production began in 2001 and the first rockets hit Sderot in March 2002. Originally, the rockets were constructed from pipes sent by Israel, meant to be used as sewage pipes in the Palestinian territories.

The Kassam’s targeting ability is too inaccurate for use in military battles, but it’s considered ideal for terrorizing non-military targets — or, more precisely, innocent people living their daily lives — which is why it has been compared to the German V-weapons used to terrorize the civilian population of London during World War II. Thousands upon thousands of Kassam rockets have been fired at Sderot and the western Negev, and Hamas’s goal is obvious: destroy the spirit of the area’s residents. Even though recently the number of attacks has decreased, the physical and psychological toll remains; the number of children and adults of Sderot who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder is significantly higher than the national average.

Still, Sderot refuses to be cowed by the cruel barrage. And the local Hesder Yeshiva of Sderot is committed to helping the locals brave out this tough time by spreading Torah. Some of the yeshivah’s 500 bochurim, who come to Sderot to learn and serve in the Hesder army program, also learn with children who may not have a father to learn with, as well as with other members of the community. “We give out Shabbat candles or material about the parshah,” one student says. “Mostly, we just smile a lot.” But they give the people of Sderot something else, too: proof that Kassam rockets, like the Yevanim of the Chanukah story, cannot destroy a city, a community, and a Torah way of life.

On Chanukah, the trial, challenge, and miracle of life in Sderot all come together on the yeshivah rooftop. Along with the rosh yeshivah, Sderot’s mayor, and government officials, and guests who have lost sons in local battles, the students and residents of Sderot gather to light the unusual menorah. According to administrator Rabbi Ari Katz, it’s a poignant and emotional event. The talmidim and residents of the town sing and dance together, and dignitaries light the huge candles with a torch. When it is the turn of a bereaved father to light a candle, the tears flow.

Visitors from all over — even from as far away as New York — have been so inspired by the Sderot Kassam menorah, they’ve even commissioned Mr. Bob to create one for their local institutions.

During the rest of the year, the menorah sits atop the yeshivah — a symbol of the miracle of Chanukah and the modern-day miracles constantly enveloping the yeshivah and people of Sderot. It is a testament, says Rabbi Fendel, to the power of Hashem, Who has taken tools produced to destroy His people and transformed them into beacons of light and holiness.

4. A Gift of Light

Riki Goldstein

They got engaged in 1937 in a shtetl near Trnava (Tyrnau in German and Nagyszombat in Hungarian), in the Jewish Oberland area of Slovakia. Proud and excited, Aidel commissioned a gift for her chassan: a custom-made silver menorah, crafted in the signature style of the Chasam Sofer’s personal menorah.

In the tzaddik’s opinion, a menorah with branches too closely resembles the menorah in the Beis Hamikdash, so this silver candelabra was most unusually shaped: no base, no branches, just a covered rectangular box with eight compartments for olive oil, placed on a small silver tray. Aidel’s heart overflowed with prayer as she watched her husband tzind the dancing flames of faith.

Three daughters were born to the couple, and then war came to Slovakia. The Jews of Pressburg and Nitra and Trnava no longer lit their menorahs openly; dark forces had shadowed their lights. In 1943, a son was born to Aidel — one of the only Jewish children born in Slovakia that year. He was the last infant to lie, at his bris, on the lap of the holy Nitra Rav, Rav Shmuel Dovid Ungar.

Eighteen months later, Aidel gave their silver flatware, jewelry, and money to a gentile neighbor and moved her family into a freezing attic to escape deportation and death.

When they emerged, their world had been destroyed. Aidel’s young husband was emaciated, physically weakened from the bitter cold and emotionally scarred from the horror of hiding and scavenging for food. After a few difficult years of hospitalization in Slovakia, he left This World.

The Slovakian neighbors never returned the beautiful silver cutlery. But they did give back the menorah and the besamim box, which were useless to them.

With her four young children, Aidel sailed to Eretz Yisrael. Among her few belongings, she had her late husband’s tallis and tefillin, siddur, and besamim box — and the menorah she had so joyously presented to him 12 years earlier, a lifetime ago.

Her trials had not crushed her spirit. The ideals of the Chasam Sofer, the proud legacy of the Oberland Jews, came with Aidel and her family to postwar Bnei Brak. Dreaming of a golden future for her children, she poured her energies and prayers into raising them with every detail of their father’s heritage.

War orphans and refugees were so common in the fledgling yishuv that, until they were older, these children had no idea that in normal times youngsters usually left the shul for Yizkor. Eretz Yisrael also suffered from shortages of food and other basic items. Staples such as clothing and furniture were miserably utilitarian and hard to come by. A widow with young children — even one who scrimped and saved — could take nothing for granted, not even challah and fish for Shabbos. Chicken was a luxury item, out of reach. But every week Aidel valiantly led her children in singing sweet zemiros at the Shabbos table. Of those years her children later said, “We were never really hungry, but we ate mainly eggplant.”

As for the special menorah the family brought with them, it remained unlit. Olive oil was too costly.

When Aidel’s son married, she gave him the menorah that had belonged to the father he scarcely remembered. In 1977, the replica Chasam Sofer menorah journeyed to New York. In a home in Boro Park, the flames of faith once again danced on the polished silver box.

After many years, the shamash broke off and was replaced, but the rest of the lovingly crafted piece has remained intact — connecting Aidel’s American grandchildren and great-grandchildren to a beloved tradition.

Preparing it is a labor of love.

“It takes Abba around half an hour to prepare his perfect wicks from cotton wool,” his children explain. “He does this early in the day and soaks the wicks in olive oil so they should burn well. The menorah looks small, but it burns steadily for three to four hours.”

Eighty years and three continents later, the tradition still burns bright.

5. The Potato in the Closet

As told to Malkie Schulman by Maksim Shilkrot

By the time I was four years old, I knew that in our city of Kishinev, in Moldova, the walls had ears and the windows had eyes. In the Soviet Union, religious activity was illegal and liable for severe punishment, so everything religious was performed in secret. For example, to prevent inquisitive neighbors from noticing anything out of the ordinary, my mother served cheese and meat together on the same plate with a napkin separating them. The napkin was ostensibly for aesthetic purposes. In reality, it was to keep the dairy and meat separate.

Despite our constant fear of the KGB (secret police) marching into our home unannounced and arresting us, my parents worked hard to instill Jewish values in their two sons. Holiday rituals especially were very meaningful to them, although purchasing a menorah in a store was out of the question. Menorahs were only to be found on the black market, which was under the ever watchful eye of the authorities.

To circumvent this dilemma — and in commemoration of what he and his fellow Jews had experienced during the Holocaust — my grandfather fashioned a menorah from potatoes. Though most of his relatives were murdered at Babi Yar or died on the fatal train rides to slave labor camps, he was lucky enough to survive. He spent those years in the ghetto in Ribnitsa (Ribnitz), a Moldovan town close to the Romanian border. The ghetto’s Jews who were determined to uphold tradition would take their precious potatoes, carve holes, fill them up with grease or oil — whatever flammable material they could find — and light them.

Their resourcefulness sparked my grandfather to follow suit. To make our menorah, he would take three or four large potatoes, drill a hole or two in each potato depending on its size, and insert candles. In Communist Russia, potatoes were safe: they were an everyday grocery item that no one would think twice about, and they could be tossed in the garbage when we finished using them. But to make sure we remained above suspicion, my mother would cut out the wax and discard it separately.

We always lit the menorah in a closet as extra precaution against prying eyes. As we grew older, my brother and I had the coveted privilege of drilling the holes and lighting the candles ourselves, while our grandfather lit the shamash and recited the blessings.

Both sets of grandparents impressed upon us the understanding of what it means to be a Jew. My mother’s father would always say to me, “Maksim, always remember that we are born as Jews, we are raised as Jews, and we will die as Jews.” Unfortunately, my grandparents witnessed many of their friends and relatives die during the war. My grandfather always observed that it was more difficult for the victims if they didn’t know why they were being killed; if they knew they were Jews, yet had no idea what Judaism was all about. Those who knew what Judaism was all about suffered from pain but not pointlessness. They had Judaism in their hearts, not just on their sleeves.

Another message my grandparents tried to convey through the menorah lighting was that if a Jew really wants to, he can find a way to practice his religion despite outside circumstances. But he must find the courage and conviction.

When I learned about the Jewish children of ancient times who played dreidel to camouflage their Torah study, I understood them instinctively. In Russia, we lit the chanukiyah and we hid it from the authorities by making it out of potatoes and lighting it in a closet. Just as we did not give up on our religion in ancient Israel because it was difficult, we did not give up now.

I was ten years old when, shortly after the fall of Communism, we emigrated from Kishinev to Birmingham, Alabama. Back then, I did not appreciate the significance of the sacrifice my parents had made. They risked their job security and took on immigrant status so my brother and I could learn what being Jewish meant. When we moved to America, they sent us to a Jewish day school. I believe their efforts paid off. Their mesiras nefesh inspired me to explore my Judaism further, and in university I earned a master’s degree in Jewish education.

I have worked as both a youth director and educational director in the synagogues of the various communities in which I’ve lived — and I always relate my family’s Chanukah story to my students. Often, after hearing my story, they ask if they can create a menorah out of potatoes and place it alongside the shul’s silver menorah. The improvised potato menorah shows their solidarity with Jews in other countries who gave up their livelihoods, freedom, and even their lives to observe mitzvot.

We should never take our freedom for granted, which is why I share my family’s history as often as I can, and it has never failed to affect people in positive ways. One time, I shared my tale with a family in Baltimore. The family was so touched that in honor of my family’s convictions, they too carved a menorah out of potatoes. They lit the menorah and sang the traditional Chanukah songs. Another guest, a young woman who had left Orthodoxy, had listened closely to my account of religious faith and trust. She was so moved that she began to cry. It was a pivotal moment for her, pointing her back in the direction of her roots.

I live in Chicago now, and I’m free to light any type of menorah I want and to display it openly. I am grateful for this privilege and I thank G-d for it. I believe strongly that the best teachers are a child’s parents. My own child is still young. However, when he is older, I want him to know where he comes from. I will share my story with him — and if he wants to create a menorah out of potatoes, I will be there to help him.

6. My Pewter Menorah

Yaakov Rosenblatt

When Chanukah arrives, I take out my 14-inch pewter menorah from our breakfront. All year, it sits behind a variety of items: dishes, trays, Kiddush cups, and a Havdalah set. On Chanukah, we place it on a folding table near the window, on a glass tray covered with foil. It sits on the far side of the table and serves as a backdrop for the smaller menorahs in front of it, the ones our children made in school and the one my wife received as a gift from her parents decades ago.

In our first years of marriage, I used a much smaller menorah, the low, brass chanukiah I had used in yeshivah. It left an oily residue between the cups I could never quite get clean and was too narrow for the glass cups that had become fashionable. It only worked with cotton wicks, which left a faint light at the edge of each cup. The pewter menorah, which holds elegant glasses and tall floating wicks, was a giant step forward.

My father had a silver menorah, purchased after our house was burglarized in the 1980s and his menorah was stolen. My childhood memories are of a silver menorah and menorahs made of bottle caps or steel bolts, glued to wood with Elmer’s. There wasn’t much in between.

I like my pewter menorah. It is sturdy, tall, and elegantly crafted. Sure, it’s imperfect. The glass oil cups don’t quite fit into the candelabra arms; they rest precariously on the branches, and a slight nudge can drop a cup and make a mess. One of the branch tops is also not quite round, and the glass on that branch tilts noticeably. But it works. And it has served me well for the last 15 years.

Our life has changed over that time. Then, we could hardly make ends meet. Today, we could afford a silver menorah if we wanted one. But I’m not getting one.

The older I get, the more I come to understand the person I am. When all is said and done, I am predisposed to follow a path less traveled. I appreciate unusual people, am drawn to unconventional ideas, and have an affinity for those committed to idealistic vision.

I also feel passionately about certain issues. One of them is the seeming newfound communal reverence for excess. Over the last decades, the American chareidi community has come to know wealth. Not everyone is wealthy, not even most, but many of us know a contemporary who is. We are close to people who appreciate the finer things in life and provide those things to their families without question. Designer strollers, high-end clothes, and sterling silver Yom Tov accoutrements have become standard. Having grown up simply, I find these excesses without purpose — destructive, too, in the way they put a burden on those who desire them but can’t afford them.

This brings back my youthful desire to affect the world. But with age, I have learned wisdom. Better not to tell others what to do, better to choose a path you believe is right and walk it honestly. Those who appreciate it will emulate it.

I drive an old car. We use a Graco stroller. And I cherish my pewter menorah. It is my way to tell my children the wisdom life has taught me: There is purpose to simplicity. It is worthwhile to pursue the dignity of not needing fancy things. It is a path that is purposeful. It is a lifestyle that affords us the ability to touch, always, the essence of Chanukah, and to connect ourselves to the freest, richest experiences a person can ever hope to achieve.

7. The Menorah that Survived with Us

Margie Pensak

The sterling silver menorah stood stately and proud against the backdrop of the White House’s East Room, where then-president Barack Obama was hosting his final annual Chanukah reception. During his introduction to the menorah-lighting ceremony, President Obama paid tribute to the menorah’s owners: Rina and Joseph Walden, a young Polish couple who acquired it in the early 1900s, and their descendants, who brought the menorah, the only Walden family treasure to survive the Holocaust, to Israel. One of those descendants, Dr. Raphael Walden, is married to former Israeli president Shimon Peres’s only daughter, Tsvia. The White House ceremony was therefore also partly a tribute to Shimon Peres, who had passed away earlier that year.

Dr. Walden, a resident of Kfar Azar, a village near Ramat Gan, Israel, shares the story. “My grandfather was a self-made wealthy businessman in the leather business in Warsaw,” he says. The family history can be traced back at least four centuries to Warsaw, Poland. His illustrious forefathers include his paternal great-grandfather, Rav Aharon Walden, known especially for penning Shem Hagedolim He’hadash (Warsaw, 1864) and Mikdash Me’at (Warsaw, 1890).

“When my parents were ready to enter university, there was a quota for Jewish students in Poland. Being fervent Zionists, my mother wanted to study medicine and my father wanted to study agronomy — occupations that would be useful for them in Palestine. So my parents decided to move to France to study there.”

The rest of the Walden family remained in Warsaw, and in the early 1930s there was a terrible economic crash. Dr. Walden’s grandfather lost all his possessions, including two houses in Berlin and two houses in Vienna. He couldn’t stay in Poland anymore, and since his daughter was studying in Paris, he moved there. The rest of the family followed.

“At the start of World War II, most Parisian Jews thought ‘Nothing will happen to us!’ But my father — who was a French citizen and even served in the French army — was afraid,” explains Dr. Walden. “He bought a farm in Dordogne, a tiny village in the south of France, and the family settled there. This Jewish bourgeois family rolled up their sleeves and worked as peasants, with their false papers, since the Germans occupied France. They were very loved by all their neighbors. My father was an expert in agriculture and he advised and helped the peasants. My mother was a doctor who treated them free of charge.”

For a while, the Waldens felt secure that nobody knew they were Jewish. But one day, a peasant came from a nearby village to warn them that the German patrol was coming. That’s when they realized that their secret was out. These peasants, who had never seen a Jew before, helped protect the Waldens. A female postmaster in the nearby village would telephone them every time she saw a German convoy on the road so they could hide in the forest until it was dark and safe to return to their farm.

“We had nothing of monetary value at this point, except for a beautiful collection of Judaica and silverware — the treasure of the family. My father was worried that something might happen to it and he asked a peasant in the nearby village to hide it in his cellar. You can imagine the trust that existed there. My grandfather’s thought was if anything happened to him and to us, and if someone survived the war, the family treasure could be recovered.”

As Chanukah approached, Dr. Walden’s grandfather decided, in honor of Chanukah, to take a chance. He went to the peasant and got his beautiful massive silver Chanukah menorah, which he brought home to light the Chanukah candles.

“That very week, the Germans suspected the peasant, who was hiding the family treasure, of being involved with an underground movement,” recalls Dr. Walden. “They killed him and burned his house. Everything was lost — all but the Chanukah menorah. This was our Chanukah miracle — our menorah survived the war.

“When we made aliyah in 1951, we brought the menorah with us. Our family continues to light it every Chanukah. The only time it traveled abroad was last year, when our daughter, Mika, went to the White House to light it at the Obamas’ Chanukah reception, together with her uncle, Chemi Peres.

“It is very moving for me to light this menorah every year, because it is an inheritance from my grandfather, whom I loved very much,” says Dr. Walden. “Also, because of the beautiful story behind it — how the goodwill of the non-Jewish farmers protected us.”

“The miracle of our menorah is truly a remarkable story,” adds Mika. “In many ways, the stops that this menorah made are symbolic of a lot of stories that the Jewish People have — stories of endurance and survival during that very, very tumultuous century.”

8. Illuminating a Home

As told to Mimi Nissan

When I remember my first year married, I mostly remember purchases. After all, a new Jewish home needs many things. A mezuzah, carefully nailed up on the doorpost on move-in day. Candlesticks, to graciously usher in the Shabbos dusk. A siddur or two, and a few seforim to line the walls in deep blues and burgundies.

And a menorah, to be brought out once a year and lovingly polished before taking its place at the window or doorway, where it will proudly declare to the world, “This is not just a house — this is a Jewish home.”

When Chanukah came around during that first year, we did in fact have a menorah. Years before, when I was still a single baalas teshuvah, I had bought a simple, silver-plated menorah for about $30 from a local Judaica store. Each year I would light the small menorah alone in my basement apartment and sit by the lights as long as I could, basking in the mitzvah.

But now that I was married, I found myself looking at my old menorah with disappointment. While it held bright memories for me, it certainly wasn’t what I had imagined my husband lighting.

Doesn’t a chassan deserve a special menorah? I worried. Doesn’t a Jewish home need a real Jewish menorah?  I still found myself scrolling through page after page of gleaming candelabras and ornate silverwork on Judaica websites, looking for that real menorah for my new Jewish home.

The truth was, I wasn’t just looking for a menorah; I was looking for a dream that I hadn’t yet relinquished. During all those hours I had spent alone watching the tiny flames in my apartment window, my mind had been filled with visions of my future husband lighting — instead of me — on a majestic silver menorah, just like the families I saw in windows and doorways as I walked home from the subway after work.

Those walks may have been my favorite part of the Yom Tov, but as I gazed at each window I passed, I would find myself whispering, “One day, may Hashem find me deserving of such a brachah.”

So I continued to scroll through the endless options online, and with each one that caught my eye, I would check the price and admire the details before letting my imagination wander toward years to come. Perhaps this menorah would one day stand in our window, surrounded by smaller ones filled with colorful dripping candles as my children proudly stumbled throug the unfamiliar brachos. But in the meantime, Mordechai was more than happy to use my menorah, lighting small flames with pride for the first two nights.

On the third day, I received an unexpected call at work from Mr. Moskowitz, a local askan who had helped raise the funds for our wedding a few months before.

“Was Mordechai ever given a menorah?” he asked. “When we raised the money for your wedding, there was a small contribution that never found its way to you, and I thought perhaps you’d like it now.”

Several hours and a few phone calls later, I breathlessly entered a silver shop after work, effusively thanking the owner for staying late. I handed him a list of  the menorahs I had picked out on the website, and he brought them out for me, one by one.

But when he set each one on the table before me, my heart sank. Their pictures online had shone, but in person their luster was lacking and their arms seemed somehow forlorn. Hiding my disappointment, I looked around the store and noticed one more in the case behind him.

The salesman shook his head as he took it out for me. “This is a pricier model, hundreds of dollars more than what you’re looking to spend.”

I looked at the way it gleamed under the store’s light and smiled. “It’s the third night of Chanukah. Who else is going to buy a menorah this week?”

Soon enough I was walking back out into the cold, holding a heavy package against my fast-beating heart. The salesman had worked out a price that I could afford, after I factored in the little savings I still had in my bank account.

Mordechai’s eyes lit up when I handed him the  carefully wrapped menorah, but his face was quizzical. Where does one find a menorah on the third night of Chanukah?

I never did tell him the details of this particular purchase, but he knows our benefactor and how deeply this gift resonates with me.

Each year since then, as Mordechai sets up the menorah at the windowsill, I allow myself to sit back and remember other years — all those long walks home, watching windows brighten with the light and pride of Jewish families gathered together, sharing each household’s joy on my way to my empty apartment, filling my heart with their warmth while I lit my own flames.

And when my husband sits with me and sings, I know we’re shining that joy onto the darkened streets outside, brightening the world with the light that illuminated our own journey home. When I look at the menorah, framed by the nighttime, I remember the families I watched in years before and I think of the family that I now know is mine, the family that was always there waiting. Carefully chosen and lovingly given by the One Above, to join with Am Yisrael as we light and sing in harmony before the Chanukah licht.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha Issue 689)