My mother is able to get a long-term room in the same hotel that houses my school’s dormitory, and we gradually acclimate to a new schedule.

My older brother is in graduate school, also in Manhattan. Mom spends the day in the hospital, and my brother and I visit as soon as our classes end for the day. On Shabbos, we walk to the hospital after shul and lunch, and stay until after we make Havdalah.

Time creeps on. Another surgery is scheduled, and we’re all hopeful that the prognosis will be more optimistic. In the meantime, Chanukah is approaching. My brother brings a menorah and candles, and since Daddy is in a private room, we decide to meet at the hospital each evening for candlelighting, which would, of necessity, be quiet and private.

As we set up the menorah for the first night, we can’t help but remember the Chanukahs of years past with all the singing, wild dreidel games, and Mom’s scrumptious latkes.

My father lights that first candle somewhat somberly, and we all say a heartfelt “Amen” to his shehecheyanu. Then we quietly sing Maoz Tzur.

The following afternoon, my father has a visitor; the man from across the hall comes in and tells my father that he’s also Jewish, and had heard our singing the night before.

“I haven’t celebrated Chanukah since I was a little boy in Europe. Could I come in tonight to be here when you light the candles?” the man asks.

My father is more than happy to invite him to join us, and they schmooze a bit before he returns to his room.

The next day, the same scenario repeats itself when the patients on either side of my father’s room come in and voice, somewhat hesitantly, a similar situation.

“I haven’t lit Chanukah candles since I left my home in South America….”

“Chanukah? I haven’t celebrated it since I was bar mitzvahed!”

And so it continues. Each night, more people come in to watch him light, and by the eighth night, the room is full. I have no idea how many countries, languages, and levels of observance are represented. There are people in wheelchairs, others with IV poles. There are people who looked shell-shocked and others who look jittery.

All have come to remember, for that brief time, a miracle that took place almost two thousand years before, and to pray for a modern-day miracle for themselves. As I look around the room, into the wet, bright eyes of each person, I see that spark of the pintele Yid that the Chanukah licht had ignited.

L’illui nishmas Yitzchak Chaim ben Pinchas, niftar 16 Teves 5724

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 721)