2nd night of Chanukah 2023 with Jack and Zelda and the light

The book of Maccabees doesn't say that there was only one night's worth of oil. It says there was a "little bit." So is the miracle of Chanukah the fact that there was oil, or the fact that there was only enough oil for one night, and that it happened to burn for eight? What counts as a miracle anyways? 

Mia says, Maybe a miracle is something positive that happens that had a low probability of happening.

Zelda says, No, that's not a miracle. That's just a pleasant surprise.

Mia says, Yeah, but what if the probability is so low that it would never happen, and then it happens.

Zelda says, Then it's about probability. 

Mia says, But everything is about probability. 

Jack says, How about a miracle is something that happens that wasn't supposed to happen but needed to happen anyway. 

Jack wants to do political economy. He says understanding the relationships between people, societies, markets, and governments is his purpose in life. He’s eating a jelly donut.

A little powdered sugar on the chin, and down the front of his shirt.

Lily says, Are the first flowers in March a miracle? Is it a miracle that spring follows winter? Is it a miracle that life goes on? 

Cheeks washed warm in the bloom of the candle. I can't tell what I want to look at more, her lovely face or the flame. 

The Hebrew thinkers Hillel and Shammai disagreed about how to light the Chanukah Menorah. Hillel thought, On the first day you should light one candle, and the next day, another, getting brighter and brighter, ending with eight lights. Shammai thought, On the first day you light eight candles, and each subsequent night you decrease the number of lights, ending with one.

Which do you think more accurately describes winter? Do we die on this living earth, or live on this dying one? 

Walter Benjamin says, That things just go on is the catastrophe. 

In the Catholic Church, says Wes, miracles are institutional. They help you decide whether or not someone is a saint. 

Wes is a Catholic. He loves light because it's untouchable and yet we may touch it. Because we do not see beyond it. Because it enters wounds. Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. You, Lord, keep my lamp burning. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not. Oh Lead Thou me on!

Why am I not a Catholic? Well believing in people feels just as good to me as believing in God, maybe better. Wes I feel you shaking your head. But warmth doesn't need heaven, right? It’s the other way around. Heaven needs warmth.

In Exodus, when Moses says to God, who are you, God says, famously, the tetragrammaton: I AM THAT I AM. But Moses doesn't understand that. It feels tautological. So then God says: I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob …

Olivia says that all you need to make a religion is a belief system and symbols

Ben wants to fix housing in West Philly

Mica leaves the table quietly to wash the dishes, the pans that Izzy used to fry the latkes, so that the cast iron doesn’t rust

Zelda wants to write the next great American novel, and Mia wants to be a good backend engineer

Daniel spends all day with patients in cardio oncology

Me I think I’d be happy with a boyfriend and a job

or to sit in this light forever, in this season which will last only one moment,

like the pause between dusk and darkness,

like skin that holds briefly the smell of onions, of frying oil,

I look at these people, their necks, their spines, the long tapered candles of my life, and I think of all the times a stranger has tapped me on the shoulder and I've said Hello, I'm Madeleine, and they've said, I know you, you're Jack's friend, and a kind of light spreads out from me, and I feel my eyes and blood and body go translucent, and warm

Because light is light and is also how we see more light. Because it's both the message and the body. Because it moves at its own speed. Because it comes so far and taps you on the shoulder gently.

Miracles, we decide, are characterized by miraculousness, the way light is characterized by light, the way God is characterized by being God. But it’s hard to understand this. It feels tautological.

2nd night of Chanukah 2023 with Jack and Zelda and the light and Olivia and Mia, Mica, Ben, and the light, and the light, and Wes, and me. So much has happened, and nobody has found a better way of being known, of being named, than being named for who you love.

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