Dreidels on the Brain

by Joel ben Izzy

  “Oh yeah? Well, Christmas lasts for twelve days, so there!”

  “Yeah, but do you get presents on all twelve days?”

  That’s when Mrs. Grumbacher stepped in.

  “Children, both holidays can be wonderful, and this is a good chance for all of us to learn about another religion. We don’t have time now, Joel, but perhaps tomorrow you would like to tell the class all about”—there was a pause as she prepared to clear her throat—“Chhhhhanukah?”

  Now she was stuck with a big loogie, and I had just what I wanted: a chance to show off to the class. If I got it right, I would not be a bully magnet. I would be a star, and every first grader in Bixby School would be wishing they were Jewish.

  The next day I arrived early with a paper bag full of supplies: a large Styrofoam menorah, a bunch of dreidels, and chocolate Choinykah gelt, along with the string of letters that said HAPPY HANUKKAH! I got Mrs. Grumbacher to stand on a chair and pin it above the blackboard, over the letters of the alphabet.

  “Class,” said Mrs. Grumbacher as they took their seats, “today we will have a special presentation from Joel, who is one of the Jewish people and will tell us all about his holiday. The one he mentioned yesterday, which comes at this time of year. That isn’t Christmas.” She had given up on saying the actual word.

  I stood in front of the class. “Once, in ancient Israel, there was this big, mean, hairy guy named Antiochus who thought he knew everything about everything. He told everyone how to dress and what to eat and who to worship: the Greek gods. He put up giant statues and made everyone bow down to them. The Jews didn’t like it one bit, but what could they do? If they didn’t do what he said, they would be killed—dead!”

  Once it was clear that the story had killing in it, they were hooked. I told how the Seleucid army was the most powerful in the world, with swords and armor and even elephants, and if they didn’t like you, they would order the elephants to sit on you, squashing you like a pancake. “And that’s why we eat potato pancakes for Kchanukkah, to remind us of all the people who got squished.

  “The Seleucids put up this big honking statue right in the middle of town and said it was God, and made everyone bow down to it or be killed. None of the Jews wanted to bow down, because Jews don’t bow down to statues. But they didn’t want to be killed either, so most of them did it. Except for this one old guy named Mattathias, who went right up to the statue and knocked it over! The head fell off and rolled in the gutter and everyone cheered, and that began the revolution! Mattathias gathered his children, including Judah the Maccabee and his brothers, to fight for their freedom. During the daytime they hid out in caves and, at night, while the Seleucids were sleeping, Judah snuck up and hit them with his hammer—wham!”

  They ate it up, and wanted more, so I told them about the oil.

  “But that wasn’t all! After the Maccabees won the battle and went back to the temple, they found the Seleucids had left it a super-gross disgusting mess, filled with garbage and pigs’ blood. The Jews cleaned and cleaned until it was beautiful. When it was good as new, they needed to light the giant menorah, so they looked for the sacred oil. But the Seleucids had broken every single jar of it, except for one tiny jar they had missed. It was hardly any oil, but the Jews lit it, and it burned and burned! For eight days and eight nights, just enough for the Jews to get more oil. It was a miracle!”

  That part didn’t go over so well. The class was kind of quiet.

  “Wait a minute!” said Arnold Pomeroy. “That’s supposed to be a big miracle? That they had just enough oil? So what?”

  Arnold Pomeroy could be kind of a jerk even then, but he had a good point. I never saw what was so special about the oil either. But I wasn’t about to let Arnold Pomeroy ruin my story, so I embellished.

  “Well, Arnold, I guess you don’t know how cold it gets at night in the Judean desert.”

  “How cold?” he asked.

  “Really cold. So cold that if that little light burned out, they would have all frozen, like Popsicles, and died!” Once I got back to talking about death and freezing, they got interested again.

  “But that tiny flame didn’t burn out! Instead, it got bigger and bigger, night after night for eight nights until it was a giant bonfire! They were saved! It was a miracle!”

  The class actually cheered at that one. Someone even shouted “Right on!” Then I brought out the dreidels and told them how the letters Nun, Gimel, Hey, and Shin—which you already know about—actually stood for four words that summed up the whole story: “Nes Gadol Haya Sham,” Hebrew for “A Great Miracle Happened There.”

  “And that,” I said, “is why Chahnnukkah is so different from Christmas. We don’t just celebrate for one night . . .” I took a long, dramatic pause. “We celebrate every night for eight nights.”

  A different silence fell over the class, and that’s when I knew I had them. I could see Arnold Pomeroy working out the math, multiplying Christmas times eight in his mind, then slowly raising his hand.

  “But what about presents? Do you really get presents every night?”

  I took my time before answering. “Chhhanukah,” I finally said, “is a bonanza!”

  Now, what I told Arnold Pomeroy wasn’t exactly a lie. I never actually said we got presents for all eight nights. Or at all, for that matter. As Mr. Culpepper would say, I implied it—and he just inferred it. But I didn’t lie.

  The truth is that in my family, we don’t get any presents. We never have. That’s because we’re broke, and we’ve been broke for a long time. I know people say that Jews are rich, but that’s a stereotype and isn’t true. It’s especially not true for my family. My mother has a part-time job, editing manuscripts for a company that makes educational filmstrips. She’s good at it but doesn’t make very much money. And my dad hasn’t had any regular work for a long time. Every month I watch him do different tricks with the bills—like sending the check for the gas company in the envelope to the water company and the water company check to the telephone company and the telephone company check to the gas company. They all think it’s an honest mistake, so they call, and then he gets them to call each other, and it can take a couple weeks for them to figure it out, which gives him time to come up with money somewhere, or get the next check from welfare.

  I didn’t want to tell Arnold Pomeroy what really happens on Khanukhaya at our home, but I’ll tell you. Each year, after lighting the candles on the first night, when other families get presents, we get a story. But it’s not a warm, feel-good bedtime story. It’s more of an explanation as to why there are no presents that particular year. It’s like every year they keep meaning to get us presents, but it never quite happens. Last year “The Explanation” was about how hard it was for engineers to find work since the collapse of the aerospace industry, and the year before that about the government making a mistake with the welfare checks. I dread The Explanation, because not only do we not get presents, but I feel guilty for wanting them. It always ends with my mom saying, “. . . but you know we get you things you really need, like clothing.” And that’s true, so we nod.

  It’s hard to be mad at my parents. They have it tough. You can’t buy presents if you don’t have money. And money really isn’t the important thing. “Money, shmoney,” my dad always says, “as long as you have your health.”

  He’s right. And that would be great, if he had his health. But he doesn’t. He and my mom take turns going to the hospital. It’s like that sign I saw in a store window: “Sleep Fast—We Need the Pillows!” Between the two of them, they are in and out of the hospital as often as our car is in and out of the shop.

  The hospital is my least favorite place in the world. For one thing, hospitals have a gross smell that comes from being so clean. And when you’re there, it’s all about waiting to see the person you’re visiting, then waiting for them to get out. I hate waiting.

  But I could take
the smell, and even the waiting, if it did any good. The real problem is that it’s pointless. You go to the hospital, and what do you see? Sick people. And the longer they’re there, the sicker they get. That’s how it is with my mom and dad: Each time they go in, they come out worse.

  I would say that my mom’s problems are more like our current car, the Dodge Dart—so far we’ve had to replace the starter, the gas pump, and the radiator—while my dad’s are more like our old car, the Rambler, which was falling apart from the time we got it and finally had to be towed away in several pieces. You can see my dad’s problems just by looking at him. A lot of older people have arthritis, but he’s had it since he was young. It’s not the usual kind that you just complain about, but a special kind called “ankylosing spondylitis,” which is Latin for “curled up like a pretzel.” His fingers are all knobby and twisted, almost like claws. You wouldn’t know it to look at him, but when he was my age, he was a great violinist—a child prodigy, everyone says.

  Now he can’t even pick things up, at least not little things. Last week I got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, and I saw him sitting at the kitchen table, working on another one of his inventions—a box with a button you can press, to change the TV channel. At least, that’s what it’s supposed to do, though it sounds impossible. He had dropped a screw onto the floor and was trying to pick it up, but couldn’t. I was behind him, in the dark hallway, so he didn’t see me and I didn’t say anything, because I didn’t want him to know I was watching. He kept trying to pick up the screw until he was almost crying. I couldn’t stand it, but I couldn’t stop watching either. Finally, he reached over and grabbed a screwdriver, then bent down again. I guess the screwdriver was magnetized, because it picked up the screw. I went back to bed.

  Along with twisting up his hands, this pretzel-arthritis curls up his spine. He used to be tall, but now he’s almost as short as Howard.

  It’s painful to watch my father walk. He uses a cane, and sometimes two, and tilts to the left. With every step he takes, there’s this loud clicking sound, like someone snapping their fingers, and then a grinding sound as his hip bone pops back into place. It makes me cringe, but I’m used to it. What’s embarrassing is when other people see him. Like last week as we walked into Thrifty’s Coffee Shop—which takes credit cards—there was this little boy about three years old, staring at my dad. First his face was curious. Then it sort of scrunched up, afraid. He pointed to my dad and started to cry.

  But my dad looked right at him, then did this kind of move with his head, tilting it back and forth like Charlie Chaplin. He made a funny face and a clicking sound—with his mouth this time—and the boy actually started to giggle. It was like my father was only pretending that he couldn’t walk very well, like he was putting on a show.

  That’s what my dad does best: He makes people laugh. He’s always telling us how important it is to laugh, especially at things that aren’t funny. “Like the circus clown,” he says, “who may be sad, but still laughs—and that’s better than crying.”

  Kenny came home with my mom all excited about his new model airplane kit. And when my dad finally got home, he was whistling, which was a good sign, as it meant his meeting with Forentos about Omni-Glow must have gone well. My dad and I cooked the latkes together, and they came out perfect. Then, no one fought during dinner, which was practically a miracle in itself. After eating the latkes we gathered around the menorah, just like a normal Jewish family, and turned off the living room light. I checked outside. No snow yet, but it sure felt like it was coming.

  As the youngest, I got to strike the match and light the shammes, and we sang all three blessings for the first night. Then my mom started to clap and sing “Maoz Tzur”—“Rock of Ages”—which is the traditional song you sing after you light the candles. We got two lines into it and realized we couldn’t remember the words, which is our own tradition.

  We stopped, and there was a long silence.

  My mother finally said, “How nice to be together for the first night of Hanikah!”

  I nodded, seeing no sign of a box that would hold a top hat. I looked at my mom, waiting for The Explanation. Something wasn’t right. I could tell from the way she was talking, like everything was so wonderful.

  “Aren’t the candles lovely?” she said.

  This much cheeriness meant something was definitely wrong. Kenny and Howard must have known it too, because they sat there silently, waiting.

  “Why the long faces?” said my father. “It’s Chhanukkah! You’re supposed to be Chhhappy!”

  I saw no box, or bag, or anything that looked like a present, and realized I had been a fool to expect one.

  “We have some news,” my mother finally said. She didn’t have to say another word. From the look on her face, I knew exactly what we were getting.

  Chopped liver.

  THE SECOND CANDLE: In the Land of Shriveled Dreams

  Monday, December 13

  My childhood isn’t supposed to be like this.

  I say isn’t but at this point I may as well say wasn’t, because it’s pretty much over. My bar mitzvah is next June. That is, next June I will become a bar mitzvah. Just to clarify, I won’t get bar mitzvahed. Cantor Grubnitz made that painfully clear back in September, on the first day of Hebrew school.

  “I want each of you to tell me the date you will become a bar mitzvah,” he said. Then, noticing there were girls in class, he added, grudgingly, “Or bat mitzvah.”

  A bunch of us raised our hands and began calling out dates.

  “Excuse me, Cantor Grubnitz,” said Ernie Maitloff. “What if you’re not sure when you’re getting bar mitzvahed?”

  That was all it took to set Cantor Grubnitz off. For a moment he just stood there, staring at Ernie. Cantor Grubnitz has a blue vein on his forehead that gets bigger when he’s angry, which happens a lot. I think it might be a gorgle, like when someone says, “Calm down, or you’ll bust a gorgle!” Now it was twitching.

  “If you don’t know, then I’ll tell you. You’ll never get bar mitzvahed. You know why? Because it’s impossible. You become a bar mitzvah.”

  Ernie had hit a nerve. Evidently, you can get a joke, get lost, even get busted. In fact, you can do all of them at the same time. But you can’t do them while you’re getting bar mitzvahed, because no one gets bar mitzvahed.

  Instead, you become a bar mitzvah. I know that sounds bizarre—like a little kid suddenly turning into a big party with balloons and music and chopped liver sculptures. But to become a bar mitzvah actually means that you are “a child of the commandments.” Just what that means, I have no idea, but it only happens after you’ve survived dozens of torture sessions with Cantor Grubnitz. Then you stand up in front of the whole congregation and sing so everyone can hear your voice cracking. Afterward everyone says mazel tov and congratulates you on becoming a man—which you’re really not. You’ve just become a bar mitzvah.

  As far as I can tell, there are two kinds of cantors. The cool kind are guitar cantors. Some even have long hair, and play songs that everyone can sing along to, like “Blowin’ in the Wind.” You might not think of that as a Jewish song, but it was written by Bob Dylan, who is Jewish, so it counts.

  Cantor Grubnitz is the other kind of cantor: an opera cantor. You don’t sing with him. And you don’t sing against him, because you’d lose. All you can do is sit there and listen. I think the idea is that his voice is so loud that God will hear it and do what he says. My mom thinks his voice is beautiful—then again, she likes everything, or at least says she does. Maybe it’s because she’s able to hear him. I don’t think his voice is beautiful at all. He can take a service that already goes on forever and stretch it out even longer by holding the notes.

  But it’s when he’s alone with us kids that he lives up to his title—cantor—because he’s always telling us what we can’t do.

  “You know
what’s wrong with you kids today?” he said after chewing out Ernie. He didn’t wait for us to answer. “I’ll tell you what’s wrong. All you want to do is sit around with your transistor radios and your ‘rock and roll’ music.”

  Any one of us could have pointed out that transistor radios were from way back in the 1960s, and that what kids today actually want to do is sit around and listen to eight-track tape players, which somehow let you choose between four songs playing at the same time! They’re amazing. No one knows how they work. You can switch back and forth between the Beatles, Bob Dylan, the Beach Boys, and the Carpenters. But no one was going to say that to Cantor Grubnitz. He’s scary.

  “So there will be no transistor radios in class,” he went on. “That’s not why you’re here. You’re here to learn your Haftorah portions. Is that clear?”

  “But Cantor Grubnitz,” said Ernie, who wasn’t smart enough to keep quiet, “I have another question.” Everyone calls Ernie “Meatloaf,” on account of his last name, Maitloff. That is, everyone except me. It’s not that Meatloaf is such a bad name to call someone. But I never make fun of anyone’s name—especially anyone’s last name. That’s not a matter of nobility, just survival. You wouldn’t make fun of anyone’s name either, if you had a last name like mine. I have no problem with my first name, Joel. It’s a fine name, and sounds like Joe, which is a regular guy’s name, like GI Joe. But my last name is a punch line. Guaranteed to get a laugh. You don’t even need good comic timing. Teachers reading it out of the roll book the first time will try not to laugh, then when they do, will pretend they’re coughing. Sometimes they’ll assume there must be some right way to say the name that’s not so embarrassing, and rather than try, they ask me how to pronounce it. But there is no other way. So I end up saying it out loud, to the laughter of the class. It’s even worse when it comes up accidentally, like in Health Ed when we’re talking about parts of the human body. I hate my last name, and don’t want to talk about it.