The Maggid of Bergenfield: Chanukah: Sliding into Third

The following is an alternative version of the last story, The Scotch Tape Miracle. Which one do you prefer?

The day in the stores had been a battle. She couldn't find the right slippers for Rebecca. The board game Michael wanted was sold out in three toy stores before she found it in the fourth. The baseball cap Yonie wanted was only available in a medium. But in the end, she found everything she wanted. Yehudit emerged victorious in the Chanukah present marathon.

She searched for her car for twenty minutes in the mall parking lot. Hadn't she left it at Area E12? E13? No, it was at F12. By the time she climbed into her minivan she was ready to kill. Yehudit had two hours before everyone arrived at her house, and she hadn't even peeled the potatoes for the latkes yet.

It had become a family tradition. The first night of Chanukah was spent at Grandma Shoshi and Grandpa Dovid's house. The second night was a seudah at Aunt Jenny and Uncle Reuven's. The third night of Chanukah was at her and Dan's, with the whole mishpocha making an appearance. And it was a big deal. A very big deal.

Yehudit accelerated quickly when she reached the highway, and her car lurched into the right lane between an S.U.V. and a pickup truck. She should have waited for more of an opening to merge, but she had so much she still had to get done. The driver of the pickup truck honked, and Yehudit did her best to maintain her composure. "Yes, yes," she muttered under her breath. "I know."

The minivan's sound system was playing some Uncle Moishe CD that the kids had been listening to. She leaned over to pop it out and put in Simon and Garfunkel's Greatest Hits. Maybe The 59th Street Bridge Song or The Boxer. That would be nice and relaxing after an afternoon of shopping purgatory.

Her eyes were on the car radio for a few seconds, but when she looked up, the car ahead of her was at a dead stop about fifty feet ahead.Yehudit slammed on her brakes and the minivan screeched to a halt, missing the S.U.V. in front of her by inches. Then she had to listen to the pickup behind her also slam on the brakes. There was no dreaded thud noise. They were all O.K. Yehudit drove home a bit shaken, but thank G-d there had been no collision. And she had to shake it off. She had company coming.

The kids were all busy with friends when she got home, so Yehudit had an entire hour to prepare. She felt a little wound up from the near accident, but she pushed herself to keep going. She had been using the same latke recipe for so many years that they practically made themselves. The oil sizzled as she threw on the potato, egg, matzoh meal, and onion mixture onto the frying pans. She ran two pans at the same time for maximum efficiency. She had made the Chanukah cookies with the kids the day before-- sugar cookies in the shapes of dreidels, chanukiot, Torahs, and Macabees (the Torah cookie cutter was good for almost every holiday), so that was one less thing to worry about.

An hour later, Yehudit and Dan's house was filled with people. The latke smell was everywhere, and there were enough cookies and sufganiot to feed a small army. Dan lit the shamash of the first chanukiah and handed it to Yehudit to light, as was the family custom. Yehudit looked at her family, her children, her husband, and her parents, and her eyes teared up.

"Is everything O.K., honey?" Dan asked.

"Sure, everything's great," Yehudit said. "I was just thinking about the miracles surrounding Chanukah. There's the military victory over the mighty Greeks, and the oil lasting for eight days. But I think that sometimes the real miracles are just the things you take for granted, like your health and your family. I think that for me, the big neis this third night of chanukah is that we're all here to light together. Know what I mean?"

Everyone smiled.

Yehudit said the blessings over the three candles and lit them in succession. She especially focused on the second bracha, she-asa nisim la'avoteinu bayamim hahaem bazman hazeh, He who performs miracles for our forefathers, in olden days and today.

She couldn't have put it better herself.