Season 5, Episode 2: The Chanukah Episode

Welcome to the OMFG podcast, Jewish wisdom for unprecedented times. My name is Rabbi Jen Gubitz, and together with my friend and co-conspirator Rabbi Jodi Gordon, we're so glad you're here with us.

OMFG is not just a podcast, it's a philosophy, a worldview, and if we're honest, Sometimes it's a cry for help.

OMFG is a way of keeping it Jewish while keeping it real. Sometimes, especially at those times or any time in the last few years, the world just gives you opportunity after opportunity to say OMFG.

As we move into our 5th season together in this little corner of the internet, we want to pause to acknowledge the context in which we find ourselves speaking today. When we started this podcast in November 2020, we were living through the dark and early days of a global pandemic.

We recorded in our bedrooms looking for spiritual metaphors and mantras to help us move through a reality that felt truly unprecedented. And on one hand, it was. None of us had ever lived through a pandemic.

But on the other hand, we were at the tail end of an American administration which had nearly numbed us into submission.

4 years of unending reasons to say, "OMFG," and it's hard not to feel like, "Here we go again." Listeners, we've never aimed to be a political podcast, and yet all that is personal becomes political.

Our shared experiences of the election season that just ended tell us that it's time for us to buckle up and put on your oxygen masks as we figure out how to prepare ourselves emotionally and spiritually for the years ahead and ready ourselves to confront difficult challenges to our understandings of justice, democracy, equality, and peace.

I guess you could say we're gearing up for unprecedented times once again. And so in true OMFG fashion, we hope you're ready to look for the light. While the Taylor Swift tour may have ended and we're in the dark days of winter, good news, Chanukkah is coming soon.

Welcome to OMFG. Jen, it's been a while. What a fall.

What a fall. How many colds have you had since the high holy days?

That I have not. And also, like, I should say poo poo poo and throw salt over my shoulder while I say this. I have had an almost cold like 4 times and I have brought myself back from the brink. It has not yet become full-blown, but there have been at least 4 times since September that I'm like, oh no, I'm getting sick. And then I've managed to stave it off. So stay tuned. What about you?

Well, I'm here with recovering from a cold and laryngitis, but glad to be here. What a fall. Every time we think about recording an episode, life and work get in the way, or you're almost sick, or I'm almost sick. But here we are. And the fall was also kind of good, kind of great. There were lots of good things, like you were officially installed as senior rabbi of Khevra in the Berkshires, which was a beautiful weekend of celebrating your leadership and vision.

It was so nice. Actually, the thing though that I want to say about it is, um, a rabbinic installation is like a— most people are like, oh yes, I know exactly what that is. And as an idea, that sentence makes perfect sense to me. So it was this lovely, beautiful, wonderful weekend. My congregation could not have been warmer or kinder or more generous in creating a celebration that felt so me. But the thing that I do want to say about it is that I feel like it really drove home for me something that I think you've talked to me about before, which is that like we don't have so many things in our adulthood that are really about us and our own accomplishments. Like, you think about the reasons— like, think about the reasons why, like, someone would buy you a present, right? By the time you're, like, out of college and it's not about graduations anymore, it's because you're getting married or you're having a baby, or the most— or buying a house are some of the most common. Um, and it felt really humbling to realize, like, this was actually, like, just about me. It wasn't about my kids. It wasn't about Josh. I mean, although there are certainly inculcated in what happened. But that did feel pretty cool, and having you there was so special. And, um, I think a lot of Chaver members felt like it was really fun to see OMFG live and in person, except that we were leaving Shabbat morning services, um, mostly appropriately.

I was gonna say better behaved on the bima. That Shabbat morning service though was like everything I ever want from prayer and Jewish music, and we just got to sing and play and literally play the guitar while you sang, and it was so delightful. Um, it was really, really awesome. So we went from that High Holy Day, the High Jodi— the High Jodi Days of early September to the High Holy Days, which were late this year, or felt late, which I think some of us thought would be awesome, but actually I think it was harder because we had to launch our years, however that looked, launch into life, and then be ready for sermons in early October when everyone else was like gearing up for fall break. So for me, the High Holy Days, I had one main focus, one true goal, which was that Ori would wear a custom onesie that said, "Party like it's 5785." accomplished, totally ready to start my own onesie line called Punzi. It's going to be called Punzi's.

Oh God.

But also this year I wrote my first High Holy Day sermon since 2021. And we talked about this in our last episode, what it's like for us to write. And I love writing sermons and I find it agonizing, but it was very affirming when I heard from folks who heard or read what I had written that it really resonated for them. I knew and I felt that so many of us were feeling ambivalent about celebrating a new Jewish year with so much uncertainty in the world, in Israel with the election, in our families. So I named that fact and focused on how so many of us were so unenthusiastic about the High Holy Days. And I blended together a variety of real stories about people's inner dialogues. And most of them ended with a celebrate the new year, I don't know, maybe. And I'm not sure that I taught any particularly revelatory texts or anything wildly innovative. I just named the truth, and it seems like that's what folks needed to hear. And of course, when you're writing a sermon, it's what I needed to hear too.

Totally. Yeah, I mean, you know, it'll maybe come as no surprise to the people listening to this that in addition to podcasting together, we like to read each other's sermons and help each other write. And I had the experience this year of feeling like I knew exactly what I wanted to talk about, and so therefore I put off writing it until like as, as an 11th an hour as I could, as I could get. And part of it was I, I had this feeling of like, oh God, but what else could happen? And the truth is like we've been living through this like extended time of bombardment of like new information and new terrible things and new crazy things for so long that I can't even remember which ones were happening around the high holidays, whether, as you named earlier, whether it was about what's going on in Israel and Gaza, or maybe by that point also Lebanon, or whether it was what's going on here with the presidential election. But in the end, I think my overwhelming feeling on the positive end of the register about high holiday sermons was it all just felt really real to me. Like it, the things that I said didn't feel necessarily like artful. I mean, some of them were, and, and, you know, I think I'm repeating what you're saying, which is to say, like I said, I said what I felt was true, and it felt to me that it was received by a congregation who also felt that those things were true, and there was something, um, you know, meaningful and distilling in hearing and saying those things together on the holiest days of the year together in community, like all in one time and space. And so You know, the High Holidays are a huge lift, and a lot of clergy, you know, will sort of outwardly— I don't know that they're complaining, right? But outwardly exclaim on how exhausting it is and how much there is to do. And those things are all true, and also I love it. And I love the fact that it's the time of year when we're at our fullest and I get to see everyone. And I would say that I mostly I don't even really have resentment for the people who I know I'm only going to see on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. By and large, I'm like, oh, I'm so excited to see them because this is when I'll see them. And there's something really nice about that.

I was thinking about how our mentor Rabbi Larry Hoffman talks about making new sentences. But I think actually what I'm hearing both of us did was just say true sentences.

Yeah.

And that that's okay. Like, I didn't have time, nor did I— I I think I bought books to not read, but yeah, on my Kindle, so it's not like it didn't create extra clutter in our home. Um, but I didn't even— I didn't, I didn't approach it with that, like, I must read all these things and offer a new text. I felt like what people needed to hear was just like honesty and truth and vulnerability in appropriate ways.

Um, yeah, totally.

One other thing that's been going on for me though about like all of the news and being afraid almost to start a sermon because you don't know what's going to happen is that we've been watching, or we just finished, The Diplomat on Netflix, which I highly recommend, two series. And it's about politics and global relations in London. And I woke up one night and had this moment where I was like, oh my God, I can't believe X catastrophe just happened. And then I realized I hadn't read it in the Times of Israel or the New York Times. It was actually the plotline for The Diplomat. And it was nice to be like, oh, it's just—

that didn't happen. That didn't happen.

Brought me some light that not everything in the West Wing has come to be just yet. So it seems like the holidays were the— they high holy dayed, they high holy dayed themselves. Hard, joyful, long, short, meaningful, omfg. And we got light out of it and As you know, we're sitting in this season of light, and so let's talk about Hanukkah today and all the light it's going to bring.

I know, I, I will say that I'm, I'm particularly excited for Hanukkah this year, and I, um, I'm ready. I'm ready to lean in. So I think for, um, this official Hanukkah episode of OMFG, we should offer our friends 8 awesome things about this season of light, and maybe we'll make it 9 with a little shamash to grow on. I love that.

Okay, so in David Letterman fashion, although I think we're doing it backwards, so we're going to start with 1. Sorry, David. Number 1: Something cool about Hanukkah this year is that the days of the Gregorian calendar track day for day with the Hebrew calendar. So the 25th of Kislev, the first night of Hanukkah, is on December 25th. Very easy to calculate, especially if you're writing a ketubah. O Holy Night, thank you for being so easy to track this year.

Um, well, and as a, a, like, a secondary bullet point to that lovely piece of information, because I looked this up earlier today for something I was writing, the last time that this happened was in 2005. So 19 years ago. Yeah. So slightly less unusual than Thanksgiving. And interesting because it'll also carry us into the next Gregorian calendar year. Like this is a 2024, 2025 holiday.

So I was on the 6th grade Shabbaton this weekend with laryngitis. It was really fun and hard to talk. And one of— I first, I was telling the kids about a Menorah, a Thanksgiving, and they were like, what is that? And then I said, well, were you guys alive then? And they were like, what year? And most of them were born in that year. But then one—

2013, right?

Yeah. And so they're in 6th grade and so they're 11. Yeah. So I showed them a Menorah and they were like, okay, that's whatever, fine. But then one of them pointed out actually that because Hanukkah this year goes into 2025, we get a year with two Hanukkahs.

That's cool. I'm into that. Okay. Number 2, something else that is cool about Hanukkah this year that is bringing, I believe, synagogue professionals a lot of light is that because it's happening during winter break, it's also, you know, it's a holiday, it's, it's school vacation. And so it's okay if we don't have a synagogue program for every single one of the 8 nights. I think we both know it's very easy to overdesign Hanukkah. And I think I can reflect certainly on past years here at Chavera that in an effort to bring a lot of joy, I created a situation that was more exhausting than Yom Kippur. That's how I would describe that. There was— I remember my first year, I was like, we are going to do community candlelightings like out and about all around the Berkshires every night. And there's going to be a designated host and all these people are going to go. And it was so cool. And also, right, like by night 5, I was like, I can't do it anymore. But I will say this, and Jen, I don't know if you can relate. So we had our family Hanukkah program because of school break this past Sunday. So that means to me, it sort of feels like Hanukkah actually started December 15th and it's going to go till January 2nd. And so it's like the 17 nights of Hanukkah because like once you start, you like the latkes are out, like the latkes have left the barn. There's no putting them back. Like it is already Hanukkah, even if it's still a week away.

That's true. It's like on the 17th night of Hanukkah, my true love gave to me.

I know, the true love's real fast.

The truth is, though, is that I totally— I think I came up with this number 2, and I totally have already overdesigned Hanukkah because the first night we're going to some new friends in the neighborhood. The second night I was like, we should do an online Hanukkah candle lighting for the community. No one should light candles alone, which is something that I've always tried to do because it can be isolating to feel like you don't have people to be with if you live with yourself. And then the third night is Shabbat, and obviously we're having Hanukkah Chinese dinner at the temple. And then the fourth night, I was like, well, clearly we need a families with young children program in our neighborhood. So I failed at this.

Jen, you overdesigned it. You messed up. Just kidding.

I overdid it. I overdid it.

Well, I do want to tell you, because I feel, you know, you and I really love not only an alliteration but a creative name for a program. So I do feel like it is relevant to this conversation to tell you that the first night of Hanukkah, which is obviously also Christmas Day, will be celebrated here at Hevrah with an event called Sivivon and Spring Rolls. So we are bringing in all of the delicious fried appetizers available to us at Clever East, which is what we call the Chinese restaurant up the road from us. And we're having appetizers, spring rolls, scallion pancakes, candle lighting, singing, and back home to your sweatpants.

So civivone and scallion pancakes, is that what you said?

No, no, civivone and spring rolls. We're much classier than that.

Well, I think we need to riff on this for a second because I'm thinking of mezcal, jajapo, and pupu platters would be a better—

All right.

Okay, so number 3, why Hanukkah is cool, fun, great, is Hanukkah clothing. I have so much Hanukkah clothing, like an absurd amount. Um, last year Tipsy Elves was having like a 40% off sale, like on at the end of Hanukkah, and I doubled down not realizing that it wouldn't be relevant necessarily for this year to wear all my Hanukkah clothes at work, which really should be a tax break because it's a business expense. To wear ritual garb throughout your day at work. So the downside of Hanukkah being during winter break is that I'm not going to get to utilize my entire wardrobe. However, out of concern for this pending tragedy, I decided to start wearing my blue dress with very large gold stars very early in December. While I hope that the people I serve remember the deep life wisdom I've shared with them, If all they remember 30 years from now or 3 weeks from now is that the rabbi wore a ridiculously fun Jewish star dress, I will feel like I have left a true legacy.

Oh, I agree. I think that's great. We— I also just bought myself a new Hanukkah dress. I have a nice collection of Hanukkah earrings.

Wait, can we talk about that dress though? Because you sent it to me and I think I responded saying, that is so ugly, I love it.

Yeah, yeah.

I hope you didn't take that personally.

No, I mean, like, a dress with like giant sufganiyot on it isn't like— I don't think it's meant to be beautiful, but it does feel fun. I really— I, it's my goal in life for the young children of our community to look at me and be like, is she serious? Because I am. And yeah, we also have Hanukkah matching pajamas for our family, which I buy every year, and then inevitably my children are like, these are too tight, these are annoying, I don't want to wear them. So that's a good investment, and, um, we're ready to celebrate.

Ori has a Hanukkah outfit with a gimel dreidel on the butt, which obviously stands for a great miracle, but also for Gubitz, one of his names.

Oh yeah, a little, little Gubitz tushy.

Yeah.

All right, number 4, a point about Hanukkah this year that is bringing great light. Is that because it's over winter break, it just means there is more— it feels to me that there's more spaciousness altogether, which for me this year specifically points to more time to cook latkes. I feel like in the past few years when Hanukkah is in the, you know, beginning to middle of December when the kids are still in school. And so there's like a million events in the, you know, end of December this and the this event there. And as you mentioned, the overdesign of Hanukkah in general I have not made latkes at home in years. And December 26th, when we're just hanging out at home in our Hanukkah pajamas, we're just— we're telling our friends the door is open, the latkes are here, come hang out. And that sounds fun. So altogether, it feels like there is a bit of opportunity for this Hanukkah to be a little slower, which is nice.

Do you have any fun latke recipe ideas? Or you're going to go traditional, traditional?

So I think I'm going to go mostly traditional, traditional on the actual latkes. I like to go big on the topping, although I will say that something I'm considering, and it'll just depend on the energy levels, is that there's a recipe for sweet potato pancakes that comes from a restaurant that has since closed in Tel Aviv that was on Schenken Street called Orna Be'ella. And they had these sweet potato pancakes that there's like a sauce recipe that comes with it. It's like, you know, like a sour cream and a million green herbs and green onions sort of delicious topping. And I have the recipe for those and I might bust that out, but I need to get the, you know, the traditional ones out first. So we'll see. What about you? What do you make?

So we make this really amazing type of latke that's called Trader Joe's from a box.

Ah, yes, my favorite.

I hear you on slowing down, um, and I feel like I have to like go get those latkes now before all of Newton or Needham or Brookline, wherever I go to Trader Joe's, buys them out. Um, and so I think that's really our plan. We're also going to be with Matan's family for some of Hanukkah, so we'll see, we'll see what comes of that. But I have no interest in grating potatoes and no interest in frying anything, so if he would like to, I'm totally down.

Well, I feel like it's possible. I've told this story on OMG before, but I honestly am okay with that. Um, one of my favorite latke stories is that the only thing my grandpa Lou ever cooked— I don't actually know if he knew anything else in the kitchen— was he was in love with potato latkes, and he hand-grated them and would make jokes about like, we all get some of his fingernails in the latkes, you know, classy. And, um, One year when we weren't going to be together for Hanukkah, in through our mail slot arrived a greasy envelope, and he had sent me a potato latke in the mail. And so I do aspire to be the kind of latke maker that maybe you get a little crunch of a fingernail, a little hand grating, and that they're worthy of the USPS.

Wait, have you ever sent anyone a potato in the mail? You know, that's a thing.

No, but I've received a potato as a gift.

Well, that's—

I've received—

That's a great transition to number 5. While trying to avoid capitalism and consumerism, which is very difficult, and all the more so now that Hanukkah overlaps with Christmas, it's fun to send people gifts that you know they will love, like a potato in the mail. Or in my family, my sister sent us a pillow once with her face on it, and it's a sequined pillow where if you you swipe up, it's just silver, but if you swipe down, it's Leslie.

And so I want one.

It's so good. And, um, I recently sent someone a picture of his own face on it, uh, to celebrate recovering or moving beyond treatment for leukemia. So I feel like putting your face on a pillow is like the ultimate mark of joy and celebration.

I mean, always a good idea. Are you excited for Ori's first Hanukkah?

Yeah, you know, um, I was thinking about, you know, should we get him gifts or things like that? Because lately he has all these toys, they're bright colored and engaging, and he mostly is interested in playing with electrical cords, um, his brother Joey's dog toys, uh, the wrapping to his diapers. So I feel like I'm just gonna put trash in a box with the bow on it. And just like be really happy and be like, oh my God, happy Hanukkah! And he'll be happy.

And yeah, totally.

And I won't have to spend any money and all will be well. But yes, we're excited. And I bought his Hanukkah clothing early on, um, and I don't know if he's going to be able to do the blessings this year, but he does have a Hanukkah menorah with his name on it, which I love. Oh good.

Yeah, I love that. So here we are, number 6 on our list. This is your official OMFG vote to not be cynical and lean into the cultural phenomenon wherever you can find it. So we are going to— is it only The Sexy Snowman on Hallmark? Isn't there another Hanukkah movie that we're supposed to be recommending?

So The Sexy Snowman movie is not a Hanukkah movie. It is a Christmas movie.

Right. OK. Excellent.

But it's still worth watching. It's awfully terrible, and you should watch it. And feel really great about the time you spent on it. Don't be cynical, just do it.

So don't be cynical, lean into cultural phenomena that are fun, go see Wicked, and that's not just because I'm obsessed with Wizard of Oz, and, you know, have a good time with it. That's our, that's our 6 little point of light for the days ahead.

And to be clear, that movie is actually called Hot Frosty.

Hot Frosty.

And I didn't realize this until a friend, Kate Bigham, actually on Instagram shared that it's part of a series with the lead character Lacey Chabert. I don't know how to say her last name, but she's in all of these Hallmark movies and they're all like Party of Five.

That Lacey?

I don't know, but the thing about—

I think you're right.

Yes, it I think it is her. And the thing about it though is that like every— like every movie is kind of awful. Uh, yeah, she was in Party of Five. That's right, she was Claudia Salinger. Every movie is awful and somehow, um, they keep investing in making them.

Well, so I did a quick check for us. Apparently there are a couple of, um, Hanukkah Hallmark movies that we should also be leaning into. One being Hanukkah on Rye, which, okay. And then this year is Hanukkah on the Rocks, starring none other than Nickelodeon Double Dare's Mark Summers. So you can be sure that I will be tuning in.

I went to camp with a girl who was Mark Summers' cousin, and I was like, can you bring him to camp to do Double Dares? I know.

Totally. Okay.

Well, number 6, watch all the movies. I'm going to see Wicked finally, really excited about that. And number 7 is music. So it can be hard to be a Jewish kid in school during the holiday season concerts, right? When band teachers and choir teachers are looking for music, they look for like Hinei Matov, or sometimes they'll play Ma'oz Tov if we're lucky. More often than not, they end up with a Passover or some other vaguely Jewish song or something like incredibly Israel-focused, like, uh, Shalom Aleichem or something like that, which like is totally a lovely sentiment but not accurate for the holiday. Um, and so I just want to name that, like, if you are that kid who sat in band and had to play the Jewish song or try to find it for your band teacher, like, I'm sorry, and you did a great job, and it's okay if you had to play a ton of Christmas carols or winter songs. I actually really love all those songs. I learned all the words singing in choirs, but really because I worked in at Bath and Body Works during the Christmas season in high school, and I think the same CD is still playing all over the country. Um, so I learned all the words, but also most of those songs were written by Jews. Most of those songs were written by Jews. So like, are they Jewish songs? No. But is there something Jew-ish about them? I think so. I think so. So like, let that music just wash over you. And that's something else that we've gotten a lot of joy out of in the last few weeks. Both of our communities had truly amazing nights of music in recent Shabbat evenings that really kicked off the Hanukkah season. So Jodi, tell us about who you brought to Hevrah.

It was so fun. So a shout out to my new best friends, the members of Ezekiel's Wheels, a Boston-based klezmer band who sort of literally fell into our laps a couple of weeks ago. They were going to be here in Western Mass, and a good friend, the great Rabbi Seth Wax, suggested maybe you guys should be at Hebra that Friday night. And here's what I want to say about music and light and not just you know, that our listeners everywhere should hear all about cool programs happening at synagogues far away from where they live, which is to say that I think when people see an opportunity for like a little bit of joy, a little bit of fun, something a little bit different, it's exciting and they jump in. So we put this huge klezmer oneg concert together with 2 weeks' notice, and those 2 weeks included Thanksgiving when like nobody was around and nobody was checking their email. And it was the sort of thing where, you know, you put it out to people like, hey, we have this opportunity. Should we have a concert? Should we have klezmer? Should we stay and eat dinner and make it a bigger Shabbos than we thought it was going to be? And people said yes. And the things that I really loved about Ezekiel's Wheels was the way that they talked about simcha music. So, you know, we've talked about, you and I have talked about all the amazing and varied words that the Hebrew language has for happiness and simcha. Usually refers specifically to the kind of happiness you feel like on an occasion or an event because of something that has happened. And I would say that Ezekiel's Wheels won me over when their clarinetist, Nat Seelen, said to me, you know, the way that we think about klezmer is that it's so amazing that our tradition, that out of our tradition came an entire musical motif solely dedicated to happy times, right? Like, klezmer was invented to play at a wedding or to play at a bat mitzvah. And, um, they are an awesome band. Everyone should check them out on Spotify. And if you live somewhere where you can see them play, you should. And it was such a joyful and, and like joyfully Jewish, like very explicitly Jewish. It wasn't just like, oh hey, we all love music. And as you and I have discussed let's go have some collective effervescence at, you know, a Brandi Carlile show at Tanglewood, which is also a spiritual experience, but that this was so joyfully Jewish, it was awesome. So that's what I got. I love Ezekiel's Wheels, I love music, and I think we should listen to as much joyful music as we can to move through the season. What about you? You did something very cool.

Yeah, so similarly, like 2 weeks before, just this, that evening, that same evening, I saw a Facebook post by Donnie from Nefesh Mountain saying that they had a Friday night available in Boston and was anyone interested? And I was like, yes, let's see if this is possible. And also Thanksgiving was in the middle of it. We also had 8 million other really important joyful things going on on that Friday night. Um, and we added in Nefesh Mountain, Donnie and Eric to, they joined us for Shabbat services. And they played 3 different prayers in their own compositions. And it was very moving. I was standing next to them and watching the community's eyes lifted up and just singing along these melodies, Jewish bluegrass that was both new and exciting and singable. And it was just so moving to hear, to see how happy everyone looked and to know that I also felt it. And then they did a post-Shabbat dinner coffeehouse-esque thing called like Stories and Songs with Donny and Eric from Nefesh Mountain. And they talked a lot about, while playing music, their experience as the Jewish bluegrass band, and especially since October 7th, what that's been like for them. They sang a piece that they wrote after the Pittsburgh shooting. It was really amazing to see how their musical innovation and creativity has been a response to grief and tragedy, actually, and how they figured out ways to exist in spaces that actually are not super friendly to the Jewish community, that many spaces, like art spaces especially, have been showing that actually there was a deep wave of antisemitism right underneath the surface. And they talked about that, but then they played these rich, soulful melodies. Donnie's a great musician and vocalist, and Eric is like an amazing award-winning banjo and guitar player. Um, and it was just so, so joyful and so moving. And I'm glad that it was a lot of work on the team at Temple Shalom to make that happen, and I'm really glad we were able to get to yes, um, and make it happen because I think people really needed it.

You know, Jen, what that makes me think of is that Um, for our, our eighth, our eighth point of light tonight is that I, I think I'm gonna go rogue. I'm gonna go off script, and we're gonna save our next one because I think it's gonna come in handy for the years ahead. And what I actually want to say is, I think, a point of light that I, that I was feeling thinking about Ezekiel's wheels, and I, it really came clear to me just now what you were saying, is that, um, there is something so joyful about watching people do what they're good at and they love doing, and that, that can happen in so many ways and places, right? So like seeing musicians who are really passionate and talented and, you know, that they draw you in, and it doesn't matter if you knew the song before because you can just— there's something about being up close to live music that you're like, wow, you're so good at this, this is so amazing, I love watching this.

I have—

I felt the same thing, like I've seen two Broadway shows in the last month, which is so fortunate, and I feel very lucky to get to do that. And that's how I feel when I go to the theater, right? You're just like, wow, like, you people on this stage are incredible storytellers, and you've brought me in, and this music and this dancing and all of it just makes me feel closer to something that is hopeful or joyous. And so maybe my, my number 8 is now instead a celebration of passion and expertise. That even if you can't get to an Ephraim Mountain concert or to a Broadway show, right? Even like watching your kiddo do something that they're expert in, like pulling electrical cords that they shouldn't, or my younger daughter is a really passionate gymnast and she just like nailed some new trick that I don't even know what you call it. But like watching her do that is so cool and amazing. And it should just remind us that It's something we can, we can find light when we see it in others and maybe like our own passion or expertise when others experience it is light for them too. So I love that. That's my— I got—

that leaves us with the Shamash. And I think the Shamash, that helper candle this year, is actually something straight out of, you know, traditional Judaism, which is that traditional Jewish practice, which is that when we celebrate Hanukkah, we're supposed to bring our Hanukkah menorah to the window and, um, proclaim the miracle of Hanukkah and celebrate all that it entails. And I think that we— some of us might feel like this year, you know what, I want to keep the Hanukkah menorah behind the drapes or on the dining room table. I don't want to show the miracle of light. And I think that the shamash is just that reminder that, like, we need to bring our Hanukkah menorahs to the window to spread light and to show light and to show that we want to live in a society where it's okay to be who we are and celebrate who we are, um, and all of our identities. And so if you celebrate Hanukkah, if you celebrate Christmas or any other holiday, maybe Novigrad if you're a Russian Jew, like bring your lights to the window, um, or whatever light is for you so that others can experience and benefit from it too.

So on that beautiful note, with that beautiful reminder, we want to conclude today with, um, some excerpts from a beautiful piece of poetry written by Tricia Arlen. It's called In Praise of the Dark, and she writes, light candles as one does, but consider this: for the last 100 years or so, if we were lucky, We've lived in bright rooms, safe behind doors at night, unable to see past the streetlights to the stars. Instead of circles, we sit in bubbles, and the stories come from the outside, sometimes helping us laugh and cry, sometimes provoking pain and shared resentment, each in our own well-lit isolation.

Tonight, perhaps, don't be in such a rush to to set up your candles against the dark. Turn off that backyard lamp so you can see the constellations and let the night animals breathe. Listen to the frightening ambient sounds that don't explain themselves to you. Then tell your own stories to each other of miracles and myths and what you had for dinner.

And praise the darkness. Praise the light.

Praise it all. Amen. You can find the rest of that poem on ritualwell.org. Again, it's called In Praise of the Dark by Tricia Arlen. So we're wishing you a lot of light in these dark times. We're wishing you some precedent moments, some rituals.

Yeah, a few. It would be nice.

Some rituals and things to expect from Hanukkah and New Year's and good health, and good season's tidings in this time of joy. Happy Hanukkah!

This episode of the OMFG podcast was brought to you by rabbis Jen Gubitz and Jodi Gordon. Editing by Jesse Ulrich. And snark straight from Adonai.