Miracles

Three Honduran young people with long dark hair, dark eyes, and light brown skin all wearing long-sleeved shirts with their hands directed toward a Chanukah menorah lit with three candles on the right side and one shamash - helper candle - in the center. Looking closely, it might be oil and not candles, it's hard for me to tell. There is grape juice or wine near the menorah and behind it is a streamer of colorful dreidels with Hebrew letters on them.

I ran out of space in the GFM post to add an image description and don't have time to edit it right now, but I'll share this image description everywhere I share the post.

Every now and then I share what I write in the Go Fund Me I manage here.
This is one of those times.
I have been feeling so so much that the ocean is vast, my boat is small, and it’s on fire, and there are sharks, and the sharks are hungry. Maybe you have been feeling that, too.
I mean, I like sharks. Actual sharks. The ones in the actual ocean. But still.

And at the same time, I get to be part of this thing.
This thing in the biggest sense, and this thing - this Go Fund Me - with my teacher Dr. Michael Dulick who these days mostly goes by the name Miguel. It’s a very, very good thing. It’s a flotation device.

”Hey, Team! It’s December!
Folks in Honduras need our help.

Let’s get some more money into this fund so we can help Miguel bring more light to our neighbors. Our monthly goal is $2,500, and anywhere close to that would help a lot. So far this month (in just two days!) we have contributed $368! Any amount you can send this month will be a big help. It always is.  

On the Holidays Worldwide website there are 38 holidays listed from around the world this week alone. The holiday many of us - including me - have coming up is Chanukah December 14th - December 22nd. If you aren’t Jewish, you are invited to wish all of the Jewish folks in your life (including me!) Happy Chanukah!

In one of my online religious school classes two years ago we imagined ourselves as the jar that Rabbi Eliezer of Dzikov, a Chasidic master from the mid 1800s, taught held the oil Noah pressed from the olives the dove brought back to the ark on the branch in her mouth. As that jar we were passed down from ancestor to ancestor until Jacob set us down in a safe crevice inside a small cavern before he spent the night wrestling with an angel. Then we waited. We watched caravans pass by. We waited. We watched tents go up around us. We waited. We waited while the Temple was built right over us and no one noticed us. We waited through story after story. We waited through desecration and destruction. We waited until the people came to clean up the Temple and rededicate it. We waited until someone needed the oil we’d protected and carried for so long, the oil that, as the story goes, was only enough for one night. We waited and they found us, and because they knew that sometimes you just have to light what you have, they lit the oil.

“What a miracle that the jar of oil could start with Noah and end up with the Maccabees!” said one of the students.

“I thought it was a miracle that when they needed it, it was right there - exactly where it could help!” said another student. 

“No, I think the real miracle was that it stayed safe.”

“Or maybe it was that the oil hadn’t gone bad after all those years! I bet it really smelled!”

“Wait. A. Minute.” someone protested. “I thought the miracle was that the oil burned for eight days!”

There is a new coda for this story. It’s been two years.
Last night in our Hebrew Gimmel (level 3) class we were talking about Chanukah and refreshing our memories and practicing the Chanukah blessings and remembering our Chanukah stories. One of the students said:

“Two years ago I was upset - well, not upset, let’s say I was bothered - I was bothered that we were adding all of these miracles to the story when we already had an awesome miracle in the story. We already had the miracle that the oil that was only enough to burn for one day burned for eight. But now I’m thinking differently about it. For one thing, now I think we need all the miracles we can get. For another, I think maybe the miracle was that we realized that oil that we thought was only enough for one day was actually enough for eight. I think maybe we underestimate ourselves and what we are capable of a lot . . . and so, you know, we underestimated the oil.”

“Ooh. I like that,” said another student. “Or maybe we’ve had the story wrong all along. Maybe they lit the oil because they knew it would be enough. No matter what. Because they were enough. Look what they’d just done! It’s only that over time we forgot. We forgot that, you know, what we can do. We forgot that we are enough.”

“It’s so easy to forget,” said someone else. 

“Maybe that’s why we light more and more and more candles each night.”

“Yeah. Because the oil was enough and so are we.”

Maybe once upon a time you sat at a desk in a Shakespeare/early English lit class when Miguel stood at the board and wrote god and Human on it. Maybe someone asked him why he did that. Maybe it was you. Whatever he answered, maybe what you remember from his answer is that god knows how vital god is to the world, what a big impact god has on the world, how important the character of god is in a story . . . but Humans often forget how vital we are, the impact we have, and how important we are as characters in the story. Maybe you remember something else, but if you were there and you are here odds are you remember something. 

Or maybe you’ve received one of Miguel’s messages or notes or emails in which he tells you that you are a blessing, an angel, a miracle. That you are hope. That you are light. 

Or maybe you’ve been in conversations with Miguel and noticed that no matter how seemingly mundane the topic, it isn’t mundane to Miguel because he is talking with YOU, and YOU are never mundane to Miguel. No one is. 

When we started this GoFundMe Miguel and I didn’t have a plan, we just had an idea. Well, I had an idea, and Miguel agreed to let me take it out for a spin. Miguel was financially and emotionally overwhelmed by the costs of supporting his community in Honduras. Food, shelter, medical care, and birthdays. School supplies sometimes. Planting supplies sometimes. Emergency care sometimes.

We believed there was enough out here to help.
A friend of mine was a Peace Corps volunteer in Suriname and she had recently sent me something from there that said, “Love is Boss” on it. “Love is Boss: Let’s Help in Honduras” I typed into the Go Fund Me boxes.

As of today we have shared $136,630 through the Go Fund Me.
We have anonymous contributors who send me checks.
We have contributors who give money to Miguel when he’s in Saint Louis.
We have contributors who have shared n other ways: frequent flyer miles, a phone, a computer device . . .
We are what a little oil can do. 

We face gangs and drugs and poverty with birthday cakes and school supplies and groceries.

What makes a miracle, a miracle?

Jews were in Honduras during the colonial period, but after the Spanish Inquisition that group of Jews mostly disappeared. There are almost certainly more people celebrating Christmas in Honduras who don’t know that their ancestors once lit Chanukah menorahs in secret than there are Jews in Honduras today. In the 1920s Central European Jewish immigrants began to arrive. In 1935 the government announced its readiness to accept Jewish scientists and educators from Germany, but 1939 no longer allowed the entry of Jews. Nevertheless, Honduran consuls issued some passports and visas to Jews and by 1947 there were 129 identified Jewish people rescued from the Holocaust, mostly in Tegucigalpa. Honduras was one of the first countries to recognize the State of Israel in 1948. Today there are about 400 Jews in Honduras. 

December 14th through December 22nd, somewhere around 400 Honduran Jews will be striking matches and putting flame to the wicks of Chanukah candles. Many of us in this Love is Boss community will also be celebrating this major minor holiday. I wish us all Chag Chanukah Sameach! Chag Urim Sameach! Happy Chanukah. May it be full of light and hope. 

Others of us are anticipating Christmas December 25 or January 7, looking forward to Solstice on December 21, and getting ready for a New Year on January 1. Or we’re celebrating something else.

Whatever you are celebrating Miguel - and I - are celebrating you.
Blessing, angel, miracle, hope, light . . . and enough.

In our community we have different beliefs and we are here for different reasons.
And . . . here we are. Together.

Because whatever else we believe, we believe in this.
Much love, Everyone.”

You can find out more about the Go Fund Me and what we are doing and who Miguel is here.