Dreidels on the Brain Read Online Free PDF Page A

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, andit 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.
    â€œWait 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.
    â€œWell, Arnold, I guess you don’t know how cold it gets at night in the Judean desert.”
    â€œHow cold?” he asked.
    â€œReally 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.
    â€œBut 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.”
    â€œAnd that,” I said, “is why Chahnnukkah is so differentfrom 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.
    â€œBut 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