The Short Vort by Rabbi Eisenman

"Ma, why can't we just light already?" I pleaded.

In her calm yet resolute fashion, my mother quietly said, "We will wait for your father to come home and then light the Menorah together as a family."

I was nine years old and living in Brooklyn.

My father, a photographer, had the difficult job of traversing the tri-state area, taking pictures of newborns, and hoping to eventually sell the photographs to support his family.

His job took him to Hoboken, New Jersey, Norwalk, Connecticut, and across New York City.

Only if the pictures were purchased would my father earn the much-needed funds to pay for his son's tuition; if no sale was made, the time spent went unpaid.

He would work 12 hours a day lugging thirty pounds of circa 1960s Yashica camera equipment into the inner-city ghettos.

He often walked up six flights of stairs through darkened and dirty stairwells as the elevator was broken more times than not.

And more times than he would like to recall, after arriving at an apartment and setting up his equipment, he was informed that the electricity had been shut off.

He would head home with nothing more to show for his efforts than a strained back and increasing worry about the next tuition payment.

Yet, my father persevered, doing his best to provide.

He would often tell me about the prevalent poverty found in the inner-city ghettos.

With a sense of compassion and empathy, he would describe to me life in "The Projects" (as public housing was referred to), where elevators were prime locations for crime (he himself was mugged and stabbed in an elevator) and rodents and cockroaches ran freely throughout dingy and unheated apartments.

His compassionate comments filled me with a sense of feeling the pain of others less fortunate than us.

He was never judgmental; rather, he was always sympathetic.

His message of compassion would prove to be beneficial to me decades later when I began my rabbinic career.

He taught me never to judge or look condescendingly upon others.

Generally, my brother and I would eat dinner together before he arrived home after 7 PM, and my mother would wait for my father to eat.

However, on Chanuka, my mother insisted we wait for my father's arrival before lighting and eating.

She would reiterate, "Your father works hard and deserves the Nachas of the family lighting together. We will wait for him to come home."

And so, despite my protestations and impatience, my mother held her ground by stating, "The family lights together, stays together."

There were no cell phones back then, and my father did not always have the necessary coins to place a call when he was out of New York to inform my mother of his expected arrival time.

Back then, there was something called a "long-distance phone call," instead of costing a dime for the first five minutes, an out-of-state phone call could cost 90 cents for the first three minutes!

We had no choice but to wait for my father's arrival.

And finally, after what seemed like an endless wait, we heard the thud of a car trunk closing and the key turning in the lock.

We could hear the heavy thirty-pound suitcase noisily being placed near the door.

My father had arrived.

My mother would greet my father as if he had arrived from a yearlong absence.

Not only did my mother never display even a hint of annoyance at his belated arrival, but my mother, and eventually my brother and me, greeted him as a hero returning from battle.

A hot drink was offered, and after my father had a chance to catch his breath, resume a sense of calmness and composure, and disassociate himself from the stress of work, we would gather as a family and light the Chanukah lights, followed by dinner.

Looking back,  I recall feeling a sense of resentment and impatience.

I would protest aloud, "Why the need to wait?" as I unsuccessfully challenged my mother in my plea to light and be relieved of the wait.

However, as I look back now, with the hindsight of almost sixty years, I realize with more clarity than I could have ever imagined how insightful and prescient my mother was.

In my present reality, where the nightly family lighting is often limited to my wife and myself, I fully recognize and appreciate the feeling of family.

And as I field more questions from sons and daughters asking for halachik sanction to light independently due to their multiple school and social commitments, I pine for those days decades ago when the ultimate priority was the family.

Have we lost sight of the forest through the density of the individual trees?

Have multiple school and other non-family triggered get-togethers taken the place of the nuclear family lighting together?

Perhaps.

And that is sad.

As for me, I still cling to the memories of my mother, whose focus on the forest, known as the family, was never in doubt.

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