The Miracle of the Menorah

an excerpt from the Hanukah story

by Eugene Schwartz

David was a twelve year-old boy who lived in the village of Karnesec, near the border of Russia and Poland. His family was Jewish and for many generations they had lived in a simple wooden frame house in the Ghetto, a part of the village in which only Jewish people lived. The Ghetto was so small that there was but one synagogue and one Rabbi, who led the older people in prayer and taught all of the boys how to read and write and what to do on the Holy Days.

Everyone else in Karnesec was Catholic. They worshipped in the Church of St. Nicholas, which had been built of carved stone three hundred years before. The Jews in the Ghetto and the Catholics in the village did business with one another, but there was often mistrust between them, and mothers strolling on either side of the Ghetto wall kept their children close to their sides.

Although David's mother would not allow him to leave the Ghetto, he could not help but feel curious about the rest of the world.

One day he and some friends were playing hide-and-go-seek after their lessons in the synagogue. David hid in a niche halfway down an old, narrow Ghetto street that was rarely used. As he lay hidden, he looked across the cobblestone paving and noticed a small doorway that had been cut into the Ghetto wall many years before. Long neglected, it was almost entirely hidden by climbing vines.

David scampered across the street and pulled hard at the old wooden door; its rusty hinges creaked when it finally opened. He stood open-mouthed in amazement at what lay beyond the door. He looked not into the familiar Ghetto, but into the old village marketplace. Farmers and peasants, butchers and merchants, craftsmen and hostlers were bustling about, displaying their wares and bargaining with customers.

David had never seen so many people in one place before. Beyond them, its spires reddish-gold in the waning winter sunlight, stood the Church of St. Nicholas. One look at its lofty height, its gleaming crosses and the countless angels, priests and saints who were carved all over its walls and David felt like shouting for joy, though he knew not why. Never had the world seemed so full, so alive and so beautiful!

David heard one of his friends calling his name; he turned around and closed the door. He stood quietly, once again facing the plain, quiet streets that up until a moment ago had been the only world known to him. He promised himself that he would again find a way out of that door.

From the time that David discovered that aged portal, hardly a week passed in which he did not use it. Every time he left the Ghetto, he would would venture more deeply into the village. At first he explored only a few booths in the marketplace, then went as far as the Church of St. Nicholas. On yet another day he walked all around the church, and finally he made his made down to the River Lesna itself and discovered yet another world. This watery realm was composed of the sooty barges that made their way from Russia, and inhabited by red-faced old sailors who spun yarns and offered him carved wooden toys for but a few kopecks.

David would always make his way back to the door in the Ghetto wall before darkness fell. He would return home breathless and flushed, avoiding his mother's gaze until his paleness returned and he breathed regularly again.

``Are you feeling all right, David?'' his mother would ask.

``We were running home from schul; I'm fine,'' he would answer, but in his heart he felt unclean, having been outside the Ghetto, and dishonest, not having told his mother the whole truth.

``I am like a thief!'' he told himself, ``I sneak through a door and steal the sights and sounds and smells of someone else's world!''

When Rabbi Emil would teach them about the Ten Commandments, dwelling with special pains on the words, ``Thou Shalt Not Steal,'' David was certain that the Rabbi's eyes were burning directly through him, and he would suffer pangs of remorse. Then a week or two would pass, and out the door he would venture again...

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