Dreidels on the Brain (2 page)

And by eventually, I mean
now
. Hanukkah, 1971.

It was a perfect spin, and went on so long that the dreidel moved slowly toward the edge of the table. That got me thinking about a whole moral question—if it dropped to
the floor, could I still count the fourth Gimel?—when it began to wobble, and finally fell—right on the edge of the table, half on, half off.

Oh Shin.

This is the first night of Hanukkah. Or, if you prefer, Chanukah. Or Hanaka. I've even seen it spelled Khanukkah. That's how you know it's a Jewish holiday—we can't even agree how to spell it. Mr. Culpepper—my seventh-grade English teacher, who is really tall, with a beard, and so cool that he's practically a hippie—told us that the word
catsup
can be spelled more ways than any other word in the English language: ketchup, catchup, katsup, katsip, catsoup—there are about twenty different spellings. Really, you can combine those letters almost any way you want and it works. So that's what I'll do with Chonikah—keep trying different spellings until I find the best one. But however you spell it, catshup is about what you put on hamburgers and French fries. And Hanuukkka is all about miracles. At least it's
supposed
to be.

Growing up Jewish, you hear plenty about miracles: Moses crossing the Red Sea, manna in the wilderness, Daniel in the lion's den. There's a whole song about miracles in
Fiddler on the Roof,
which we've seen more times than I can count. So I know all about how miracles are
supposed
to
work. But they don't. Not for me. And not for my family. What we get is the exact opposite.

Mr. Culpepper says you need to define your terms or no one knows what you're talking about. According to Rabbi Goldberg, who took over at our temple after Rabbi Buxelbaum died, a miracle is when the
exact
right thing happens at the
exact
right time, just when you need it the most. It comes as a surprise. You can't believe it, but there it is! Clear as day! And you say, “Wow! It's a miracle!”

But Mr. Culpepper also said you can define a term by its opposite, which is called its antonym. So what's the word for the exact opposite of a miracle? Like when you really,
really
need something to happen, even though it's a long shot. So you hope and you hope and then when you can't hope any more, you start to pray and ask God to please, please let this one thing happen, and if it does I'll believe in you for the rest of my life. And then, finally, when it seems like time has run out and there's no hope, at the last minute . . .
it doesn't happen
.

I've been looking for a word for
that
for a long time. Then, a couple of weeks ago, I found one. Actually, two. My mom was talking to her friend Esther—she actually has three friends named Esther, but they're easy to tell apart. This is the one who used to smoke, and keeps on quitting. I'm glad, because smoking stinks and is disgusting. Not only that, it
kills you. Now that Esther has quit smoking again, she has a new hobby: complaining about her husband, Harold, who doesn't pay enough attention to her.

“So there we were at the Finkelsteins' daughter's wedding reception, I'm wearing my new chiffon burgundy dress for the very first time, but does Harold even notice? No, he's too busy staring at Mrs. Fenig—God knows why, she's skinny as a stick—and he says to her, ‘That's a lovely dress. And those are beautiful earrings, Mrs. Fenig.'”

Then Esther says to my mom, “So what am I? Chopped liver?”

I'd heard the phrase before, but never really thought about it.

“Mom?” I asked later. “Why did Esther say she was chopped liver?”

“What?” she asked, confused.

“Chopped liver!” I said again, louder. My mom doesn't hear very well. I have to look right at her when I speak. “Esther asked if she was chopped liver. Why?”

“Well,” she said, “‘chopped liver' is an expression that means ‘nothing special.'”

“Like ‘This weekend I have no plans, so I'm chopping liver'?”

“Not exactly,” my mom said. “You only say it to complain, when you feel like nothing special: ‘What am I? Chopped liver?'”

It was funny to hear her say that, because she never complains about anything, even when she should. Everyone's heard about the Jewish mother who makes you feel guilty. She gives you two shirts for Chchchcanukkah, and when you try one on, she says, “What's the matter? You don't like the other one?”

That's not my mom. She wants to believe everything is wonderful, even when it's not, which is pretty much all the time. And I'm the type of kid who tries to make everything wonderful for her, because I can't stand it when she's miserable. Sometimes I manage to do it. But, when I can't, I end up feeling worse than the kid with two shirts.

Even though the words
chopped liver
are English, it's a Yiddish expression. Yiddish is a Jewish language, like Hebrew, except Hebrew is for praying and Yiddish is for complaining. And for making jokes—it's really good for that. There are a bunch of Yiddish words that are just plain funny, like
“Gesundheit!”
That's what you say when someone sneezes, but it works as a punch line all by itself. If you don't believe me, try shouting it out sometime, you'll see.

As for chopped liver, I think “nothing special” understates the case. It isn't just unspecial—it's
revolting
. That's one of those funny words that can mean different things. The Maccabees in the Kchanukah story were revolting in
a
good
way, the hippies are revolting in a
confusing
way, and chopped liver is revolting in a
disgusting
way. As a phrase, though, chopped liver is great—and the perfect name for when the exact right thing
doesn't
happen. You pray for a miracle, and what do you get? Chopped liver.

The weird thing is, old people seem to like the stuff. Last year we were at a bar mitzvah party for the son of another one of the Esthers. This one wears a wig that spins around on her head when she sneezes, which she does fairly often, because she has allergies. And if that isn't enough to remember her by, her whole name is Esther Nestor. And her husband—get this—is actually named Lester, so they're Lester and Esther Nestor. I like the name, though I don't know how she felt about it when she married Lester. He must have
impressed
her. But maybe it
stressed
her. Or
depressed
her. Kenny and I joke about it, but never to her face, lest we
pester
Esther Nestor
.

Anyhow, it was her son's bar mitzvah, though his name is something of a mystery. He's called—don't ask me why—Steve. They could have named him Chester or even Fester, like the uncle on
The Addams Family
on TV. He could learn to juggle and become a
jester
. Or a banker—Chester Nestor, Investor. The party was at this fancy hotel in downtown Los Angeles, with a huge buffet of Jewish foods like bagels and lox, and right there in the center of the table, like some
kind of wedding cake, was the head of President Nixon—sculpted entirely from chopped liver!

We all gathered around staring at it until Marty Finkelstein said that if they were going to go to all the trouble to make a president's head out of chopped liver, they should have chosen a good president, like John F. Kennedy. We all agreed—everyone knows Nixon is a crook—until Sidney Applebaum pointed out that it might not be right to have everyone scooping out chunks of Kennedy's head, given how he had died.

Everyone laughed. Then, suddenly, we stopped. There was a long, awkward pause as we all stared at our shoes. I don't know what everyone else was thinking, but I was remembering that morning in 1963 when I was in line with my mother picking up the turkey at the Midway grocery store. When we finally got to Mr. Chen, the cashier, he was crying. I was four, and had never seen a man cry in a grocery store.

“Mr. Chen?” my mother asked. “Are you all right?” He just stood there, shaking his head, and we all stood there, not buying groceries.

That year for Thanksgiving the whole country ate chopped liver. And three years ago, when President Kennedy's brother Robert was killed, we had leftover chopped liver. And now Nixon is president.

But Hanukkyah is not supposed to be a chopped liver holiday—it's a
latke
holiday. And so, after the almost-but-not-quite-miracle with the dreidel, I got out the Veg-O-Matic and potatoes and went to work. With three Gimels in a row, I figured, God was at least
watching
.

“All right,” I said. “Maybe dreidel isn't your thing. I agree. It's kind of a dumb game. But how about this: Supposing I make this the most perfect Kquanukkah ever, starting with the latkes. And if you want to do me a little miracle, you can make it snow. Is it a deal?”

Latkes, in case you don't know, are potato pancakes. It's also a Yiddish word, and sounds a lot like another Yiddish word—
gatkes
—but that's completely different.
Latkes
means “potato pancakes” while
gatkes
means “underwear.” Some people make latkes with grated potatoes, while others use mashed. Of course, no one can agree, which is what makes them a Jewish food. But everyone
does
agree they should be crispy, not soggy, and fried in plenty of oil, because Khanakah is supposed to be all about the miracle of the oil.

Last year, though, my father tried to make latkes without oil, so they would be healthier. He's always trying to make healthy food, like his sugarless cheesecake made with cottage cheese and sweetened with grapefruit juice. Yuck. But his latkes kept sticking to the pan, so he added a bunch of
oil, which pretty much undid any health benefits, and we ended up with clumps of greasy potato mush. When latkes come out right, they're delicious and you eat them with sour cream and applesauce. I like them with jam, because that's how they eat them in Chelm, the Jewish village of fools. But you don't eat latkes with katsayp. Or kitshoup. Or catsip. None of those.

I couldn't find a recipe book, but then I remembered we have this little red 78 RPM record called “Let's Make Latkes!” I found it and put it on the record player, and it actually sang the recipe for latkes—including onions, which burn your eyes when you grate them, but it's worth it.

I followed the recipe exactly and made a sample one to test. It came out crisp and golden brown. Tasted like a dream! Perfect latkes for the perfect Kchahanukkah.

I covered the batter so it wouldn't get gray and disgusting, then went to decorate the house. I had time—Kenny was with my mom, at McVey's hobby shop. He's fourteen, and had his bar mitzvah last June. He also has a paper route and has been saving up money to buy a model airplane kit, which is the latest thing he's into. He makes them from balsa wood and coats the wings with tissue paper, then hangs them from the ceiling in his room.