Look around and see miracles.
As we’ve just celebrated Thanksgiving and Hanukkah is on the horizon, I am reminded of my childhood and how excited I always was during this time of the year. I loved the way that Jews embraced the annual American holiday of gratitude.
My mother and I would walk to the bus stop on Laurel Canyon Blvd. to take the 15-minute ride to Adat Ari El so that I could attend Religious School. She would drop me off and then continue to my aunt’s and grandmother’s house to await my 6:10 p.m. arrival for dinner.
That 10-minute walk from Adat Ari El to their house was filled with wonder. Already dark outside due to the daylight savings time change, I would look up to the night sky and the stars would talk to me. I would let my mind wander, thinking that Hanukkah would be coming soon, then Tu B’Shevat, then Purim and Pesach, which would herald longer days and more light.
My grandmother Frieda would say “look at all the miracles around us.” After a cleansing rain we could see clear Los Angeles skies and the mountains (sometimes with snow on them!) and together we would say, “mah gadlu maasecha” (“how wondrous are Your creations.”) Frieda had lost so many of her family in the Shoah, she had a stroke which left her paralyzed on one side, and yet she said every day “modah ani lefanecha” (“thank You God for all my blessings.”)
Look around you and count your blessings and the miracles that abound, even in this time of pandemic. They are all around us if we just open our hearts.
I close my eyes and I see my grandmother’s face.
I say “mah gadlu maasecha.”
— Cantor Nathan Lam