Amid crisis, certainly amid the crises of the Endtimes many simple moments, and memories of such moments reveal what is at stake: the essential loving kindness G-d maintains through thousands of generations that is waiting to fill the world through an Israel restored to its land.

I discovered such a memorial in a cherished photograph of 15 years ago, a Hanukkah scene that I keep on a kitchen counter facing my dining room. Although I have positioned it so that I see it coming and going where I pass most often in my daily path, like many familiar keepsakes, no matter how beloved, it is often overlooked by virtue of its constant presence and by the fatigue that sometimes steals into our lives when the path seems lonely and long.

Perhaps this is why festivals are so vital to our humane persistence. They are like way stations, like gracious inns on the long road of the Jewish people toward redemption and full release of their light. It is because of my photo’s links to memorial days and sacred duties that I have seen it again with eyes ‘made new’ and heart refreshed. Here again is the purpose of the remembrances that are central to Jewish identity, practice and continuity: a heart refreshed. In this case, it was the yahrzeit (the anniversary of the passing) of my mother, Bracha, a commemoration that is like a wellspring for refining clarity and commitment to what we, the entire family has been and through care for our heritage yet may be…

It is a date readily remembered for several reasons. It comes but two days after the birthday of my son, and scarcely two weeks after the yahrzeit of my dad who passed away a few minutes before the ninth of Av 5757. So these two weeks span three generations, the paradigm of national continuity and remembrance as it states: “may you see children born to your children, and may you gaze upon the goodness of Jerusalem all the days of your life.” I quote the full verse partly because the photo that prompts this reflection shows a Hanukkah scene, Hanukkah, the festival of dedication, specifically of the re-dedication of and to the Temple in Jerusalem from which God’s blessings go forth to the entire world; the festival of the plenitude of the renewed creation that then ensues; the commemoration of the victory of the few over the many; of mighty battles and salvations.

So many of the Jewish people now passed away are present in those of us who remain (and those of us who yet will be) and continue on the road of faith, remembrance, courage and hope: hope that we will love and care for each other; that we will identify and destroy those who hate us and have come to close to extinguishing our light from the world. In our observance and memory of our entire glorious gritty history of creativity and self-sacrifice we all live, “those of us who are standing here today, as those of us who are not [yet or no longer] standing here today.” It is like the photo now that my folks have passed away five and nine years ago respectively. Perhaps this is a major reason my mom loved to take photos, for remembrance of sweetness. Yet this magnificently simple and in startling ways perfect photo was taken by my father who passed on first. And so he is in it only in the vision that he composed and which includes everything most dear to him, a composition that recalls the essential creation that came to its triumphant conclusion on Rosh HaShanah, the crown bestowed by Av HaRachaman, the merciful Father, celebrated with the voice of the shofar and prayer.

And now, and repeatedly in the teaching cycle of the year, HaShanah, the central moments that compose my life connect me to Av, the month of the Father and the father, the human father’s grief, care, nurturing and hope, the feelings of one who foes forth weeping with concern for his seed; the continuity and interdependence that is the essence of his being and hopes; the contingency even of the Holy One Who wants our love, service and remembrance, Who bound Himself to us in an everlasting covenant; the Merciful Father so concerned for the return of “Israel, His first-born son” (Exodus 4:22).

Often, at the times evoked by this photo, I realize with some surprise that in this part of the tapestry of the generations I am the central strand: there before my eyes is my son; standing behind me is my Mom; there, unseen but seeing and warming us all with love, is my Dad. All of them, and me have primal, one could say Kabalistic places in this remarkable photo in which essential energies gleam through what is revealed.

Those familiar with the Jewish calendar and its intertwining of historical, ethical, and prophetic layers of significance may note that the dates mentioned above begin with the ninth of Av, anniversary of the destruction of the Temples and bracket the seven weekly prophetic readings of consolation and the fifteenth of Av, traditional birth or appearance date of the messiah hidden among us, one of whose final tasks is to rebuild the Temple from which the light of Torah will go forth. This time frame adds point to the fact that the photo is of a Hanukkah scene: in fact it captures the split-second when my son, then five, is kindling the eighth of the eight Hanukkah lights, the light of the new week and the messianic age, the plenitude of light on earth as it is in heaven…. The vessels of encrusted sensibilities and habits are broken and the good light of the Unified Day shines forth.

It is a photograph, no, a revelation of Hanukkah on many levels, the memorial of re-dedication and the keystone of national identity, honor, unity and remembrance of the miracles that Hashem works through the Jewish people’s courage and faith so that the light may shine out for all mankind. Just so the photo’s hidden matter shines through what is revealed in the miraculous composition.

A brilliant composition has no ‘dead-center,’ no single static element around which everything is arranged. There always is some interaction, some intersection of forces, lines of movement, evocations of time or affection that, while not materially imposing or static organize the activity and meaning of the picture’s little world.

As an Art Historian by original training, I now understand that this organizing principle of western high art draws, as do all sustaining features of western civilization from a Jewish root. The center from which heavenly grace streams into the world was the Jewish Temple that straddled, as did its central altar, the territories of Judah and Benjamin: it constantly recalled the roots of connection between them and their father, Israel. Consulting Torah portions Mikeitz (“at the end”) and Vayyigash (“and he approached”) we learn that Judah gave his eternal hopes in pledge for Benjamin, youngest and most treasured son of his father, Jacob, sower and shepherd grieving for the seed, Joseph, he thought was lost forever. Jacob and Benjamin, the “son of his right arm” were absent in form but spiritually the center of the loving appeal to love and family continuity that drew Joseph to Judah and reunited all the brothers (Genesis 44:14 – 45:15). The place of joining and truth is in in-between place, a joining, a declaration of love and act of reparation; a reunion and a pledge.

In the photo of the eighth day’s kindling, the Shamash cup is empty but it is one of two conceptual and visual focal points of the drama. The other, too, is a joining, a gesture of love. I will describe it shortly, a point in the line of intersecting triangles that compose the vision.

So picture this Hanukkah scene of fourteen years ago, — that great number, fourteen – that photo I bring out and focus on when lighting the yahrzeit candles in the month of Av for my parents and say kaddish for their beautiful neshamot (“souls”). In the foreground is the small round table, covered with a white cloth that served my son and me for dining. Upon it is strawberry shortcake my mom had made to celebrate a recent birthday. We had begun to partake of its sweetness for only four berries, their red so vivid, — the glory or “song” of the land — are left on its top. Four berries, four people: perhaps a coincidence. Next to the cake, its blue and gold front cover angled toward the center of the Menorah is a Hanukkah card: my Mom’s writing, words of love, always, is visible in blue on the card’s white back.

A remarkable feature of the scene is that the card’s front cover and the ‘empty’ wedge where the cake has been cut both angle toward the Shamash of the brass Menorah, to its empty cup. Beyond it the invisible vector is continued by the left side of my sweater’s v-neck collar to my mom’s left hand, resting with steady gentleness on my shoulder. One could draw a line, like Rembrandt, from my Mom’s left shoulder to her left hand on my shoulder, down the left ‘v’ of my collar to the Shamash cup and the angle of the Hanukkah card’s face with its checkerboard, blue and gold design of Menorahs and dreidels: “a great miracle happened there…”

“Kindness and truth have met, righteousness and peace have kissed” I once referenced in discussing the drama featuring Judah’s approach to the heart of Joseph for the sake of their love for their father, Jacob, and Benjamin, the son of his right hand. I think of those verses from psalm 85 when I consider this picture.

By chance, if that’s what it was, and given the confluence of dates and people I do not believe it was, or is, chance, further behind me, on my right, leaning against the dining room wall is the shaft of a hockey stick (after all, it was late December, the eighth day of Hanukkah, one week after my birthday — hence the cake – on 25 Kislev, the first day of Hanukkah). The shaft of the stick disappears behind my right shoulder on which rests, with the same gentle sensitivity my mom’s right hand and at exactly the angle of the right side of my sweater’s v-neck plunging down to its base that points, like the angle of the open card, to the cup of the Shamash. The angle this makes, — hockey stick, hand on shoulder, collar – is precisely the same as that made by my mom’s left shoulder to her left hand on my shoulder, the left side of my collar, two angles, each of about sixty degrees converging toward the Shamash which serves to kindle all the lights.

But its cup was empty: where was that candle?

It was in the right hand of my son, five years old, whose beautifully clear face was intent and quietly serious as his gaze rested on the eighth candle that he was just then kindling: the flare was captured for eternity by the camera flash, and now by these words inscribed by the chashmal of harnessed electricity. He looks seriously at the candle he kindles as my mom and I watch him, our faces glowing from within and in reflection of the light; we watch him as my Dad was watching us all, absorbed in the miracle he participated in many ways in creating and preserved for generations…

“Truth will sprout from the earth, and righteousness will peer from heaven…” The simple people who say psalms will bring the king home.

And in the photo, in that moment, my son’s cupped right hand and the small kindling candle makes a vector, an invisible line, a cord of generations with my mom’s hand resting on my shoulder and her inclined, sweetly watching face in another of the infinitely intriguing lines of which the photo is constructed. Her gaze, her hand on my shoulder, my son’s hand kindling the eighth light, and my Dad composing the moment in which the very center of the vision is my mom’s hand on my shoulder, the center of the threefold cord, resting as lightly and lovingly as God’s word in the good light… a gesture, an activity, a tikkun.

As I study this moment, I notice that behind us, at the back of the room are the shelves built into the wall. We had so few material things in those days the shelves were almost bare. But on the top shelf, at the left, were two large stars of silver foil on cardboard I had made for us. And I see that just as my mom’s hands on my shoulders form a triangle with my son’s hand kindling the eighth light, so our faces make a larger triangle of similar form. And the triangle that activates the dynamism of the spaces between and connecting people by purpose and love is the one between my mom’s and my face as we gaze at my son’s hand, at which his “clerinka” also is gazing.

There are gold stars and a circlet of Hebrew letters on my son’s kippa, dark blue as the night sky.

We know that the Shamash will soon be put in its place and the fullness of the miracles will be completed; it was then, and it will be soon again. At the very back of the ‘story,’ on the right as one looks, the kitchen is dark, shadowy and rich, a place from which dreams are being born as intrinsic to the ninth month, Kislev, the month of dreams, and to Av, month of the father; at the farthest back left, my son’s room is lit up brightly, with the three generations together, a site of life and joy, of waving wheat and sheaves brought home. And the lines from the back darkness of dream and of fertile joyous light also, as if by miracle form a triangle whose apex is the Shamash that has done all this work under the gaze and touch of love.

The Shamash, the “caretaker” or “attendant” that in Hebrew is cognate with shemesh, “sun,” and shimeish, “attend” or “serve”; for we all, in that dream, and we all in this dream are attending the ‘Sun’ to return to His central place so we may serve Him amidst the plenitude of His radiance, just as my son, just as Judah was radiant with serving his father. And my father knew and perfectly formed in that instant how fully he lived, caring for and carrying his sheaves… It’s now a memorial, in the shadow of Hashem.

And so the month of Av is the time of separation, grief and remembrance, and thus of love, consolation, renewal and joy; in remembering, the promise is revealed and sustained. Precious things kept near by some spark of insight, suddenly, after months or years of darkness glow with significance and truths. We are together, and will be together again as will Israel in its land: the children will return to their borders. Betrayal and injustice dissolve in the light that, though often hidden, is eternally present and strong.

So too do I hope, as Joseph said, for a mighty redemption.

Remembrance, dedication, consolation, redemption: “Nachamu, nachamu ami…”