Wonder-Chanuka

It feels like Chanukah was just a while ago and the calendar tells me it's been a year, I don't believe that.
Ezra's almost 20 months, I am almost 29 (years) and it's Chanukah already. Why is life so crazy? It's rhetorical question obviously.

I would've said that many things have changed since last Chanukah, but then I'd have to talk about those changes, which I don't want to. I am terrible when it comes to talk about myself. I mean, what kind of a blogger I am then, but you know what I mean (do we? :P), being Jewish Orthodox is not easy, you can't talk about everything, you should be humble and reserved, and serious and super intelligent, shouldn't you? At least that's what I think I am (humble... ;) ).

Now seriously, I am fine.
I've been making cottage cheese pancakes called "syrniki" in Russian lately, which translates as "cheesy" :D but in English "cheesy" probably doesn't explain those pancakes' existential meaning. Anyway, Ezra loves them, even my husband can eat them, so I am happy. I need very little to be happy, you know, just couple of "cheesy" pancakes and hot lemon tea.
But this post is not about syrniki naturally, even though you fry them in lots of oil as anything else for Chanuka - oil, oil, oil everywhere.

How am I prepared for Chanuka?
I am not physically and "kitchenly", but mentally I am into it already: I see and feel miracles everywhere, just everywhere.
I remember last year talking to a friend and telling that miracle doesn't have to be exactly as divine as it originally was at the time of the Second Temple (when very little oil was left in the Menorah, but it still burnt for 8 full days), but in small things, that happen to regular people like me. For example I found a long forgotten 20 Euro bill in my old bag when I needed so badly, then I received some discount coupons for a washing machine conditioner, that I had run out and didn't want to spend much anymore, then I got couple of nice e-mails from nice people and what else do I need.
You know these type of miracles that every woman appreciates.

Chanukah 5774/2013 - give it up for Mama Sophie's Sufganiyot/doughnuts

Anyway, I still mustered Sufganiyot for Chanuka yesterday, because what kind of Chanuka would that be? Everyone loved them so far and I even dare to say I get better and better Yiddishe mame year by year :) 

Have a bright Chanukah, full of wonders and love!!!

This year's sufganyiot

Remember I told you about my brother in law's birthday, which was on Friday? Well, his mother (who is my mother in law and Ezra's grandma obviously) baked such an amazing cake for him and brought over, in addition with that she had also baked couple of other cakes and cookies that it made perfect sense to me not to make sufganyiot this year. Not for my husband though. All right. He's usually right and I am not because I am so lazy when it comes to kitchen and baking. I'd rather be fooling around and entertaining people in the kitchen than standing there in apron and breathing burning oil. I am terrible baker.

My husband assured me that I had to make sufganyiot because he could not imagine Chanuka without them and it should be our tradition for future when Ezra grows up and iy''H, we have other children. Of course I agreed. Wasn't I also excited and happy when my mother or aunts baked cakes and cooked specific Georgian food on New Year (which was big deal in my childhood)? So I shouldn't be so selfish and scrooge, just because we had so much leftover from Ezra's uncle's birthday, it did not mean, sufganyiot could be skipped.

So I made them.
My mother in law came over to babysit Ezra and I got down to business named kneading a dough for sufganyiot. I made it after this recipe, I've done it last year too and they come out really good. Naturally, I made my favourite changes in the recipe: replaced milk with water (had no soy milk anyway), dry yeast with fresh one and used no eggs, because in the mixing part you just won't find where to add those eggs that are mentioned in the ingredients part. I think no eggs needed indeed, sufganyiot are perfectly fine without them. Then I filled them with strawberry jam and whole family loved them.
Now I feel better.

Our sufganyiot - may not look that good, but taste a lot better. Chanuka 5773

I think I am getting used to being a wife and mother, you know. I've always had this funny character that protested against everything and never really loved traditions or anything. So now when I am married to the orthodox man for whom family values come first, I think I might be becoming his total part in that, with help of Hashem.
I don't promise I am going to love kitchen and never leave it, but I start to enjoy it when I see my dear people enjoy what I cook and bake.

Aren't our dear people's feelings most important after all?

Chanuka Sameach! More to come, still loads of candles to light and fill our souls with wonders and wonders...

Time of wonders

Chanuka is just few days away and I haven't started to prepare yet. I still have to take out the chanukkia and clean it. We use oil chanukkia which needs to be washed and polished every year.

This year's going to be different. It's been different since Ezra was born and it will never be the same again, thank G-d. Chanuka starts on Saturday evening right after Shabbat ends so we'll be lighting one candle that night. I usually make sufganyiot (doughnuts filled with jam or chocolate) but I'll make them either on Saturday evening or Sunday, I don't have much time because Shabbat comes first as usual. Plus this Friday my brother-in-law has a birthday so he'll come over to us for Shabbat and we'll be celebrating the "double date" - beautiful queen Shabbat and his 27th birthday.
You need to make also latkes, this is Chanuka tradition. Latkes is grated potatoes with flour and spices fried in oil, which is not favoured in our family and I never make it.
Many people confuse or mix Chanuka with Christmas, or I knew some people who mistakenly thought Chanuka was somewhat alternative to Christmas. Someone even asked whose birthdays do we celebrate on those 8 days. We don't give presents on Chanuka, there's only this European Jewish tradition to give children "chanuka gelt" (Geld = money in German) which would be chocolate coins wrapped in golden paper.

Chanuka is not a festival from Torah. As you might not know there are festivals that are mentioned in the Torah where Hashem commands to observe in a particular way: like blowing shofar on Rosh Hashanah, building sukkah on Sukkot or not eating chametz on Pesach and etc. Chanuka is a festival that was established much later after Greeks conquered Jerusalem and decided to exterminate the Jewish nation (as many nations before and after had done), but they weren't killing people but trying to change their moral behaviour, to influence their culture and make Jews like themselves - people with no morality whatsoever (although this festival doesn't have a Torah value and we have no obligation to do anything, it remains as brightest and jolliest festivals in modern Jews' lives. What can we do, world is so under Western show-offy influence).
There were people who went against them and as it has happened many times during the history - Maccabees - group of "guerillas" fought against conquerors and miraculously won. When the great battle was over and Jews took Jerusalem back, high priest realised there was not enough oil in the temple to light the Menorah and give thanks to the World Creator. And then, against all the physics and chemistry, oil was burning whole 8 days which was/is, indeed, considered as a great miracle of Chanuka. Thus, G-d created everything so He can definitely make oil to burn longer, can't He?
For some this maybe just a beautiful story, but religion is mostly about stories and very strong ones, don't you agree? Because we all love stories, we believe in miracles and that's why we keep on living and winning our own Jerusalem almost everyday.

As for me, Chanuka is very important festival because I absolutely believe in miracles, I don't mean the supernatural ones, but this little life meaningful miracles like receiving exactly what I longed for, or achieving the goal that seemed impossible before. These are my miracles and most of the time they had come true at this Chanuka time. I hope we keep this tradition.
Chanuka Sameach - may you have wonderful, marvelous, lit up and lovely celebration!!! We are all G-d's miracles and it should be enough for now :)

נס גדול היה שם

נס גדול היה שם

I don't know what's a miracle for you.

It is the sunshine in the morning, it is the girls of midrasha :)
I am the miracle :)
I don't like typical miracles, because for me life is miracle itself.

You know what I learned today from this amazing girl Ella?
One should accept any result it gets because it is from Hashem, whether it's good or bad.
Only then we'll be able to be happy, really happy.
What makes us miserable is the feeling of weakness, solitude - when we fail and think that G-d has forsaken us... that's when melancholy comes and win over us... at least it comes to me quite often.
I'm starting to work on it right away!!!
My new friend Ella is the miracle for me, and I thank G-d for the people I get a chance to meet and become better person myself.

P.S. I did actually :) I spoke to rav Roberg. So my yetzer ara is happy as ever ;)

CHANUKA SAMEACH EVERYONE!!!

BE HAPPY FOR WHAT YOU HAVE GOT! I AM SURE YOU HAVE GOT ALL YOU NEED!