Chanukah, the Festival of Rededication, begins at sunset on Sunday night, December 9th. Images from Israel this week, from Jerusalem and Haifa, have left us gasping for air, despairing at the senseless loss of life, the cruelty of these acts of hatred. The Maccabees stood against such hatred in ancient days. We, too, must find ways to counter the hatred, to comfort these new mourners as we remember the terror acts of our recent past, to work for lasting peace.

We received some amazing news this week: scans show that Dora’s condition is vastly improved, that some of the tumor is receding or gone. E.G. and Mario are so relieved and happy - the telephone wires heated up between L.A. and Chicago and Naples - all of us sharing our joy. The confluence of prayer and medicine has brought us this gift. With my thanks, I ask for your continued prayers

I am thankful that my holiday will be the pretty much the same as always. I am thankful that my family members who live far away are unafraid to travel: my daughter and her new husband from Los Angeles, my sister and her husband from Boulder, my brother and his family from Buffalo. I know we are at war, but the ration coupons and body counts of past conflicts haven’t been evident. I know there is suffering here, there is suffering in many parts of the world. Still, we are given the opportunity this Thanksgiving Day to focus not only on our mental and physical recovery, but on the ways we can make our gratitude manifest.

Autumn has been prolonged here in Chicago, temperate, sunny days that belie the calendar. Just as the news has suspended us in a state of wariness, so too these days force an examination of the weeks to come whose outcome is so uncertain. Now is the time to draw near to our faith.

A new type of time reckoning has become evident in our conversations and in the media. Everything seems to be coded as “before” or “after” the Attacks of September 11. ⁹⁄₁₁ is shorthand for disaster as well as the number we call when disaster strikes. While the battle escalates in Afghanistan, we are bombarded with news reports of the high state of alert imposed on all of us at home.

My father-in-law, Stan, finishes his course of radiation treatments today. I remember the times I completed my treatments; I felt like I should get a medal or a fancy cake. The daily treatments are eerie: lying alone in a lead-lined room, a huge machine looming over. The reward, I guess, comes with the renewed hope that the cancer has been defeated.

I first met Rabbi Alex Graubart several years ago, during one of my many sojourns at Evanston Hospital where he was the Jewish chaplain. He was a frequent and welcome visitor during my long summer of respiratory failure. We talked of many things; I was always taken with his scholarship, his gentleness, his humor, and his faith. He liked my psalms and flattered me. I was shocked to learn of his death last week. May his memory be for a blessing.

We are still glowing from E.G and Mario’s wedding and the wonderful week we spent getting to know his family. And yet, even that happiness had its own cloud as we knew that Dora, the groom’s mother, was returning home to immediately begin new chemotherapy for recurrent breast cancer.

It is a month since the unspeakable happened. A month of finding new heroes and fearing new demons. A month when we watched, again and again, the television images of the still smoldering rubble at the World Trade Center complex. We who are fortunate to be mourners several degrees removed, can only imagined the continuing agony of those whose loved ones were lost.

My daughter was married on Sunday to a wonderful young man from Naples, Italy. It is a mixed marriage. But being with his family all week, I see so many similarities in our behavior and outlook. They are all learning about our traditions, and we about theirs, though they are a thoroughly secular family with distain for the church. Some of both customs were included in the wedding celebration and during the week. We lit candles on Yom Kippur and Shabbat and talked about the holy days just passed. Wine and bread were blessed before lunch and there was a hora and a crensel crown for me, since this was my only child. During the week, the ladies made “confetti” - little bundles of Jordan almonds wrapped in a circle of tulle with the tag reading “Eve-Gerri & Mario’s Wedding - Eve-Gerri e Mario Sposi.” They are deeply in love. I feel very happy and at peace.