This is a companion piece to the children's bibliodrama script, designed for in-shul performance (or Hebrew school or day school) for 5 senior dragons, ages 10-18, and 3-12 little dragons, ages 0-10. The children get to come to synagogue dressed as dragons, and the adults learn some very interesting Talmudic texts about Chanukah!
The Maccabean Menorah: Crafted From Wood, War, and Hope
רַבִּי יוֹסֵי בַּר יְהוּדָה אוֹמֵר: אַף שֶׁל עֵץ לֹא יַעֲשֶׂה, כְּדֶרֶךְ שֶׁעָשׂוּ בֵּית חַשְׁמוֹנַאי. אָמְרוּ לוֹ: מִשָּׁם רְאָיָה? שַׁפּוּדִין שֶׁל בַּרְזֶל הָיוּ, (וְחוֹפִין) [וְחִיפּוּם] בְּבַעַץ, הֶעֱשִׁירוּ — עֲשָׂאוּם שֶׁל כֶּסֶף, חָזְרוּ וְהֶעֱשִׁירוּ — עֲשָׂאוּם שֶׁל זָהָב.
Rabbi Yosei bar Yehuda says: If one is trying to ban idolatrous images or Jewish cults that have gone off the road, they may not fashion a private menorah of wood either, in the manner that the Maccabean heroes of the Hasmonean dynasty fashioned it. When they first purified the Temple they had to fashion a new Menorah out of wood as no other material was available. Since a wooden candelabrum is fit for the Temple, it is prohibited to fashion one of this kind for oneself or a private sanctuary. The Rabbis said to Rabbi Yosei bar Yehuda: Do you seek to cite a proof from there, i.e., from the bleak post-war days of the first Chanukah that a candelabrum fashioned of wood is truly fit for the Temple?!? During that era the branches of the Menorah were fashioned from spears [shappudin] of iron, and they covered them with zinc [beva’atz]. Only later, when they grew richer and could afford a Menorah of higher-quality material, did they fashion a new, more splendid Menorah from silver. When the dynasty was established and they grew even richer, they fashioned the iconic Menorah from goldwhich we are all used to seeing. (Specifically, we see it on the Arch of Titus, who carried off that one in the next war.)
Master Jewish educator and amateur hopologist Miron Hirsch writes in his 2020 Op-Ed, Facing the Bickerman Orthodoxy:
"I translate shipudim as spears or spearheads, (lances, perhaps?) instead of skewers because despite what culinary meaning the modern use may be, warriors would be carrying iron for battle, not for grilling. This is hopology rather than rabbinics: the short iron lance meant to pierce armor would have had a hollow metal handle wider than the shaft at its blade or point. The handle was meant to lighten the weapon and make it easier to grip. If it is a spearhead, there is a hollow area at the base meant to hold the wooden haft of the spear. Either way, there is an open receptacle at the end that with some encouragement could be used to hold oil and a wick. Coating them with zinc only makes sense if you are trying to make them look like an appropriate temple vessel.
"I translate shipudim as spears or spearheads, (lances, perhaps?) instead of skewers because despite what culinary meaning the modern use may be, warriors would be carrying iron for battle, not for grilling. This is hopology rather than rabbinics: the short iron lance meant to pierce armor would have had a hollow metal handle wider than the shaft at its blade or point. The handle was meant to lighten the weapon and make it easier to grip. If it is a spearhead, there is a hollow area at the base meant to hold the wooden haft of the spear. Either way, there is an open receptacle at the end that with some encouragement could be used to hold oil and a wick. Coating them with zinc only makes sense if you are trying to make them look like an appropriate temple vessel.
How do you make eight iron spears into a menorah for the temple? You cleanse your spears with fire, and while the iron is red hot you coat them with zinc, the shiniest metal you can get on short notice when every bit of gold and silver has long been stolen away. You then take seven spears and dent, whack, bang and drill the spearheads into something that can hold oil. Then you take one spear and prepare it as a base or holder for the other seven.
Except the spearheads don’t hold as much oil as the cups of the golden menorah did. They hold a smaller amount of oil, with thin wicks made from the frayed robes of weary warrior priests. A single jar that would have only been good for one filling of the great golden menorah (long since dragged away and melted down by the Seleucids) now fills the new and smaller menorah of the Maccabees not twice or three times, but eight times, until the new oil arrives. The new temple does not stumble back into darkness, not yet.
The true miracle is not that one jug of oil burned for 192 hours. The miracle is the timing of the light. The miracle is that the improvised menorah of the Maccabees was even able to provide light for a shattered temple, yet somehow rationed the oil just long enough for new oil to arrive. Long lasting super-oil can be written off as an accident of chemistry. The light lasting long enough to hold off the darkness? There’s the miracle. That is always the miracle.
And that, Gabe, is what we are going to teach this year."
Blacksmith Dr. Ido Hebroni, historian at Shalem College, created a related model in 2022, as shown.
Do Dragons Have Holidays?
As long as there have been civilized human beings on this earth, there have been winter festivals of light to jolly up the long dark nights. Whether it is with fairy lights, candles, bonfires, or lamps, we all need some decorations to bring good cheer during the shortest days of the year. It’s not that Chanukah is the Jewish Xmas, it’s that Xmas is the Christian Chanukah!
תָּנוּ רַבָּנַן: לְפִי שֶׁרָאָה אָדָם הָרִאשׁוֹן יוֹם שֶׁמִּתְמַעֵט וְהוֹלֵךְ, אָמַר: אוֹי לִי! שֶׁמָּא בִּשְׁבִיל שֶׁסָּרַחְתִּי עוֹלָם חָשׁוּךְ בַּעֲדִי וְחוֹזֵר לְתוֹהוּ וָבוֹהוּ, וְזוֹ הִיא מִיתָה שֶׁנִּקְנְסָה עָלַי מִן הַשָּׁמַיִם. עָמַד וְיָשַׁב שְׁמוֹנָה יָמִים בְּתַעֲנִית [וּבִתְפִלָּה]. כֵּיוָן שֶׁרָאָה תְּקוּפַת טֵבֵת, וְרָאָה יוֹם שֶׁמַּאֲרִיךְ וְהוֹלֵךְ, אָמַר: מִנְהָגוֹ שֶׁל עוֹלָם הוּא. הָלַךְ וְעָשָׂה שְׁמוֹנָה יָמִים טוֹבִים. לְשָׁנָה הָאַחֶרֶת עֲשָׂאָן לְאֵלּוּ וּלְאֵלּוּ יָמִים טוֹבִים. הוּא קְבָעָם לְשֵׁם שָׁמַיִם, וְהֵם קְבָעוּם לְשֵׁם עֲבוֹדָה זָרָה.
Our Sages taught: When the first personsaw that the daylight was progressively diminishing, as fall turned to winter, hesaid, "OY, veh is mir! Perhaps because I stink (e.g. I sinned and ate the forbidden fruit and ticked off G-d) the world is going dark around me and is returning to the primordial state of chaos and disorder. And this is DEATH that was sentenced upon me from Heaven, as it is written: “And to dust shall you return” (Genesis 3:19). The person arose and spent eight days in fasting and in prayer. Once he saw the Period of Tevet, the winter solstice, and saw that the daylight was progressively lengthening, he said, "Oh, is the natural order of the world. I shall call this 'winter.'" The person went and observed a festival for eight days.
Upon the next year, he observed both these eight days on which he had fasted on the previous year, and these eight days of his celebration, as days of festivities. He, our ancestor the first Adam, established these festivals for the sake of Heaven, although those others, of later generations, established them with things like Saturnalia and Kalendar Day for the sake of idol worship.
Scene 1: In Ancient Times
NARRATOR: “The Tale of the Selfish High Priest, A Scroll From Ancient Times”
SADIE: (to the audience). In ancient times, when the Jews lived in their own land and worshiped in their Holy Temple, there once was a High Priest who was very full of himself.
SELFISH KOHEN: That’s me! It’s easy to be full of yourself when you’re the most important person in the world.
NARRATOR: In addition to the daily sacrifices that he brought on behalf of the Jewish people, he always brought personal sacrifices, special ones from his own stash. To use in his own special sacrifices, this glorious but very greedy Kohen Gadol would take the best of all the donations and stash them away so only he could use them.
The LITTLES walk by with baskets including flour, pasta, wine, grape juice, and olive oil. (Also stuffed animals, if kosher stuffies can be found.) The KOHEN stops them and grabs one little bottle of grape juice and one little bottle of olive oil out of the baskets. The LITTLES are very annoyed!
SELFISH KOHEN: And this one is for me, and this one is for… no, wait I want the sparkling one. You can have the plain one. Puts one grape juice back and swaps it for a better one.
NATE: Hey! Those are for everybody!
SELFISH KOHEN: And I represent everybody, which means that I get the best of everything.
ZEV: No fair!
SELFISH KOHEN: We’re all giving it to God, so it’s all the same in the end. Ooh, pancake mix! KOHEN swipes bag of pancake mix from another child.
IDAN: Hey! That was for mincha!
SELFISH KOHEN: And it still is! My mincha. I will put all of these away in my special stash. Don’t forget to smile and wave when I’m up on the bimah doing MY special service!
LITTLE DRAGONS: Awwwww… 🙁
KOHEN waves bye-bye, prances off stage, and goes to hide the booty.
MAY: (sad) He always takes the best stuff…
SADIE: (angry) I don’t know anywhere in the Torah that says the Kohen Gadol can take all the best stuff for his own personal offerings.
NAVA: (sadly) I don’t know anywhere that it says he can’t…
SADIE: Hey, does anyone know where he keeps the stuff he’s squirreled away?
NATE: I bet it’s behind the mini-fridge in the Kohen Gadol’s office!
MAY: I bet it’s on the top shelf in his coat closet!
ZEV: Let’s go look!
SADIE: (to the audience). In ancient times, when the Jews lived in their own land and worshiped in their Holy Temple, there once was a High Priest who was very full of himself.
SELFISH KOHEN: That’s me! It’s easy to be full of yourself when you’re the most important person in the world.
NARRATOR: In addition to the daily sacrifices that he brought on behalf of the Jewish people, he always brought personal sacrifices, special ones from his own stash. To use in his own special sacrifices, this glorious but very greedy Kohen Gadol would take the best of all the donations and stash them away so only he could use them.
The LITTLES walk by with baskets including flour, pasta, wine, grape juice, and olive oil. (Also stuffed animals, if kosher stuffies can be found.) The KOHEN stops them and grabs one little bottle of grape juice and one little bottle of olive oil out of the baskets. The LITTLES are very annoyed!
SELFISH KOHEN: And this one is for me, and this one is for… no, wait I want the sparkling one. You can have the plain one. Puts one grape juice back and swaps it for a better one.
NATE: Hey! Those are for everybody!
SELFISH KOHEN: And I represent everybody, which means that I get the best of everything.
ZEV: No fair!
SELFISH KOHEN: We’re all giving it to God, so it’s all the same in the end. Ooh, pancake mix! KOHEN swipes bag of pancake mix from another child.
IDAN: Hey! That was for mincha!
SELFISH KOHEN: And it still is! My mincha. I will put all of these away in my special stash. Don’t forget to smile and wave when I’m up on the bimah doing MY special service!
LITTLE DRAGONS: Awwwww… 🙁
KOHEN waves bye-bye, prances off stage, and goes to hide the booty.
MAY: (sad) He always takes the best stuff…
SADIE: (angry) I don’t know anywhere in the Torah that says the Kohen Gadol can take all the best stuff for his own personal offerings.
NAVA: (sadly) I don’t know anywhere that it says he can’t…
SADIE: Hey, does anyone know where he keeps the stuff he’s squirreled away?
NATE: I bet it’s behind the mini-fridge in the Kohen Gadol’s office!
MAY: I bet it’s on the top shelf in his coat closet!
ZEV: Let’s go look!
Scene 2: In Dragon Times
SADIE: The times are dark, the lights are low,
The war’s destroyed the world we know.
The friends by whom we used to play
Are filled with hate--we’re scared away.
Perhaps right now we can rebuild
Now, some have tried--they’ve tried and failed.
It feels as if the world’s in flames
Of hate and rage and selfish games.
The ones who make the flames inspire,
Rebuild relationships to what was prior,
Bring light into darkness dire,
They’ll light the world with wings of fire.
The war’s destroyed the world we know.
The friends by whom we used to play
Are filled with hate--we’re scared away.
Perhaps right now we can rebuild
Now, some have tried--they’ve tried and failed.
It feels as if the world’s in flames
Of hate and rage and selfish games.
The ones who make the flames inspire,
Rebuild relationships to what was prior,
Bring light into darkness dire,
They’ll light the world with wings of fire.
NARRATOR: In slightly less ancient times, our heroes are managing the cleanup operation on Jade Mountain after Antiochus Darkstalker tried to brainwash every dragon in the world to worship him and to wipe out any dragon tribes he didn’t particularly like. The battle has been won, but Jade Mountain is half destroyed, the international school is trashed, and half the little dragons have gone home to their own tribes because the treachery and war have soured their parents on Intertribal Cooperation.
GLORY: This has to be the most dismal opening to a school year in the history of the world.
CLAY: (comfortingly) We still have each other.
TSUNAMI: Yes, but we don’t have half of our students!
SUNNY: What can we do to inspire our dragons when so much of what we worked to build has been ruined?
STARFLIGHT: The library is still mostly intact. Look at these scrolls I found--this one is the scroll of the Maccabees. They had it as bad as we did, and they persevered and rebuilt what had been ruined.
CLAY: Who are the Maccabees? They sound like the bad guys. Are they related to Hivewings?
GLORY: No, you big rock, the Maccabees were an ancient and powerful tribe of Hammerhead dragons who defeated Queen Wasp and brought purity and unity to the hives of all dragonkind.
All the Wings of Fire dragon nerds in the cast pantomime, “No way!! That is bogus! Who wrote this script?!?” to the audience.
TSUNAMI: Did they have a magic spell to purify their ruined Temple and re-inspire a nation that had just missed out on that year’s most important holiday?
STARFLIGHT: No, they had to clean up everything by hand, one rock at a time. And even though they missed their chag, they decided to hold an eight-day harvest festival, two months later when the cleanup was finished and they were ready to rededicate.
GLORY: (pensive) Do dragons have holidays?
STARFLIGHT: Masechet Avodah Zarah says that everyone has a basic need to have a festival of lights in dark depressing times like the dead of winter, long before scavengers came down from the mountains and founded civilizations and organized religion. Winter is dark and needs more light.
SUNNY: Times like these are dark and need more light! Perfect! Did the Maccabees light a huge golden menorah like the one in that picture?
STARFLIGHT: (absolutely certain) Nope.
TSUNAMI: No??? Whaddaya mean, “no”?!? Let me see that scroll!
STARFLIGHT: The golden menorah in the picture was looted by the conquerors at the start of the conflict. By the time the Maccabees reconquered Jerusalem, virtually all of the gold in the Temple had been carried off and sold, melted, or destroyed. Talk about dark times--even in victory, they didn’t have a lamp to light. The brightest thing on their holy mountain was the points of their spears.
TSUNAMI: Okay, see, that’s a problem that can be solved. Everybody bring your spears up here. We’ll need seven of them.
CLAY: (helpfully brings spears over) We’ve got a lot of scrap metal left over from the battle. I was going to beat them into plowshares, but we have more than enough for a plowshare.
GLORY: This has to be the most dismal opening to a school year in the history of the world.
CLAY: (comfortingly) We still have each other.
TSUNAMI: Yes, but we don’t have half of our students!
SUNNY: What can we do to inspire our dragons when so much of what we worked to build has been ruined?
STARFLIGHT: The library is still mostly intact. Look at these scrolls I found--this one is the scroll of the Maccabees. They had it as bad as we did, and they persevered and rebuilt what had been ruined.
CLAY: Who are the Maccabees? They sound like the bad guys. Are they related to Hivewings?
GLORY: No, you big rock, the Maccabees were an ancient and powerful tribe of Hammerhead dragons who defeated Queen Wasp and brought purity and unity to the hives of all dragonkind.
All the Wings of Fire dragon nerds in the cast pantomime, “No way!! That is bogus! Who wrote this script?!?” to the audience.
TSUNAMI: Did they have a magic spell to purify their ruined Temple and re-inspire a nation that had just missed out on that year’s most important holiday?
STARFLIGHT: No, they had to clean up everything by hand, one rock at a time. And even though they missed their chag, they decided to hold an eight-day harvest festival, two months later when the cleanup was finished and they were ready to rededicate.
GLORY: (pensive) Do dragons have holidays?
STARFLIGHT: Masechet Avodah Zarah says that everyone has a basic need to have a festival of lights in dark depressing times like the dead of winter, long before scavengers came down from the mountains and founded civilizations and organized religion. Winter is dark and needs more light.
SUNNY: Times like these are dark and need more light! Perfect! Did the Maccabees light a huge golden menorah like the one in that picture?
STARFLIGHT: (absolutely certain) Nope.
TSUNAMI: No??? Whaddaya mean, “no”?!? Let me see that scroll!
STARFLIGHT: The golden menorah in the picture was looted by the conquerors at the start of the conflict. By the time the Maccabees reconquered Jerusalem, virtually all of the gold in the Temple had been carried off and sold, melted, or destroyed. Talk about dark times--even in victory, they didn’t have a lamp to light. The brightest thing on their holy mountain was the points of their spears.
TSUNAMI: Okay, see, that’s a problem that can be solved. Everybody bring your spears up here. We’ll need seven of them.
CLAY: (helpfully brings spears over) We’ve got a lot of scrap metal left over from the battle. I was going to beat them into plowshares, but we have more than enough for a plowshare.
TSUNAMI: All right, everybody help. Stack ‘em all together. Bend the three on the left this way, the three on the right that way. Good. Around the one in the middle. Now, bend the tops forward to make cups for the oil.
CLAY: Oil…?
GLORY: Lighter fluid. Whatever.
STARFLIGHT: Sacred olive oil. Anybody can set the world on fire, but they needed light to inspire, not expire.
TSUNAMI: See? Emergency menorah, 1-2-3.
CLAY: Oil…?
GLORY: Lighter fluid. Whatever.
STARFLIGHT: Sacred olive oil. Anybody can set the world on fire, but they needed light to inspire, not expire.
TSUNAMI: See? Emergency menorah, 1-2-3.
CLAY: Can we fry things in the leftover oil?
STARFLIGHT: (reads) “Cleanse the spears with fire, and while the iron is red hot, coat them with zinc, the shiniest metal you can get on short notice when every bit of gold and silver has long been stolen away. Then, take seven spears and dent, whack, bang and drill the spearheads into something that can hold oil. Then you take one spear and prepare it as a base or holder for the other seven.”
TSUNAMI: Okay, so eight instead of seven. We can do that.
CLAY: This menorah is really small. It’s not going to light up the entire school. Maybe the entire entrance hall.
SUNNY: (really excited) OMG, this is exactly what we need. Let’s search all over our school for one glass jar of illumination crystals that haven’t been shattered by the epic battle we just survived. We’ll have a glorious lamplighting to celebrate the miracle and usher in a new era of peace and tolerance.
CLAY: (confused) Um, Sunny… the first thing we did when we got back from the battle was clean up all the broken glass. We finished that project ages ago.
STARFLIGHT: …When every piece of glass in the school shattered? Including all of the illumination crystals?
GLORY: We’ve been cleaning up for months. We sent out an order for more illumination crystals last week, but the Skywings take 4 days to make them and 4 days to deliver them, so we won’t get any more for a full 8 days.
SUNNY: But if we all look really, really hard, I’m sure we can find a jar that we mysteriously overlooked for all the weeks and weeks we’ve been cleaning this place up!
GLORY: (exasperated) We looked already!
SUNNY: (ala Joy from Inside Out) We just need to look harder! We WILL find what we’re looking for if we just look hard enough.
TSUNAMI: (totally losing it) That is the stupidest thing I have ever heard. We’re supposed to search through this entire mountain and all its secret tunnels for something that we have already determined is NOT HERE because it was ruined or deliberately destroyed during the sabotage, direct attacks, and ALL OUT WAR that we’ve all miraculously managed to survive!
STARFLIGHT: She has a point. I don’t think we’re going to inspire our students by searching every tunnel in this mountain for something that we would have found months ago when we were already searching for evidence of dark magic.
CLAY: And broken glass to sweep up.
SUNNY: (all holy) But if we have faith…!
GLORY: (patiently) Sunny, one of the basic definitions of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting the results to suddenly change.
SUNNY: (angelic) I have hope that if we just look hard enough, we will find something--
TSUNAMI: (yells in exasperation) We’re not going to find something because there’s nothing to find!!!
At this point, the littles come running up from where they have been sitting.
NATE: (comes running up from the back of the shul, very excited) I found it!!!!!! The five big dragons are flabbergasted. Sunny is elated.
ILANA: Awww, I only found an afikomen left over from before the war.
ELLEN: I found ten extra kiddush tables in a supply closet!
DOWNSTAIRS MINYAN PRESIDENT: (quickly) Those are for us!
CLAY: Wait, what? Found what? You little guys are supposed to be keeping safe in soft lockdown until we’re done with the cleanup operation and the last of the fighting tribes have gone home for good.
NATE: I found the little jar of olive oil and the bag of pancake mix that the Kohen Gadol carried off and hid in Scene 1.
STARFLIGHT: (very excited) Oh, “The Ancient Scroll of the Selfish High Priest”? I know that story. I thought that was only a legend!
SADIE: Nope! He really did have a bottle of pure olive oil hidden away on the top shelf of a hidden cabinet in a storage tunnel under the mountain.
STARFLIGHT: Wait, are we talking about the same mountain???
TSUNAMI: (doesn’t care, it’s found, move on) Now that’s what I call results!
GLORY: Puh-leez tell me you’re not using that pancake mix for anything except smoke raising. We can get fresh flour faster than we can press pure olive oil.
CLAY: (all excited) And then can we eat some pancakes?
SUNNY: (happy and curious) Where does that story come from, “The Scroll of the Selfish High Priest”? I’ve never heard it before.
STARFLIGHT: (examines the scroll) Jeremy Hulkower got it from his rebbe in 2008.
RESIDENT PROFESSOR: On the mountain where I come from, “Jeremy Hulkower’s rebbe said this in 2008 and then retired from Skokie Central,” is not considered adequate scholarly provenance.
TSUNAMI: Don’t knock it, it works!
GLORY: So the moral of that ancient story is that being a selfish, greedy hoarder may have unexpected benefits to your people in the fullness of time???
SUNNY: (all diva and queenly) No, the moral of that story is if you’re going to do anything, do it with style and make it your absolute best.
TSUNAMI: And the moral of this story is that little dragons are good for something?
SUNNY: No, the moral of this story is that our little 1-2-3 menorah isn’t too small any more.
CLAY: …Still looks pretty small to me.
SUNNY: Let’s light the menorah and I’ll explain.
CLAY: Then pancakes?
The little dragons holding crepe paper flames stand behind the little menorah that TSUNAMI holds up. SADIE stands to the side of the menorah and blows across the top, slowly and carefully, as if to light the menorah with fire breath. One after another, the three LITTLES hold up crepe-paper flames, in order, 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8.
ALL: (sing) 🎵Maoz Tzur Yeshuati / From all the dragons to you and me ♪♩
STARFLIGHT: (reads from the scroll of the Maccabees) “A single jar that would have only been good for one filling of the great golden menorah (long since dragged away and melted down by the pillaging Seleucids) now fills the new and smaller menorah of the Maccabees not twice or three times, but eight times, until the new oil arrives. The newly rededicated Temple does not stumble back into darkness, not yet. Every night of the Maccabees’ rededication festival, they had a great ceremonial lamplighting as soon as the sky grew dark, and all the people cheered to see lights burning again in the great and pure Temple where so much had gone so wrong for so many years.”
GLORY: Uh oh, I think our improvised menorah’s running low. This’ll probably burn out before we get to kiddush.
SADIE: That’s okay. We’re not supposed to leave fires burning unsupervised, especially during kiddush.
ASHER: Or after bedtime.
The LITTLES can now put their crepe paper flames down and go about their business.
STARFLIGHT: (encouragingly) And there’ll still be enough oil in that little bottle to light it again tomorrow evening.
SUNNY: (to the audience) The true miracle is not that one jug of oil burned for 192 hours. The miracle is the timing of the light. The miracle is that the little improvised menorah the Maccabees made was even able to provide light for a shattered Temple. Not only was their construction enough to shine light for a people totally worn out by war, they had just enough oil for one illuminating lighting each night until the new oil arrived. Long lasting super-oil can be written off as a fluke of chemistry. The light lasting just long enough to hold off the darkness? There’s your miracle. That is always the miracle.
STARFLIGHT: Chag Urim sameach to all--
TSUNAMI: --and to all a good fight!
CLAY: And like Jacob Shapiro would say : Don’t forget your fire extinguisher!
All except Clay: CLAY!
STARFLIGHT: (reads) “Cleanse the spears with fire, and while the iron is red hot, coat them with zinc, the shiniest metal you can get on short notice when every bit of gold and silver has long been stolen away. Then, take seven spears and dent, whack, bang and drill the spearheads into something that can hold oil. Then you take one spear and prepare it as a base or holder for the other seven.”
TSUNAMI: Okay, so eight instead of seven. We can do that.
CLAY: This menorah is really small. It’s not going to light up the entire school. Maybe the entire entrance hall.
SUNNY: (really excited) OMG, this is exactly what we need. Let’s search all over our school for one glass jar of illumination crystals that haven’t been shattered by the epic battle we just survived. We’ll have a glorious lamplighting to celebrate the miracle and usher in a new era of peace and tolerance.
CLAY: (confused) Um, Sunny… the first thing we did when we got back from the battle was clean up all the broken glass. We finished that project ages ago.
STARFLIGHT: …When every piece of glass in the school shattered? Including all of the illumination crystals?
GLORY: We’ve been cleaning up for months. We sent out an order for more illumination crystals last week, but the Skywings take 4 days to make them and 4 days to deliver them, so we won’t get any more for a full 8 days.
SUNNY: But if we all look really, really hard, I’m sure we can find a jar that we mysteriously overlooked for all the weeks and weeks we’ve been cleaning this place up!
GLORY: (exasperated) We looked already!
SUNNY: (ala Joy from Inside Out) We just need to look harder! We WILL find what we’re looking for if we just look hard enough.
TSUNAMI: (totally losing it) That is the stupidest thing I have ever heard. We’re supposed to search through this entire mountain and all its secret tunnels for something that we have already determined is NOT HERE because it was ruined or deliberately destroyed during the sabotage, direct attacks, and ALL OUT WAR that we’ve all miraculously managed to survive!
STARFLIGHT: She has a point. I don’t think we’re going to inspire our students by searching every tunnel in this mountain for something that we would have found months ago when we were already searching for evidence of dark magic.
CLAY: And broken glass to sweep up.
SUNNY: (all holy) But if we have faith…!
GLORY: (patiently) Sunny, one of the basic definitions of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting the results to suddenly change.
SUNNY: (angelic) I have hope that if we just look hard enough, we will find something--
TSUNAMI: (yells in exasperation) We’re not going to find something because there’s nothing to find!!!
At this point, the littles come running up from where they have been sitting.
NATE: (comes running up from the back of the shul, very excited) I found it!!!!!! The five big dragons are flabbergasted. Sunny is elated.
ILANA: Awww, I only found an afikomen left over from before the war.
ELLEN: I found ten extra kiddush tables in a supply closet!
DOWNSTAIRS MINYAN PRESIDENT: (quickly) Those are for us!
CLAY: Wait, what? Found what? You little guys are supposed to be keeping safe in soft lockdown until we’re done with the cleanup operation and the last of the fighting tribes have gone home for good.
NATE: I found the little jar of olive oil and the bag of pancake mix that the Kohen Gadol carried off and hid in Scene 1.
STARFLIGHT: (very excited) Oh, “The Ancient Scroll of the Selfish High Priest”? I know that story. I thought that was only a legend!
SADIE: Nope! He really did have a bottle of pure olive oil hidden away on the top shelf of a hidden cabinet in a storage tunnel under the mountain.
STARFLIGHT: Wait, are we talking about the same mountain???
TSUNAMI: (doesn’t care, it’s found, move on) Now that’s what I call results!
GLORY: Puh-leez tell me you’re not using that pancake mix for anything except smoke raising. We can get fresh flour faster than we can press pure olive oil.
CLAY: (all excited) And then can we eat some pancakes?
SUNNY: (happy and curious) Where does that story come from, “The Scroll of the Selfish High Priest”? I’ve never heard it before.
STARFLIGHT: (examines the scroll) Jeremy Hulkower got it from his rebbe in 2008.
RESIDENT PROFESSOR: On the mountain where I come from, “Jeremy Hulkower’s rebbe said this in 2008 and then retired from Skokie Central,” is not considered adequate scholarly provenance.
TSUNAMI: Don’t knock it, it works!
GLORY: So the moral of that ancient story is that being a selfish, greedy hoarder may have unexpected benefits to your people in the fullness of time???
SUNNY: (all diva and queenly) No, the moral of that story is if you’re going to do anything, do it with style and make it your absolute best.
TSUNAMI: And the moral of this story is that little dragons are good for something?
SUNNY: No, the moral of this story is that our little 1-2-3 menorah isn’t too small any more.
CLAY: …Still looks pretty small to me.
SUNNY: Let’s light the menorah and I’ll explain.
CLAY: Then pancakes?
The little dragons holding crepe paper flames stand behind the little menorah that TSUNAMI holds up. SADIE stands to the side of the menorah and blows across the top, slowly and carefully, as if to light the menorah with fire breath. One after another, the three LITTLES hold up crepe-paper flames, in order, 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8.
ALL: (sing) 🎵Maoz Tzur Yeshuati / From all the dragons to you and me ♪♩
STARFLIGHT: (reads from the scroll of the Maccabees) “A single jar that would have only been good for one filling of the great golden menorah (long since dragged away and melted down by the pillaging Seleucids) now fills the new and smaller menorah of the Maccabees not twice or three times, but eight times, until the new oil arrives. The newly rededicated Temple does not stumble back into darkness, not yet. Every night of the Maccabees’ rededication festival, they had a great ceremonial lamplighting as soon as the sky grew dark, and all the people cheered to see lights burning again in the great and pure Temple where so much had gone so wrong for so many years.”
GLORY: Uh oh, I think our improvised menorah’s running low. This’ll probably burn out before we get to kiddush.
SADIE: That’s okay. We’re not supposed to leave fires burning unsupervised, especially during kiddush.
ASHER: Or after bedtime.
The LITTLES can now put their crepe paper flames down and go about their business.
STARFLIGHT: (encouragingly) And there’ll still be enough oil in that little bottle to light it again tomorrow evening.
SUNNY: (to the audience) The true miracle is not that one jug of oil burned for 192 hours. The miracle is the timing of the light. The miracle is that the little improvised menorah the Maccabees made was even able to provide light for a shattered Temple. Not only was their construction enough to shine light for a people totally worn out by war, they had just enough oil for one illuminating lighting each night until the new oil arrived. Long lasting super-oil can be written off as a fluke of chemistry. The light lasting just long enough to hold off the darkness? There’s your miracle. That is always the miracle.
STARFLIGHT: Chag Urim sameach to all--
TSUNAMI: --and to all a good fight!
CLAY: And like Jacob Shapiro would say : Don’t forget your fire extinguisher!
All except Clay: CLAY!