Book Review: Getting Kvetchy at Hanukkah

I am what you might call a bibliophile. I love books, I love collecting them, I lament having to part with them (which I did with so many during my divorce and aliyah to Israel), and when I look at our bookshelves at home there are a lot of seforim, but those belong to my dear husband Mr. T. I'm not about to start hoarding books again just to have a fine balance between his and hers, but it is nice getting new books, reviewing books, and finding new authors to kvell over.

Recently Mr. T was in Jerusalem with a friend of his looking for benschers (the little books that Jews use before and after meals and on Shabbat that have songs and the prayers over food and drink) at M. Pomeranz Bookseller, a staple store owned by a couple that made aliyah to Israel more than 20 years ago. 

While there, Mr. T spotted a book: The KvetchiT: A Hanukkah Tale by Larry Butchins. He absolutely had to have it for me because I am, after all, the Kvetching Editor. Surprise surprise he brought it home and I sat reading it last night.

The premise is cute, and it makes me wonder who comes up with these things (but in a good, not judgey way, of course). The story is narrated by a grandfather figure named Samuel who starts with the historic dilemma of the people at the rededication of the temple. The people are kvetching and kvetching that they don't have any oil, and although the common miracle we hear of is the oil lasting for eight nights, the miracle we don't hear of is the creation of the the KvetchiT -- a fuzzy, little three-eyed creature who feeds on kvetches. But once the kvetching over the oil stops, the KvetchiT is at a loss because he needs the kvetches to survive. He hides away in a cave and falls fast asleep.

The story zips ahead hundreds of years when a boy named Samuel finds him (does the name ring a bell?) and hears the story and agrees to help record the 20 greatest kvetches for the KvetchiT to live on. The story brings us back to the present where one of Samuel's grandchildren receives a unique gift of family tradition (and kvetching).

It definitely takes kvetching to a unique, new level of cuteness, and the illustrations are very traditional in the style of "religious" Jewish books, but not aggressively so (don't worry, you won't find the mom in a full-body coverup). I'm just bummed that the 20 greatest kvetches collected in the story are only available on cassette. Who has a cassette player?! Not this chick. I eagerly await their release in MP3 or CD format.

You can buy the book from Pomeranz for pennies, folks, and this would make a very cute gift for a child or a particularly kvetchy adult.

Do you have a favorite children's Chanukah book? A particularly excellent kvetch that you think the kvetch could live FOREVER on? With a wee one on the way, I'm eager to start collecting gobs of children's books!

Note: The book reviews I'm doing for Pomeranz are honest, as all of my product and book reviews are, but the books are being given to me at no cost for review. 

G-d WILL provide. I have proof!

I think it's interesting that that last post -- about how I know I'm not living how I want to live and know I should be living -- was post No. 613. Yes, that's the assumed number of commandments in Torah. Fascinating stuff, I think. But I have a point to this oh-so-soon-after-the-last-post post.

A friend/colleague/fellow graduate student revealed to me today a Rosh Hashanah miracle. This friend lives about six miles off campus and is a religious Jew. He was debating what to do for the holidays since he usually mopeds in and out of campus, but it being the holidays he was left to either observe at home or to walk in and out, which would be, well, pretty rough. So Tuesday morning, he completed his prayers at home, thinking that on Wednesday he would trek into campus to hear the shofar and then hitch a ride back home after sunset when RH was over. As he completed his prayers, he heard a noise that sounded strangely like a shofar.

Now, I have to point out that this friend lives out essentially in the woods where properties are separated by lots of brush and tall trees -- it isn't often that you see your neighbors, let alone hear them.

So this friend leaves his house, starts trekking through the property toward the sound, and lo and behold, he discovers a boy blowing the shofar on his neighbor's property. As it turns out, this friends neighbors are Jewish and were blowing the shofar for Rosh Hashanah, and thus my friend, lucky he was, heard the shofar -- a mighty, mighty mitzvah -- and didn't have to trek to campus. They also invited him back for Shabbat and what have you, which is such a marvelous thing for my friend who observes alone at home because of the distance to campus.

This, folks, is an example of G-d providing. I have a firm faithfulness in G-d that He will come through in such situations, and my friend's Rosh Hashanah miracle is a textbook case.

Small Miracles?

I'm not one to get my wisdom from cartoon TV shows on Prime Time, but something interesting was said last night on a repeat of American Dad (a show which I loathe, but without internet at home, I needed background noise). The episode was about the Dad being frustrated with a friend of his who had everything in common with him, except that this friend was an athiest. The Dad goes to all lengths to try and drive his friend to believe in G-d, eventually driving him to suicide, which fails. The friend ends up in the hospital and the Dad prays to G-d that if the friend should live, he'll accept him no matter what he believes. Just then, the friend wakes up and tells how G-d kicked him down to Hell where he sold his soul to Satan to return to earth.

Somewhere, I forget precisely where, in the episode, someone tells the Dad that G-d doesn't work like a vending machine. You don't put in a couple prayers and get something immediate in return.

This, as I've mentioned before, is my philosophy on small "miracles" and chances of random luck: avoiding getting a speeding ticket, a squirrel getting out of the street before you hit it, getting the right numbers in the lottery, running into the right person at the right time. These things, to me, are the wrong kinds of things we pray for and thus attribute immediately to G-d when they happen to work out. It's like reading your horoscope and mysteriously you find some way to make it fit into the way your day or week is going.

Maybe it's because of my "Christian" background, where if you wanted something you simply said a prayer and hoped for the best. I'd pray for a new toy or for so-and-so to ask me out or to get an A on a test I'd already taken, like somehow G-d could magically change the grade just because of my prayer.

As I've blogged about before, prayer isn't meant when we're asking for things. Prayer is meant for bigger things -- strength, healing, understanding, etc. G-d isn't a vending machine, and we can't plug quarters in and expect or even hope for a bag o' chips.

Prayer cannot bring water to parched fields, or mend a broken bridge, or rebuild a ruined city; but prayer can water an arid soul, mend a broken heart, and rebuild a weakened will. -- Gates of Prayer (Siddur)