Hanukkah

Hanukkah is the temporal frame for the novel’s final movement from grief toward renewed commitment. On its eighth night, at age sixty-one, Judah Loeb stands under a wedding canopy with Liora, surrounded by Jewish ritual objects and family; the ceremony’s breaking glass makes the holiday gathering a moment not of simple celebration but of joy held together with remembrance.

Date and Narrative Placement

The epilogue is marked “Hanukkah 2023,” and its scene takes place three months later. This dating places the conclusion in a specific holiday season and in Judah’s old age, rather than leaving his second marriage as an undated future possibility. Hanukkah provides the calendar frame for the last scene, while the ceremony itself gathers consequences of a much longer story: Judah’s losses, his continuing ties to family, and his decision to marry again.

The holiday setting follows earlier scenes in which Jewish practice appears in varied forms. Chaim Lerner conducts Havdalah at the close of Shabbat; after Chaim’s death, Yoav leads the Friday-night Kiddush at Zehava’s table. Judah later asks Hannah about a book on Jewish spiritual life, and she eventually becomes a rabbi. These moments are not Hanukkah observances, but they place the epilogue’s holiday amid a developing history of ritual, inheritance, and changing religious attachment.

The Eighth Night and the Wedding

Judah describes a room filled with signs of Jewish life: burning candles, colorful plastic dreidels, pictures of golden menorahs, and a mezuzah by the hall door. He wears a multicolored yarmulke and a white tallit that keeps slipping from his shoulders. Under the canopy, his late father’s wedding tallit serves as part of the structure, bringing the memory of an earlier generation into the marriage ceremony.

Hannah leads the ceremony as a rabbi. She reads the marriage contract, and the couple exchange rings and share wine. Judah speaks words of love in a shaky voice, with fear rather than anxiety; Liora answers in kind, and Hannah sings. Hanukkah is therefore the setting for a family ritual in which the past is not set aside: the father’s tallit, the marriage promises, and the daughter’s role all connect this new union to earlier relationships and losses.

Celebration, Loss, and Continuity

The holiday’s celebratory setting does not erase sorrow. Hannah explains that the glass to be broken represents a broken world and that breaking it invites sorrow into the couple’s greatest joy. As Judah prepares, he thinks of Mary, Michal, Yoav, Charlie, Israel, and Chaim. The wedding thus places private bereavement and public history inside a moment of commitment rather than outside it.

Judah has secretly practiced the act at home, breaking three thin wine goblets that were wedding presents from his first marriage. At the ceremony, Hannah places the covered glass beneath his foot, unaware of this preparation. He then smashes it. The gesture closes the novel with a deliberate joining of celebration and damage: the holiday gathering marks a new marriage, while the broken glass and the objects carried into the ceremony keep loss present within the future Judah chooses.