The Lonely Menorah

There is a menorah on the shelf at the back of the Goodwill.
It is a lonely menorah, isolated as it is in a sea of Virgin Mary’s and Regular Candlesticks
It is also an ugly menorah, by all accounts. Ceramic, blue and yellow, chipped, in the shape of Noah’s Ark. About a third the animals that were supposed to hold candles have fallen off. There’s half an alligator holding on for dear life. The elephant is missing a trunk. The menorah couldn’t hold all eight lights even if it wanted to, which is good because it probably doesn’t.
It’s a very dusty menorah. There’s a good deal of wax congealed in the remaining candle holders and dripping all down the front.
If you stumble across that shelf and pick up tht menorah, shifting it from hand to hand, you’ll find that it’s pretty heavy. It’s medium sized, as menorahs go. It’s solid. It looks like it was pretty well made.
It looks like it needs a friend.
It almost cries out to be taken home, to be cleaned up, to be clumsily repaired with modeling clay and acrylic paint and Mod Podge. Almost.
It almost cries out to be put out if it’s misery, maybe to be laid to rest in a geneza.
It probably doesn’t cry out. That probably wouldn’t happen. It doesn’t have the name of God on it, anyways. It’s not particularly special. It’s not particularly holy.
Still. Someone clearly lit candles in it, at least once. Maybe before it came to sit on this shelf in the back of a Goodwill it was the crown jewel of a suburban windowsill. Maybe someone bought it in Israel, wrapped it in an undershirt and a magazine, stuffed it in the bottom of a suitcase, carried it across the ocean and brought it home. Maybe it had a home. Maybe it used to glow gloriously with the light of the miracle. Maybe children lit it-it’s shaped like Noah’s Ark and there’s something about kids and Noah’s Ark. It can’t be the destruction of the world and all the sinning, so it must be the animals. What is it with kids and Noah’s Ark?
But anyways. Maybe this menorah was really special, really treasured, really loved. Maybe. Probably not, though.
Probably it was a bar mitzvah gift from an aunt who no one ever liked. Probably it was never used except for one night in 2006 when it was discovered that no standard candles quite fit into it, no matter how hard they were stuffed and shoved and shaved and melted. The candles wouldn’t stay in, or stay up, or whatever, and so the menorah was chucked in the back of a cabinet to crack and molder and get dusty. And when mom and dad moved out of their house and the cabinet got emptied, it went to the Goodwill, along with altogether too many unworn sweaters and dad’s old gold clubs. Did dad even ever play golf? No one remembers him playing golf. Where did the gold clubs even come from?
But anyways. Probably this menorah was never loved. Probably it was discarded and dumped at this Goodwill to serve out the remainder of its days on this shelf amongst the saints and the rosaries. Maybe it isn’t lonely at all. Maybe it never had friends to begin with.
 
If you pick up the menorah that lays on its side on the shelf at the back of the Goodwill and run your hands carefully over the lion’s chipped mane, lay a finger on the fallen-down shamash, you probably won’t feel anything at all. You probably won’t feel a sudden urge to fall to the ground and pray, thanking God for your short life. Probably. Maybe.
You probably won’t want to take it home, because it’s ugly and broken. It’s never going to be repaired with modelling clay and googly eyes. It’s never going to get the chance to be loved. I mean, you’re not going to bring it home, and you’re Jewish, for Christ’s sake! It’ll probably get thrown out, thrown into a dumpster with all the clothes that are too stained to sell. It’ll go to a trash compacter, or a landfill, or wherever it is that unwanted things go. It’ll be gone. It’s too late. You’ll never get it back.
 
There’s a menorah sitting on the shelf at the back of the crappiest Goodwill in the city.
It’s all alone on the shelf, no one to talk to, except for a picture of the pope from two popes ago.
It’s very dusty. It has a lot of wax stuck to it.
It’s in the shape of Noah’s Ark, of the ship that sailed when all was lost. Of the ship that was supposed to save us all.
It’s a pretty damn broken menorah. It’s pretty damn beat up. It’s pretty damn old.
It isn’t lonely, though.
After all, it has the remaining bits of the animals for company.