Jewish Hanukkah, Buddhist Monks, Hindu City, and Miriam

See the Photo Below.

Just before Christmas, Jewish people world over celebrated the holiday of Hanukkah. We got invited to a Hanukkah party, here in Varanasi, a Hindu Holy city, where we mostly hang out with Muslims.

There is a Fullbright scholar here, a Wisconsin Buddhist (Wisconsin being the hotbed of Buddhism that it it), along with his delightful Jewish wife and two kids, close to our two eldest in age. It was this young Mom who decided to have a Hanukkah party.

So she invited those she knew in This Fair City, which mostly included Buddhist Monks (as that is what her husband is researching) and us.

So in this Hindu holy city where we hang out with Muslims, we attended a Jewish Holiday party, with mostly Buddhist monks and some Australian hippy Christians.

It gets more convoluted.

So we find out that one popular game to play at Hanukkah is called "Dreidel", similar to a single die (singular of dice), in commemoration of the Jewish people who would pretend to be gambling with The Dreidel, when they were actually studying the Scriptures, during a time when this was forbidden (the studying, that is, not the gambling).

So the guests at the party gambled for peanuts with the Dreidel. Most were quickly out of the game, until it was just our four year old Miriam and three Tibetan monks. The Tibetan monks were totally into the game, talking furiously in Tibetan and spinning the Dreidel, watching intently to see where it would land, and shouting out who had won what.

Miriam sat very calmly and completely silently, spinning the Dreidel when it was her turn, to much acclamation from the Tibetan monks. While the monks were cut-throat with each other, they may have occasionally helped Miriam out a bit.

So now our friend just calls her "Miriam the Dreidel Shark".

It was an image I will not easily forget. I wish you could hear it.