It’s no small potatoes, getting a bunch of guys together in that tiny kitchen in that tiny synagogue like that, but Rich Cohen always finds a way to make it happen.
Cohen is a member of the Tree of Life Congregation on South High Street.
You won’t find it on his business card, but he’s also part of the (unofficial) senior management for the synagogue’s famed “Latke Brigade” – which, for several years, has helped Tree of Life launch Hanukkah.
Latkes are the potato pancakes that are a staple of the Jewish festival, the 2022 edition of which began last Sunday and runs through Monday – making for eight days of reflection and prayers, to go with the fun and the food.
Hanukkah or no, all of the above is just part of the day-to-day at Tree of Life.
And most everyone there is a sojourner to Morgantown and the Mountain State, by way of school and jobs.
It took Rabbi Joe Hample until the age of 40 to find his voice in the faith.
He’s a Harvard-trained scholar who was working at Wells Fargo in San Francisco when he finally heeded the call.
Meanwhile, an ancient call of Appalachia brought Cohen, who was practicing law in Manhattan, to the Mountain State.
In 1979, he and a group of family members went in on 79 acres in Wetzel County, intent on turning the expanse into a working farm – which they did for a time.
When his wife became pregnant and the farm got to be too much, they had to give it up.
The couple didn’t give up on West Virginia, though. They moved to Morgantown, where Cohen took up his original trade.
At its most fundamental core, that’s what Hanukkah is about: Not giving up.
It goes back to ancient Greece, where Jews were laboring under the reign of Antiochus IV Epiphanes, a Greco-Syrian king in Jerusalem who outlawed their faith and desecrated their temple.
The oppression carried a cruel taunt: The ruler made Jews sacrifice pigs, which are non-kosher animals, on the altar.
When the Maccabees rose up to defeat the king – and the oil for the menorah burned eight days when there was really only enough for one – a miracle was born in the telling, with everything else, to follow.
“The weak defeated the strong,” Hample said. “It was the first victory for religious freedom.”
Today, that’s again unfolding in Eastern Europe, as Ukrainians continue to stubbornly push back at Russia’s repeated assaults on their cities and land.
That many are languishing in the cold and dark of winter due to targeted attacks on their power grids – can make some stark contrasts to Hanukkah and its miracle of the candles on the menorah.
Especially since those on the receiving end continue to be unwavering in their resolve.
Call that faith, the local rabbi said.
Which was part of his Hanukkah message last weekend.
“We all need a little light in the darkness,” he said. “And this is the season of miracles.”
Last Sunday at Tree of Life, with the latkes sizzling in oil, it was all about family.
Shoulder-to-shoulder, the brigade was, with cardboard on the floor – a Cohen intervention – to avoid any unsure footing.
In keeping with tradition, the cooks enjoy a shot of plum brandy, or slivovitz, between each batch of latkes.
Also with that tradition at Tree of Life, a once-and-former West Virginia farmer, by way of Brooklyn, almost always leads that first toast.
“L’Chaim,” Cohen will say, lifting his glass.
To life.
TWEET @DominionPostWV
