From the Shamash

My dearest Emma,

I am the candle that stands a little higher than the rest, and my job is the simplest one there is: I am lit first, and then I light the others. That is all I do, eight nights running. Tonight I did it in a window belonging to somebody I am fond of: EMMA.

Here is the thing about me that I would like you to notice, Emma. When people count the candles, they do not count me. Eight nights, eight candles — and I am not one of them. I am the ninth, the helper, the one that does the work and is left out of the total. I am not complaining. I am telling you because it is the most interesting thing about my job.

Because I do not get smaller by lighting the others. Not by anything at all. Nobody has ever lost light by giving light. That is not a nice saying somebody made up, it is a plain fact about fire, and you can check it tonight by looking at me.

We go in the window on purpose. Not the back of the house, not the kitchen — the window, where the street can see. The whole point is that other people see it burning.

Chag Urim Sameach,
from the one that does the lighting —

The Shamash

The Helper Candle

Doing the quiet, useful thing and not being counted for it is, as it happens, my entire profession.