December 7, 2004 - Tonight is the first night
of the festival of
Chanukah. Lighting the Chanukah menorah is a custom in Jewish
homes
throughout the world, celebrating the miracle of Chanukah
2300 years
ago and miracles that take place today. Each candle should
be lit
with the following in mind: That we are about to enter a
new era of
history, an era of miracles and light, in which all people
will live
together in peace and harmony.
Chanukah has a special meaning for all people who believe
in freedom
of religion. The history of Chanukah occurred during the
days when
the Greeks ruled Jerusalem and attempted to bar the Jewish
people
from expressing their belief that G-d runs the world. When
a small
band of fighters miraculously overwhelmed the powerful Greek
army,
religious freedom was restored to Israel, and a further miracle
occurred when a small vial of pure oil (enough to light the
Menorah
in the Temple for one day) lasted for eight days.
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Miracles
at the Table
In
honor of Chanukah, we at bridgetoday.com would like to
invite
readers to relate any miracle stories of their own, at or away from
the bridge table. Here's a personal one. Several
years ago, in Buffalo, I was playing in a Vanderbilt teams
with my wife, Pamela, and teammates Steve Weinstein and Fred Stewart.
In the round of 16, we were losing by 59 imps going into the last
quarter (16 hands to play) against four world champions. When we came
out of the playing room to compare scores, our teammates, Weinstein
and Stewart, were very excited. They had had a terrific set. We
scored it up, added, subtracted, and the result was a pick-up of 58
imps to our side. We had lost by one imp! We
stood there in silence. A strange thing happened. We realized
the
entire hallway was silent. On the other side of the hallway our
opponents had been calculating the score as well and had finished
totaling it. The strange thing was that we had not heard the usual
victory cheer from the other team. It's quite normal to let out a
cheer if you hold onto a one-imp victory! So
we looked at our scorecards again, and then we noticed
a
vulnerability mistake. On one board we had scored +50 when the
opponents were vulnerable, so it should have been +100. This made a
one-imp difference in the score. We had picked up 59 imps to tie the
match! Well, we were so elated that we felt like we had won the
match. We went back into the ballroom to play an eight-board playoff
and picked up an additional 50 imps to win the match by 50!
READERS
who would like to submit their own miracle stories please
do
so by email to matt@bridgetoday.com. We will publish the story here.
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