Twelve Tribes and my number

It's my personal number: twelve!  I was born on the twelfth day of the twelfth month, and yes, it resonates during Hanukkah with its candles joining the triumphant lights on the menorah, whatever tribe you derive from.  Plus, I remember watching from an ancient Dodge sedan as my family house was being built, the brick tapestry of the chimney rising skyward, at number twelve Creston (where I live to this day)  and then there’s my summer retreat which also wears the number twelve above the front door. 

Twelve represents the totality of the tribes of Israel, appearing in the twelve showbread loaves in the Temple, the High Priest's breastplate with twelve stones, and the twelve months of the year. Twelve has significant symbolic and often mystical meaning.

The beloved late survivor, Mr. Adler, long-time ritual director at Temple Emanu-El, had a perhaps odd interpretation of the implication of why all the Hanukkah candles must be the same size:  it meant that America had to equalize the opportunities for one and all and play fair, in a democracy.   Therefore, the Jewish religion was by implication the most egalitarian faith:  There you have it:  Judaism!  Hurrah! Our nation was founded in quest of freedom from British control.

Our nation was a retreat from Europe  in quest of freedoms as depicted by Norman Rockwell on the monthly covers of the magazine and within the museums here in our smallest state, Rhode Island!  Good things come in small packages!

Here is a wonderful and elaborate footnote for Hanukkah.  The Cape Verdean Museum in Pawtucket tells a tale of the history of slavery in the American economy.  In addition, the museum addresses the Jewish migration to Cape Verde which dates from the 16th century, when Sephardic Jews fled the Inquisition in Spain and Portugal. The Cape Verdean islands were much closer to the Iberian Peninsula than the Americas and, as a Portuguese colony, the language and culture of Cape Verde was familiar to many Sephardic refugees. A second wave of Jewish migrants arrived from Morocco in the 1840s.

I visited the museum’s collection of photographs, musical instruments and other material and found it quite fascinating.  Some years ago I traveled to Cape Verde, and the wonderful exhibition the museum mounted in the spring of 2023 impressed me enormously and seemed a perfect way to celebrate and to recall that journey when first I launched my research project. I want to thank the staff at this museum for their courtesy, kind reception and thorough research into the connection between Sephardic Jews and Cape Verde - perhaps of special interest to toast among the Hanukkah candles this year when we need candlelight more than ever!

MIKE FINK (mfink33@aol.com) is a professor emeritus at the Rhode Island School of Design.