On 8th night a miracle, enroute to Hong Kong

The author, who lives in Merrick with his wife and children, is personal assistant to the novelist Barbara Taylor Bradford. He grew up in Oceanside.

Blame it all on Jackie Chan. It would have been a normal Chanukah if not for Hong Kong’s legendary movie action hero. 

In 1998, as marketing director for a Manhattan-based agency that designed and produced postage stamps for 70 foreign governments, it was my job to come up with unusual promotions to make postage stamps marketable to collectors the world over. Prior to 1995, no living celebrities had ever been featured on a postage stamp due to strict global taboos — only royalty, and a handful of world leaders, had owned this privilege. But in three years, through the promise of unprecedented publicity (and revenue generated from international collectors), I helped to pave the way, starting with a few skeptical Caribbean Postmasters. On the legal tender of a handful of nations, we placed a variety of living entertainment — Barbra Streisand, Sylvester Stallone, Bob Dylan, Bob Hope, Kirk Douglas, Michael Jordan, The Bee Gees, and then Jackie Chan.

The first Jackie Chan stamp was introduced at the Hong Kong World Postal Expo in 1997, an event attended by more than 30,000 people. The original Jackie Chan ceremony was so wildly successful, that Jackie and his managers sought to replicate the fanfare by organizing a “Jackie Chan Fan Festival” at the same venue, just one year later.

My colleagues and I generally planned these living postal tributes six months in advance. In the case of this second Jackie Chan postal tribute, we only had approximately eight weeks to create a design, find a willing government to participate (in this case it was Tanzania), and produce the stamps in time to be put on sale for this exhibition. Not ideal. Then again, the opportunity to team up for a second time with one of the world’s most beloved actions heroes was simply too good an opportunity to pass up. Jackie’s management provided us with photos from the movie and a deadline of mid-December to have the stamps printed and delivered to Hong Kong. Somehow, our art and production department pulled off a miracle of their own by getting the stamps produced in record time.

Because this was going to be the second time around with Jackie Chan, I didn’t anticipate another mega-media event, but then came the call on eruv Chanukah from none other than Jackie Chan himself. It turned my holiday plans inside-out.

Jackie Chan, despite his superstar status, was never shy about getting involved in the details of his business. In this case, he picked up the phone and urged me to “get my butt on a flight to Hong Kong” to organize another majestic ceremony to be held in front of several thousand of his most loyal hometown supporters. Jackie wanted the same legitimacy as his first stamp ceremony with all the same players on hand. That meant me.

A poster replica of the stamps was created overnight. My employer’s son and I scrambled to find last-minute flights to Hong Kong. We had less than a week to get all the details in place and fly to the Orient.

And then it hit me. I’d be flying to the other side of the planet on the seventh night of Chanukah.

From the time I was old enough to light my own menorah, I could never remember a night when I didn’t fulfill this special mitzvah. And yet, here I was, faced with a peculiar challenge of sorts. I would surely be able to light my candles at home in New York on the seventh night of Chanukah, before departing to the airport for my 10 pm flight. But what about the eighth night? Where and when would I be able to light a fully loaded menorah to fulfill the mitzvah? Surely not on a crowded airplane!

My itinerary on Asiana airlines included 25 hours of travel time, across the international dateline, with a pair of stops in between. By the time I would touch down at Hong Kong airport, it would already be into the day after Chanukah — too late to light the candles for night number 8.

The first stop would be in Anchorage, Alaska, around 1 am local time, still on the seventh night. The second stopover was scheduled for Seoul, South Korea, where I was scheduled to switch planes and take off for the final leg of the trip just one hour later. I calculated that this would be somewhere around 5 am local time the next morning.

I consulted with Rabbi Yaakov Schwartz, then of the Young Israel of Oceanside. We discussed a variety of options that included lighting eight candles upon my arrival in Hong Kong without a bracha; a second option was to recite the brachas over electric light on the plane. In the end, we checked a few details about my stopover in Seoul and came up with a game plan. It involved packing a small, lightweight menorah in my carry-on bag, a box with nine wax candles, a book of matches … and hoping for an earlier than expected arrival in Seoul.

Because Chanukah lasts a full eight days, one can technically light the candles with a bracha up until daybreak of what would be the ninth day. Sunrise in Seoul was not until sometime after 5:15 am local time. It was possible I would be able to light my menorah at the airport during my stop-over just prior to sunrise. However, the other part of this mitzvah is for the candles to burn for at least 30 minutes. For one to light the menorah with a bracha, this would technically require the candles to burn for a half hour within the eighth day of Chanukah. It was an iffy proposition, but it was also my best chance.

It must have been my personal Chanukah miracle. Or rather a series of miracles.

The plane from Anchorage to Seoul arrived in South Korea at approximately 4:45 am. Aside from the lights on the runway, I could see that it was still very much nighttime when we landed. I grabbed my carry-on bag from the overhead compartment, pushed my way though a narrow aisle, and hastily departed the plane. All the signs in the Seoul airport were written in Korean, hardly conducive for an English speaking traveler to locate a passenger lounge. To my good fortune, some illustrated overhead signs led the way to a glass enclosed room — the smoking section — perhaps the only public space in the airport where one could strike a match without being pounced on by security.

I entered the room and raced to the window for a peek outside, where it was still dark at 4:53 am, still technically Chanukah in a country where few would even know from the holiday. Now, I needed a place to set up shop. I spotted a metal radiator against the far wall and headed straight there. As I unpacked my menorah and candle box, I noticed that there were probably a half dozen foreign travelers around me, all of them puffing on nicotine in between international flights.

Miraculously, not one of them seemed to react adversely as I balanced the foil menorah atop the radiator and inserted the eight wax candles of assorted colors. The matchbook was found at the bottom of my canvas bag. I struck one against the package and promptly lit the shammash candle. A quick recitation of the brachas was followed by a hurried lighting of the eight candles, and finally the careful placement of the shammash at the center.

And then I waited. For 30 frantic, paranoid minutes, I stood nervously in this smoking lounge next to my menorah, checking my watch often in anticipation of meeting my connecting flight. The travelers around me surely could have called airport security. The site of a man with a wax burning candelabra in the middle of an international airport had to appear highly peculiar at minimum. And yet, despite a few odd glances, not a single person protested, or phoned the authorities. Another miracle of good fortune.

Finally, it was 5:25 am. My candles had burned for the required 30 minutes and it remained sufficiently dark outside, which meant it was technically still Chanukah. I drew a deep breath, blew out the remains of the eight candles, tucked my still-smoking menorah into a bag, and threw that bag back inside my carry-on. Now it was time to catch my connecting flight; a press conference with Jackie Chan awaited in a matter of hours. I raced to the gate number printed on my ticket. Thankfully, numbers in Korean don’t differ from those in America. There was a line of people waiting to board at gate 27 for Hong Kong. I had made it in time. 

As I stood waiting to enter the plane, a wide grin spread across my face. Through the large terminal windows I watched a beautiful sunrise emerge over the mountains of Seoul. Chanukah was officially over, but my mission — or rather my obligation — had been accomplished. A little ingenuity and an early arrival time enabled me to fulfill the eighth night mitzvah in the oddest of places. I can’t imagine that I will again experience a more memorable menorah lighting. All thanks, of course, to Jackie Chan.