Or we can be the type of person who spreads light. We can be someone who snuffs out another person’s candle and, in the process, makes the world a darker place. They remind us that we always have a choice. “But what I always explained to Jacob is that these candles are a metaphor.

She quieted, a small sadness sitting there at the tip of her throat. What does this mean? It means we get very earnest conversations about the meaning of everything, using Jewish tradition as a metaphor. (Rachel says to Jacob at one point that when she was a child, she thought the whole world was Jewish, because her whole world was.) It was a fascinating reading experience for me: my closest connection to Judaism is through my husband, who describes himself as “Jew…ish”, and his upbringing was even less Jewish than Jacob’s (which the book paints as barely on the edges of the community). The characters, especially Rachel, are very immersed in Jewish life and the local community, to the point of insularity. This is not a criticism, merely a statement of fact. The first thing that you should know about The Matzah Ball is that it is very very Jewish. Plot: Rachel needs to write a Hanukkah romance and is feeling uninspired-so she tries to get a ticket to the Matzah Ball, a huge party being planned by none other than her first love. Character Chemistry: Soulmates, in the “you fill in my missing pieces” sense of the word

The Matzah Ball by Jean Meltzer