Like children, my dreidels are each a miracle. Each has a story to tell; each, so similar to the others and yet as unique as fingerprints. Still, while I delight in them, I often do not respond to the question this way. Instead, I tend to say, \u201cMore dreidels, more miracles.\u201d<\/p>\n
After all, the message of the dreidel is: A great miracle happened here!<\/p>\n
The dreidel\u2019s message is particular and universal. A great miracle happened in the time of the Maccabees. So too, do miracles occur each and every day, miracles both obvious and hidden. \u201cMore miracles, more dreidels,\u201d I proclaim.<\/p>\n
But sometimes my rabbinic voice and my more emotional voice speak as one. This happened this past year when I welcomed seven dreidels to my collection that added more than color, style, or delight. As a friend tearfully exclaimed when he saw them on my desk, \u201cThese are kodesh<\/em>\u2014holy!\u201d<\/p>\n These dreidels speak of the great miracle of redemption, of the eternal bond between God and Am Yisrael. These dreidels call out from the depths of our shared misery in voices that are, at once, cries of despair and songs of rejoicing.<\/p>\n * * *<\/p>\n Seven. Seven little dreidels. So simple, so modest. They are\u2026 tiny. So very small. Yet, they have a strength and power to them that is hard to express. Gazing at them, it is possible to imagine kinderlach <\/em>spinning them and, despite the shadows of the bunker or shelter or attic where they hide, their eyes are filled with wonder.<\/p>\n These dreidels are homemade, fashioned in Europe from pewter before the Second World War. I first came upon them as images on my computer screen. Offered for sale, I leaned closer to my computer monitor. These dreidels seemed to look back at me with tear-filled eyes. I could hear them crying out to me, \u201cHelp us! Bring us home!\u201d<\/p>\n My own eyes filled with tears. I wanted them to tell me their story. \u201cWhere are you?\u201d<\/p>\n Their answer was as clear as if they were in the room next to me. \u201cGan Eden. We are in Gan Eden with millions of kedoshim<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n I leaned closer still, until my face was almost pressed against the monitor. Their voices were the voices of the yiddelech<\/em> who perished during the horrors of the Shoah, pleading with me, begging me to return them to the land of living Jews.<\/p>\n \u201cDo not let us be forgotten!\u201d They cried. \u201cWe know, we know <\/em>that the Jewish people were not destroyed.\u201d They whispered, \u201cAm Yisroel Chai.\u201d Then the hum of a melody\u2014a song of Reb Shlomo\u2019s? I could not be sure. \u201cDo not let us be forgotten!\u201d<\/p>\n What could I do? What could I do?<\/p>\n The site directed me to a certain Polish woman, a Katarzyna Sosnowska G. \u201cShe will know more\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n And so began a detective story of sorts. One in which I needed to shield my Jewish identity from Katarzyna, sensing that if she knew that I was a Jew and certainly if she knew I was a rabbi then all would be lost. I only allowed her to know that that I was a \u201ccollector.\u201d But, I emphasized, I would not purchase these objects unless and until I learned everything I could about them. \u201cI am a discerning collector,\u201d I emphasized. \u201cI am only interested in objects worthy of my attention.\u201d<\/p>\n How my heart pounded as I engaged in this exchange with her. I already knew <\/em>their worth to exceed anything she could imagine. Yet, I had to pursue this strategy lest these dreidels once again fall into the shadows of history.<\/p>\n \u201cAll of my dreidels are found in Poland. I bought it from the peoples who find them. Most of them are find 30 km from Warsaw in town Modlin, Zakroczym and Nowy Dwor Mazowiecki\u2014it is Mazovia region.\u201d<\/em> These are her exact words <\/em>as written, without correction, embellishment or comment!<\/p>\n But why, I asked were dreidels to be found in that region and in Poland?<\/p>\n \u201cThis dreidels was find on the places where before World War II live Jewish peoples.<\/strong> Such dreidels are in Polish museums are\u00a0dated XIX centuries and the degree of corrosion can proved that it is truth.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n She continued that if I want to, \u201cbuy several I can make you discount.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n I closed my eyes and could see kinderlach<\/em> laughing in delight as they spun their tiny little pewter dreidels all around Mazovia, Poland. Buy several? I want to buy them all! I want to redeem them all!<\/p>\n So their provenance was true. But I needed to know more. For the sake of the kinderlach <\/em>I had to be sure.<\/p>\n \u201cAre you in Poland now?\u201d<\/p>\n On December 6, 2014, she replied, \u201cYes, am from POLAND :)<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAnd the dreidels were found in their homes?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI wrote it to you, I have people whose find it and sell it to me. This region where I live was inhabited by the Jewish. They was the majority of the citizens of the city<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n I shuddered reading those words. \u201cInteresting,\u201d I typed. \u201cSo people find these objects in different places and then bring them to you to sell?\u201d I read and reread my message several times before hitting \u201csend.\u201d I wanted to sound like an educated collector while keeping my true interest and awareness of the Holocaust hidden.<\/p>\n She seemed impatient with my \u201cignorance\u201d of history. \u201cNo<\/em>,\u201d she insisted. \u201cThe Jewish live here before WWII. Dreidels are find in the old markets or its sediments. Currently, where Jewish live are meadows or fields of agricultural.\u00a0Sometimes they find in places in town where are road digging by the workers.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n I studied her words with the intensity of a Kabbalist. \u201cDreidels from sediments.<\/em>\u201d \u201cThere used to be \u2018Jewish live there.<\/em>\u2019\u201d \u201cRoad digging.<\/em>\u201d She could not, in her wildest dreams, have imagined that those workers were laboring on behalf of the kinderlach<\/em> who wanted me to\u00a0bring their dreidels back to my home in Boro Park!<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s now 1:15 AM in Poland,<\/em>\u201d she wrote. \u201cSo I have to sleep because I am tired. I can write tomorrow if you want more details.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n That would be fine, I responded. Fine? It would be more than fine! There was so much more that I needed to know\u2014but so many of my questions, I knew, would go unasked. For there could be no politically correct way to ask a Polish \u201cdreidel handler\u201d the questions I would demand of her!<\/p>\n The next day, I asked her to explain to me the way these objects were used.<\/p>\n I could sense the impatience in her answer. \u201cIt is a toy for kids. Nowadays dreidels are made from wood or plastic or some metal but in XIX century they were made from pewter.<\/em>\u201d Katarzyna then generously suggested, \u201cYou can read about dreidels here: en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Dreidel<\/em>\u201d She concluded, \u201cI am not Jewish but I am interesting of this Nation.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n I could have simply made my offer and gotten the dreidels but I held off. I could not let go, not while I could still feel the piercing glance of the kinderlach <\/em>from Gan Eden. Somehow I knew that they know that in my home there are countless living, joyous dreidels from all over the world. There are even singing dreidels! But not one from Poland. Not one from a land of so much of our suffering.<\/p>\n Most of my dreidels are from Israel. Imagine, to have these dreidels from the European\u00a0Gehinnom\u00a0<\/em>alongside the dreidels from the homeland that God gave the Jewish people\u2014a renewed, rejuvenated rebuilt homeland!<\/p>\n I pressed Katarzyna, \u201cIs there any more information about the dreidels that were found in Poland?\u201d<\/p>\n What else could she tell me? She had told me all she knew. She directed me to Wikipedia. I could almost see her shrug as she typed. \u201cI don\u2019t know more about this items. Peoples find it digging in the ground. Dreidels lay in ground over 70 years\u2026\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Yes, and now they can be redeemed so that they can rejoin the land of the living!<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201c\u2026before<\/em><\/strong> World War II in my town \u2013 Nowy Dwor Mazowiecki \u2013 over 60% citizens were Jewish, <\/strong>so we still find here Judaica like dreidels, badges, medallions.<\/em>\u201d And then, she summed up, \u201cBut in all regions in Poland there are towns like Nowy Dwor (Niehofer)\u00a0Mazowiecki where lived many Jewish man. Lots of Jewish used be here.<\/strong><\/em>\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n She could add nothing more. So, we negotiated a price for seven dreidels. Why seven? Perhaps because \u201c7\u201d represents shleimus<\/em>\u2014completeness, restfulness. I wanted the kinderlach <\/em>to find solace and menucha nechona\u2014<\/em>proper rest.<\/p>\n \u201cOk. You have a real talent for bargaining. You are true collector and this dreidels are real piece of Polish Jewish people history. They survived the Holocaust in the ground<\/em>.\u201d (Could she have any inkling as to the power of this <\/em>statement?)<\/p>\n Then, as we concluded our negotiation, this is the final thing the Polish woman wrote on December 7, 2014, \u201cit is very sad that one man another man had prepared such a fate<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n * * *<\/p>\n And so these seven modest dreidels are now in my possession. Seven, small, pewter dreidels. They are not yet settled, but they are here. They are with me.<\/p>\n I have so many other dreidels, dreidels of masterful craftsmanship, dreidels of colors and brightness and joy. Dreidels of sterling silver, ceramic, wood, plastic and glass. Dreidels that play music, that flash lights. But none of them are as restless as these seven.<\/p>\n They are, indeed, kadosh<\/em>. As such, I cannot bring myself to display them. That which is sacred must be covered. This is the true lesson of tzinus<\/em>. So I keep these close to me and every day I hear them, every day I know they cry still for the millions and millions.<\/p>\n They longed for redemption, to be brought to my home and yet they also cherish privacy for none of us can ever understand what they have gone through.<\/p>\n \u201cHow can one man another man prepared such a fate?\u201d<\/p>\n * * *<\/p>\n \u201cThey are\u00a0kadosh<\/i>. I need to kiss them.\u201d<\/p>\n Yedidya Harush recognized their holiness as soon as he set eyes upon them. A young man of twenty-six, he had been born and spent his youngest years in Gush Katif\u2019s settlement of Atzmona. Life was not easy there, but every resident believed they had a purpose in being there.<\/p>\n Then, on his seventeenth birthday, the Israeli government, in the belief that by ceding Gaza back to the Palestinians, peace would be brought closer, exiled all Israelis from the Gaza Strip. But peace has not been brought closer. The opposite has occurred. More terror. More disruption. More war.<\/p>\n Expelled from his home, Yedidya felt, \u201c\u2026empty and lonely,\u201d like a stranger. Eventually after serving as a paratrooper in the IDF and about to start law school, Yedidya was contacted by some former Atzmona chevra reaching out to relocate to Halutza, in the northwest Negev on the border with Egypt and Gaza.\u00a0Everything in Halutza speaks to growth, production, development, and innovation where yesteryear a leaf could not grow.<\/p>\n Today, Yedidya\u2019s heart, mind, and soul is dedicated to bringing a message of optimism, renewal and faith to all he comes into contact with. Despite the obstacles he has encountered, he holds that there is a better tomorrow to come.<\/p>\n He is clear that nothing can stand in the path of life and growth in Israel, as long as, \u201c\u2026we understand that we are here for a reason.\u201d<\/p>\n I was walking with Yedidya along King George Street in Jerusalem on Motzei Shabbat <\/em>right before Yom Kippur. We were out for a bite to eat, Yedidya and I, my wife, Clary, Jerry and Shelly Abramson, friends from home, Yedidya\u2019s wife, Shiran and their two children. Yedidya began to describe the various objects he had produced from the materials he\u2019d collected from the Kassam rocket pieces that had rained down upon the Sderot region.<\/p>\n What creativity and ingenuity! To take pieces of destruction and havoc and transform them into expressions of hope and joy! He makes jewelry from these rocket fragments, each in a box with a card saying, \u201cA designed rocket necklace\u2014They tried to destroy us but we create.\u201d<\/p>\n We continued on our way, enjoying the evening and the conversation. We were passing the Jerusalem Great Synagogue when Yedidya spoke about the mezuzah he was designing to be added to the Great Synagogue\u2019s lobby mezuzah collection.<\/p>\n Suddenly, my thoughts were centered on another image. \u201cWait! Do you know about my dreidel collection\u2026\u201d Even as I spoke those words, I could picture a dreidel created from the fragments of a Kassam rocket. And if that dreidel were to also use materials from Israel\u2019s Iron Dome Missile Defense system!<\/p>\n Neis Gadol Haya Po!<\/p>\n Terrorists might seek to destroy Israel but their rockets will be transformed into symbols of Israel\u2019s redemption!<\/p>\n Excitedly, I explained the image in my mind. Yedidya was immediately overwhelmed. \u201cTell me again what it is you would like me to design and create.\u201d<\/p>\n As I described my idea, I shared with him the story of my seven pewter dreidels. My voice was soft and insistent as I described the neshamos,<\/em> souls, hovering all the way from Poland. \u201cImagine the message! Imagine the impact of these redeemed souls connecting with God\u2019s \u2018defense system\u2019!\u201d<\/p>\n * * *<\/p>\n And now, that Iron Dome dreidel is resting on my desk. Yedidya brought it to my home on 15 Cheshvan\u2014October 28, 2015. He rested it on my desk carefully, lovingly. As he did, he described its composition in detail. Its stick was crafted from a piece of Kassam rocket fired at Israel from Gaza. Its body was formed from pieces of the Iron Dome that intercepted the Kassam rockets intended to destroy the Jewish homeland. The base\u2014also formed from a piece of Kassam rocket\u2014had been shaped into a map of Israel with the stick\/handle pointed directly at Sderot, the target of so many of those rockets.<\/p>\n Neis Gadol Haya Po!<\/p>\n When I showed him my seven dreidels, he pronounced them kadosh<\/em>. Then he bent down to kiss them, just as he would have kissed the Kotel.<\/p>\n When he left a short while later, I hugged and kissed Yedidya. \u201cThank you,\u201d I said to him, \u201cthank you for allowing me to welcome a modern day miracle into our home.\u201d<\/p>\n When I was once again alone, seated at my desk, I could not help but stare at my new, Iron Dome dreidel. I closed my eyes and, in my silence, I thought I could hear my seven pewter kinderlach <\/em>whispering, \u201cNow we are at rest. Thank you for bringing us here; now we know we are redeemed and that the Ribono shel Olam<\/em> will never allow \u201cone man another man prepare such a fate\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n It was then that the Iron Dome dreidel chimed in, \u201c\u2026and if he does, Hashem will provide us with His Defense System!\u201d<\/p>\n![\"DSC_4091\"](\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/holidays\/files\/DSC_4091.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n