Rabbi Eliyahu Safran

REDEMPTION, THE ULTIMATE MIRACLEA DREIDEL STORY

BY

RABBI ELIYAHU SAFRAN…

My dreidels delight me.

They delight me because of their colors and shapes; they delight me because of all that

they represent, and they delight me because guests in our home smile when they see them. But

sometimes a guest will look at my collection with a curious twinkle and ask: “But why so many?

Why would you ever need another one?”

Like children, my dreidels are each a miracle. Each has a story to tell; each, so like 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, “More dreidels, more miracles.”

After all, the message of the dreidel is: A great miracle happened here!

The dreidel’s message is particular and universal. A great miracle happened in the time of

the Maccabees. So too, do miracles occur each day, miracles both obvious and hidden. “More

miracles, more dreidels,” I proclaim.

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, “These

are kodesh—holy!”

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Rabbi Eliyahu Safran

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.

Seven. Seven little dreidels. So simple, so modest. They are… 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 spinning them and, despite the shadows of the bunker or shelter or attic

where they hide, their eyes are filled with wonder.

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, “Help us! Bring us home!”

My own eyes filled with tears. I wanted them to tell me their story. “Where are you?”

Their answer was as clear as if they were in the room next to me. “Gan Eden. We are in

Gan Eden with millions of kedoshim.”

I leaned closer still, until my face was almost pressed against the monitor. Their voices

were the voices of the yiddelech who perished during the horrors of the Shoah, pleading with me,

begging me to return them to the land of living Jews.

“Do not let us be forgotten!” They cried. “We know, we know that the Jewish people

were not destroyed.” They whispered, “Am Yisroel Chai.” Then the hum of a melody—a song of

Reb Shlomo’s? I could not be sure. “Do not let us be forgotten!”

What could I do? What could I do?

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Rabbi Eliyahu Safran

The site directed me to a certain Polish woman, a Katarzyna Sosnowska G. “She will

know more…”

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 “collector.” But, I

emphasized, I would not purchase these objects unless and until I learned everything I could

about them. “I am a discerning collector,” I emphasized. “I am only interested in objects worthy

of my attention.”

How my heart pounded as I engaged in this exchange with her. I already knew 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.

“All 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—

it is Mazovia region.” These are her exact words as written, without correction, embellishment

or comment!

But why, I asked were dreidels to be found in that region and in Poland?

“This dreidels was find on the places where before World War II live Jewish peoples.

Such dreidels are in Polish museums are dated XIX centuries and the degree of corrosion can

proved that it is truth.” 

She continued that if I want to, “buy several I can make you discount.” 

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Rabbi Eliyahu Safran

I closed my eyes and could see kinderlach 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!

So, their provenance was true. But I needed to know more. For the sake of the kinderlach

I had to be sure.

“Are you in Poland now?”

On December 6, 2014, she replied, “Yes, am from POLAND :)” 

“And the dreidels were found in their homes?”

“I 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.”

I shuddered reading those words. “Interesting,” I typed. “So, people find these objects in

different places and then bring them to you to sell?” I read and reread my message several times

before hitting “send.” I wanted to sound like an educated collector while keeping my true interest

and awareness of the Holocaust hidden.

She seemed impatient with my “ignorance” of history. “No,” she insisted. “The 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. Sometimes they find in places in town where

are road digging by the workers.”

I studied her words with the intensity of a Kabbalist. “Dreidels from sediments.” “There

used to be ‘Jewish live there.’” “Road digging.” She could not, in her wildest dreams, have

imagined that those workers were laboring on behalf of the kinderlach who wanted me to bring

their dreidels back to my home in Boro Park!

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Rabbi Eliyahu Safran

“It’s now 1:15 AM in Poland,” she wrote. “So, I have to sleep because I am tired. I can

write tomorrow if you want more details.”

That would be fine, I responded. Fine? It would be more than fine! There was so much

more that I needed to know—but so many of my questions, I knew, would go unasked. For there

could be no politically correct way to ask a Polish “dreidel handler” the questions I would

demand of her!

The next day, I asked her to explain to me the way these objects were used.

I could sense the impatience in her answer. “It 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.”

Katarzyna then generously suggested, “You can read about dreidels here:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreidel” She concluded, “I am not Jewish, but I am interesting of this

Nation.”

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 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.

Most of my dreidels are from Israel. Imagine, to have these dreidels from the European

Gehinom alongside the dreidels from the homeland that God gave the Jewish people—a

renewed, rejuvenated rebuilt homeland!

I pressed Katarzyna, “Is there any more information about the dreidels that were found in

Poland?” 

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Rabbi Eliyahu Safran

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. “I don’t know more about this items.

Peoples find it digging in the ground. Dreidels lay in ground over 70 years…”

Yes, and now they can be redeemed so that they can rejoin the land of the living!

“…before World War II in my town – Nowy Dwor Mazowiecki – over 60% citizens were

Jewish, so we still find here Judaica like dreidels, badges, medallions.” And then, she summed

up, “But in all regions in Poland there are towns like Nowy Dwor (Niehofer) Mazowiecki where

lived many Jewish man. Lots of Jewish used be here.”

She could add nothing more. So, we negotiated a price for seven dreidels. Why seven?

Perhaps because “7” represents shleimus—completeness, restfulness. I wanted the kinderlach to

find solace and menucha nechona—proper rest.

“Ok. 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.” (Could

she have any inkling as to the power of this statement?)  

Then, as we concluded our negotiation, this is the final thing the Polish woman wrote on

December 7, 2014, “it is very sad that one man another man had prepared such a fate.”  

* * *

  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.

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Rabbi Eliyahu Safran

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.

They are, indeed, kadosh. As such, I cannot bring myself to display them. That which is

sacred must be covered. This is the true lesson of tzinus. 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.

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.

“How can one man another man prepared such a fate?”

“They are kadsosh. I need to kiss them.” 

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’s settlement of

Atzmona. Life was not easy there, but every resident believed they had a purpose in being there.

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.

Expelled from his home, Yedidya felt, “…empty and lonely,” 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

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Rabbi Eliyahu Safran

border with Egypt and Gaza. Everything in Halutza speaks to growth, production, development,

and innovation where yesteryear a leaf could not grow.

Today, Yedidya’s 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.

He is clear that nothing can stand in the path of life and growth in Israel, as long as, “…

we understand that we are here for a reason.”

I was walking with Yedidya along King George Street in Jerusalem on Motzaei Shabbat

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’s wife, Shiran and their two children. Yedidya

began to describe the various objects he had produced from the materials he’d collected from the

Kassam rocket pieces that had rained down upon the Sderot region.

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, “A designed rocket necklace—They tried to destroy us, but we create.”

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’s lobby mezuzah collection.

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Rabbi Eliyahu Safran

Suddenly, my thoughts were centered on another image. “Wait! Do you know about my

dreidel collection…”? 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’s Iron

Dome Missile Defense system!

Neis Gadol Haya Po!

Terrorists might seek to destroy Israel, but their rockets will be transformed into symbols

of Israel’s redemption!

Excitedly, I explained the image in my mind. Yedidya was immediately overwhelmed.

“Tell me again what it is you would like me to design and create.”

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, souls, hovering all the way from

Poland. “Imagine the message! Imagine the impact of these redeemed souls connecting with

God’s ‘defense system’!”

And now, that Iron Dome dreidel is resting on my desk. Yedidya brought it to my home

on 15 Cheshvan—October 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—also formed from a piece of

Kassam rocket—had been shaped into a map of Israel with the stick/handle pointed directly at

Sderot, the target of so many of those rockets.

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Rabbi Eliyahu Safran

Neis Gadol Haya Po!

When I showed him my seven dreidels, he pronounced them kadosh. Then he bent down

to kiss them, just as he would have kissed the Kotel.

When he left a short while later, I hugged and kissed Yedidya. “Thank you,” I said to

him, “thank you for allowing me to welcome a modern-day miracle into our home.”

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 whispering, “Now we are at rest. Thank you for bringing us here; now we know we

are redeemed and that the Ribono shel Olam will never allow “one man another man prepare

such a fate…”

It was then that the Iron Dome dreidel chimed in, “…and if he does, Hashem will provide

us with His Defense System!”

I cannot help but reflect on my dreidels, all of them, and the powerful message of miracle

and redemption that they teach. Who could have ever imagined that my seven pewter dreidels

would ever find their way to my home? And in that miraculous journey, I sensed another

message of the dreidel. For, just as the dreidel spins and lands with only one side up, history and

experience also show us only some of reality. The four sides of the dreidel teach that we are

never truly seeing the whole story and that there is always another side that remains hidden to us.

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Rabbi Eliyahu Safran

When we begin to grasp the deep truth of the dreidel, we come to understand that with so

much beyond our understanding, we have to have faith in hidden miracles and in God. We

simply cannot comprehend the meaning of the countless events that mark our long history.

Bridging the near-insurmountable distance between hayamim hahem to ba’zeman hazeh

is the mystical gift of our survival—physical, spiritual and religious. That same bridge—that

carries us from the hei of the dreidel to the neis!

 

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