Chanukah has just passed. It passed slowly for me as I suffered most of it, and still do, from a bad cold.  

I make it my business each year to 1) use the Roedelheim for the Hadlakah 2) Try to go through some of the histories of the events of Chanukah 3) To incorporate different things into each night’s lighting (tunes, gifts, or a visit to someone, or a dreidel game.) 

This year, at the Seforim store I saw a packet of cards that had in Yiddish the claim to be “Authentic Chanukah Kvittelach”. This raised the curiosity of a guy like me. I especially wanted to know what the Jewish card game is. The deck was also manufactured in Vienna, by a Jewish company. So there is more old-world charm there. 

Well, I opened the deck and sent an email for the instructions. The deck has old-world charm, to be sure. But it is basically numbered cards from one to twelve, with no face cards (Queen, King, etc.) The rules are basically identical to Blackjack! (Maybe fully identical, I don’t remember all the small rules.) 

So…was I a fool? Maybe not. The Rupshitz’er Rebbe wrote great warnings to his Chasidim against their customary Chanukah card games. Besides the time and money lost at that table, he argues- (perhaps to appeal to a certain element of his adherents?)- that it is well known that the cards contain “names of Gd that are invoked in an unholy vein” and that exposure to this is injurious to one’s soul. 

I am not aware of what was written on playing cards of his era, or were these tarot cards perhaps? Or, does he mean the original King, Queen, Jack and Ace ? Do they have meaning in the dark side? In any case, with these cards (retailing at 17$ !) I can feel free of any satanic influences. 

When using the Roedelheim for Hadlakah you have the Nusach used in KAJ “Lehadlik Ner Shelachanukah” – with the two words combined into one word. This gives the numeric count of which followers of Arizal aim for (13). And, it is a point of grammar, according to Seligman Baer, it indicates the fact that this candle is reserved for the Mitzvah alone and is not for personal use like the Shabbos candles.  

Further, you have the Haneiros Halalu as per the Abuderham.  

This year on one night I used a Roedelheim that is special to me. It was printed in 1938 in Germany, although the address of I. Kaufmann printers in New York is already present on the back of the title page. It was the last of its kind and came from a foreboding moment in history. It also indicates that it was purchased from a seforim store in Berlin.  

Finally, I want to mention the words of the Sheltos, who writes that the Menorah is on the right, the Mezuzah on the left, and the “Ba’al Habayis” with a garment of Tzitzis in the middle! This year for the merit of a soldier in Israel I began to wear my Tzitzis out of my belt again. The history: 

Of course, I was not raised with this habit. It was not done by German Jews, and likely because there was a (legitimate) fear of arousing “rishis”. Rav Schwab zt’l was known to say that he “never saw his rebbe’s tzitzis.” Did he mean Rav Breuer zt’l? I think he meant Rav Yeruchom zt’l in the Mir. 

Years later as I went to large Yeshivahs I began wearing them out, maybe to “fit in”, or maybe because of the words of the Mishnah Berurah. I don’t remember.  

Then after several years in the Lakewood Yeshivah, I suddenly realized that the bochurim from the Mir Yeshivah on Ocean Parkway – whose grandfathers attended the Yeshivah in Poland (like Rav Schwab) and even went through the arduous and miraculous journey to Shanghai, were wearing their Tzitzis inside! I thought to myself: They are the reason you wear them out? And they wear them in? So, I tucked them back in.  

Now, I feel that soldiers have entered a very perilous area for the sake of removing a ruthless enemy. Many of them have put on Tzitzis for the first time. They are proud to wear this symbol of their Judaism. The world around us is looking at us now and wondering what to make of us. Victims? Perpetrators?  

I felt this was my time to affiliate with Mitzvos and our brothers in Eretz Yisroel. I hope these words inspire someone to do their own “thing” to connect them with our brothers afar and bring an extra mitzvah into their lives. That is why I wrote these lines.