The Chanukah festival has arrived. This is undoubtedly one of the most wonderful holidays for the entire family.
There is an atmosphere of winter outside, the rain beats against the windowpane; inside the Chanukah candles are flickering and the whole family is seated around the table eating holiday delicacies – sufganiyot, playing with the dreidle. And we haven’t forgotten that the children have an added bonus on this holiday: “Chanukah gelt!” Those coins that parents and grandparents have customarily given to their children and grandchildren for years. Sometimes it is only a few shekels, but sometimes the amount of shekels is considerable.
But the children don’t always need those shekels and they might be wondering what to do with the “riches” they received.
Well, we have an idea: If you wish to teach the children about helping others, charity for the poor, tell them about the “Chasdei Naomi” organization. Tell them about those families for whom Chanukah is a holiday celebrated only by others, where there are no sufganiyot or other holiday treats on the tables, and their houses aren’t necessarily warm and cozy as they should be at this time of year.
Tell them about children who are also hungry for bread and – you know what? – hungry for sufganiyot as well. Children whose parents don’t have enough money to buy them even one sufganiyah filled with jam.
Those shekels from the Chanukah gelt, or Chanukah gifts, when gathered together from so many other good children with superior educational values, can help bring some holiday joy, even to a small extent, to those less fortunate children who need assistance with food and buying the things they need to keep them warm during the winter.
For your children these are just a few shekels, to buy something that perhaps they don’t really need, but these shekels can make the difference between a family that is hungry and one that is not.
On Chanukah we celebrate the victory of the few over the many, the victory of the spiritual realm over the physical, and there is no way to celebrate the holiday that is more educational, more Jewish, than by giving to others, donating charity to the poor, and proving that even after thousands of years we are still one nation with the same principles of kindness and generosity that have helped us to survive and remain a nation to this very day.
So when you light the next Chanukah candle, look at the light of the candles closely and imagine another family that had nothing but which, thanks to you, now has something.
Happy Chanukah!
To donate Chanukah gelt to the needy call now 972-3-6777-777 .You can also donate online through the Chasdei Naomi web site: https://www.chasdei-naomi.org/donations/
