Perhaps even more significant than the famous Maxwell House Haggadah for Passover - which became one of the most significant American Jewish holiday tools of the 20th century - is the much less well-known, but similarly important "Maxwell House Coffee Tin Dreidel container." When I was young, and began collecting the dreidels I received at various family and Temple Hanukkah events, I asked for some sort of box or something in which to keep them. Trusty ol' dad (well, not so old back then of course!) ran down to the basement, and pulled out of a pile of stuff a wonderful, empty coffee can, lid and all.
I put those few dreidels in it, and over the years, as I got more at each Hanukkah celebration, the tin became fuller and fuller - and actually at one point *overflowed* so the cover no longer fit. And as I tip it over tonite, spilling the many tops on our kitchen table, I am reminded very visually of a host of Hanukkah eves gone by: the times spent with the chavurah to which our family belonged for a few years; the year we gave goodies, gifts and necessities to a newly-arrived Russian Jewish family (including a bunch of dreidels); the Hanukkah that began just after Grandma died; lighting the menorah the week of our wedding, and then years later at my nephew's Bar Mitzvah; the many Festival eves with Ben and Vered, and of course so many more.
May every turn of YOUR dreidel spin a new sacred memory.
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