Chicago Children Build Menorah for Survivors of Terror

Every year at this time, Rabbi Avraham Varnai and his 4th grade Cheder Lubavitch class at the Seymour J. Abrams Hebrew Day School face an interesting challenge: How are they going to top last year’s community-wide menorah project?

All of the Chanukah projects in recent years involved building gigantic menorahs out of unusual supplies that would later be used to help others.

Last year’s six-foot menorah was fashioned out of tea lights and their designer boxes called Friday Lights. When the menorah was dissembled after Chanukah, the tea lights were given out for kindling on Shabbos to bring healing to those in need. The year before, a 7 x 18-footer was constructed out of 5,000 donated toys which were later distributed to developmentally disabled children and children in hospitals. And then there was the menorah made out of more than 100,000 pennies that were given to children in need of healing at Chai Lifeline.

Varnai’s answer to this year’s self-inflicted dilemma?

The rabbi, along with 10 boys in his Cheder class and 14 in his girls class, have gone global. Expanding the volunteer platoon, this year they launched “The World’s Most Caring Menorah.”

In the countdown to the first night of Chanukah, Varnai and his students were working quickly to complete the Plexiglas menorah that would be filled with about 1,000 Chanukah note cards. The students would write their own Chanukah greetings to children and soldiers in care of Chabad’s Terror Victims Project in Israel.

Varnai’s classes also exceeded expectations in their Chanukah fundraising campaign. Going door-to-door asking family and friends to pitch in with at least $1 to be used for gifts for the terror victims, the fourth graders raised nearly $1000.

“It’s heartwarming to see that people on the other side of the world – especially children – care about their brothers and sisters in Israel,” said an appreciative Rabbi Yossi Swerdlov, associate director of the Kfar Chabad-based CTVP which reaches out to some 3000 survivors of war and terror. “It’s great to see these kids sharing their light with the less fortunate,” especially on Chanukah.

The cards were designed by students of Cheder Lubavitch and other Chicago area schoolchildren, as well as a local artist.

“Every year, we hope to instill in the students the idea that their mission doesn’t stop with learning, that they must also take action,” said Varnai.

Asked about his participation in the project, fourth grader Yisroel Benjaminson focused on what might have been for him his peers a test of courage:

“Going and asking others to help isn’t so hard when I think of the great mitzvah this is for.”