In preparation for Chanukah in Chelm on Friday, December 23rd, I’ll be using my Torah Thoughts column these next few weeks to share some of my favorite stories from the mythical village of Chelm, a 19th Century shtetl whose residents are called wise fools, because they always believe they are right, even if they almost never are.
My first story connects nicely with this week’s Torah portion Vayetzei where our forefather Jacob leaves home for the very first time. In the story a poor farmer named Chani sets off in search of the big city of Warsaw. Having never been there, she has no idea what to expect. She trudges off through the woods to find it, walking all day to try to make it there by nightfall. But as the sun begins to set, she is still a while away from her destination.
Collapsing by a tree, she takes off her shoes pointing in the direction she was heading to remind herself which way to go when she sets off again the next morning. When she awakes, she rises, stretches and puts on her shoes, forgetting how she left the night before. As this is Chelm, she ends up heading right back in the direction she just came from.
Arriving in what she believes is Warsaw that night, she is surprised to find it looks an awful lot like Chelm. The houses are the same, the farms are the same, even the people and the animals are the same. They even greet her by name as if they knew who she was. She smiles and waves back, believing there must be another Chani in Warsaw who looks just like her. Heading through town, she goes to the house that looks exactly like her own, enters the door, greets the family who lives there, and plops down on the bed to go to sleep. Her bed is just as comfortable as the one she had in Chelm so she decides to stay. She spends the rest of her life believing she is in Warsaw when she has never actually left Chelm.
Look for more stories from Chelm in the weeks to come.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Alex