Hanyel Helf, the Hanukkah Visitor, Comes to Every Jewish Boy and Girl.

Listen, Hanukkah begins tonight. And for you that means a…story!

For centuries, children have gathered around their elders hoping to hear about the holy holiday forebear that today is a great big secret while we publicly celebrate our Festival of Lights with the menorah and such like. (“Forebear” is like “ancestor.”)

This Signalwriter post isn’t about the eight-day celebration commemorating the rededication of Jerusalem’s Holy Temple 2,200 years back. It’s not about the strength of the Maccabees whose fight led to that triumph – read all about that in the Talmud – nor the story of the oil that miraculously lasted for those eight days.

No, not even about the menorah and the dredl, though both of these are part of the real story of our celebration.

This is about the Hanukkah Visitor, Hanyel Helf – the angel of Hanukkah who has come to good Jewish boys and girls in the alleys of ancient Judean cities and the 19^th Century shtetls of Eastern Europe, in New York’s Riverdale today and, yes, even in Texas. (Although you may not believe this.)

Hundreds of years before some jolly fat man was jammed into a red suit to become a mostly secular Christmas figure, Jews have known Hanyel Helf and kept him secretly in their hearts.

Maybe that’s because he could be an Angel of the Lord. Literally. Hanyel (Hebrew: הניאל‎, “Joy of God” or חַנִּיאֵל‎, “Grace of God”) is frequently identified as one of God’s seven archangels.

Now whether Hanyel Helf is really an archangel or even a man, well, the ancient sources are silent. But still, she or he is with us every day that Hanukkah is celebrated, visiting Jewish homes throughout the world.

He searches out each one of us – particularly the boys and girls – by the light of his menorah. (I told you I’d get back to this.) Then…then he spins the dredl.

Alright. Why does he spin the dredl? To determine just how you will be rewarded, or what you’ll be asked to contribute, in the Hanukkah days ahead. There are four Hebrew letters, right? Nun stands for the Yiddish word nisht or nichts (“nothing”). Hei stands for halb (“half”). Gimel for gantz (“all”) and Shin for shtel (“put”). Think of this as balancing out your life with rewards and contributions. No-Limit Texas Dredl doesn’t count although it’s good practice.

According to the scholars, Hanyel is supposed to be numbered among the Order of Principalities. Batting third in the angelic standings, the principalities are supposed to be caretakers over every nation on earth. So a little sharing doesn’t hurt that mission at all. That’s where the other name comes in – Helf or Helfe, for helping. Yes, that part’s Yiddish, sue me.

Not Santa Claus, see, but Hanyel Helf.

In what form will Hanyel Helf visit this Hanukkah? A literal angel of light and beating wings? An Iraq War veteran? A shaineh maidel? A deeply religious Hasid? It is possible you won’t immediately know Hanyel Helf when he comes. That’s alright, he will know you.

And so…happy Hanukkah!

*NOTE 1: The one-day world-spanning travels of Santa Claus are properly revealed as early High Church one-upmanship – it takes an archangel of God eight days to visit all the Jews and we are far fewer in number.)

NOTE 2: Oh, oh – can’t have Hanyel Helf visiting without a joke. A woman goes to the post office to buy stamps for her Hanukkah cards. She says to the clerk, “Please let me have 50 Hanukkah stamps.”

The clerk says, “What denomination?”

The woman says, “Oh my God, has it come to this? Give me 6 Orthodox, 12 Conservative, and 32 Reform.”

Thanks to Harry’s Black Hole for this, not such a fancy website but really funny jokes. Top photo: Group of Jewish Children with a Teacher, 1911, Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii. Bottom: Shabbat, © Rob Swanson, Dreamstime.com

Oh Santa! Your Standards Have Fallen So Low. Or maybe it’s Wild West Products.

The company claims these are the Big Guy’s Christmas Eve yummies: Santa’s Favorite Cookies. A small box came under the Signalwriter™ eye from a remainder bin at Central Market because the box art is an imaginative mix of what looks like stock Santa illustrations.

Maybe that’s not a surprise. The maker, Wild West Products, claims this provenance:

Hello Fellow Cowboys and Cowgirls! Welcome to our little corner of cyber space. We know this is a fur-piece for you, but you’ll be glad you came. Let me tell you our story…It began with Tina. You see, Tina was a big City Slicker living in New York City. She was a graphic designer and did great work, but she was destined to move to the quiet life of San Antonio. Looking for something to do, she baked up a batch of Cow shaped cookies and sold them at the San Antonio rodeo.

The website is actually kinda fun; the opening Flash animation is an nice use of “oater footage” – clips from old cowboy movies. I think you’d enjoy seeing what this Yankee designer has created in terms of food brands and imaginative packing, especially (for example) the Rancher’s Trail Mix varieties. The web marketing concept is deep enough to please.

On the other hand, Santa’s Favorite Cookies, described as “low fat chocolate chip,” are very bad indeed. They cost a remaindered 50¢ but still, here’s a product that doesn’t live up to its on-line brag:

Wild West Products makes some of the greatest tastes in the West (and east)…the best of the American spirit – the spirit of the Old West – a spirit of fun and adventure in the pursuit of fresh ideas and fresh products with great taste at a great price.

Maybe it’s because WWP didn’t actually bake these low-fat disks, only “distributed” them. Maybe Tina didn’t taste them before they ended up at Central Market.

Either way, the Carrollton, TX-based company ought to be more careful about its hype. When Santa finds out what it’s claiming about his taste in cookies, Wild West Products is going to get a big cease-and-desist from Claus’s lawyers. Happy New Year!

Christmas Promotion: How Zytrel XP® Becomes the World’s Official Santa-tizer.

Of all the health-risky hands-on occupations during this H1N1 flu season, the top job’s got to be America’s professional Santa Clauses…the Christmas holiday laps for thousands if not millions of kids. That must turn the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention utterly white.

As of today, though, there’s a fun and public-spirited holiday promo, sent as a “special to Signalwriter” from Jack Goldenberg at Biodefense Solutions:

For as long as anybody can remember, Santa Claus has been the world’s greatest gift giver. We think it's about time that Santa got a gift. This holiday season, if you’re a working Santa Claus in the NY tri-state area (NY, NJ, or CT), we’d like to give you a gift, a free bottle of Zytrel XP®, the world’s first extended protection hand sanitizer.

The Zytrel Santa-tizer opportunity came along (like a lot of promo concepts) at the intersection of several events. This is where you envision me holding up my fingers in sequence, right?

One. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have been vigorously advising clean hands as one of the best ways to prevent infection in the face of regular flu and H1N1 viruses this year. CDC even says, “Remember: If soap and water are not available, use alcohol-based gel to clean hands.”

Two. No less a group than AORBS called out the dangers of Swine Flu at a early-November conference in Philadelphia. The AORBS – Amalgamated Order of Real Bearded Santas™ – is a genuine organization, founded in 1994. In Philly, the professional Santa group lobbied for priority in getting H1N1 vaccinations plus urged its members to use hand sanitizer. Read all about that right here.

Three. Biodefense Solutions thinks those Santas need extra protection and according to everything that Goldenberg has sent me, Zytrel XP delivers exactly that. Traditional alcohol-based sanitizers, like J&J’s Purell product, don’t seem to offer Santas (or other users) long-lasting protection because they only kill germs until they dry, about 15 seconds. The alcohol is part of the problem: Once these older-formulation sanitizers evaporate, they’re done.

Zytrel XP has what its makers calls an “Active Defense Period” of up to four hours – it not only kills 99.99% of germs on contact, it keeps on killing germs for the entire four-hour period.

I’m no Santa. Biodefense Solutions has sent me a bottle of Zytrel XP to try anyway. I’ll report back on my observations, even though there’s a certain amount of faith involved: I’m not going to be lab-testing my hands every day. More important though, the company extended the offer of a free bottle to the pro Santas of the AORBS. The two outfits have shaken hands and Goldenberg emailed me:

I am proud to announce that as of midnight tonight, December 10, 2009, Zytrel XP is the Official Santa-tizer of the Amalgamated Order of Real Bearded Santas.

That’s a neat seasonal promotion. If Zytrel XP helps keep America’s Santas germ-free and healthy, it’s a gift that’ll keep on giving.

Top photo: “Department Store Santa circa 1956.” A Christensen in Santa's Lap – when nobody had even thought of marketing a hand sanitizer. From Wikimedia.