21st Century Bogatyr: January 2025

Friday, January 31, 2025

Nes and Shprintza Freyda Spin the Dreidl on Planet Birobidzhan

by Zvi Baranoff

The boy was named Nes because there was a miraculous element to his birth. Indeed, his father had been living on Planet Shney for quite a few years before he was conceived on Planet Birobidzhan. As Nes grew, his resemblance to the famous patriarch living on a distant world made it easier for others to accept that unlikely parentage.

It was Nes’ fate to be cast adrift at a very young age. His grandmother passed on to Olam Haba. His mother suffered with unfathomable pain that resulted in an emotional distance and a degree of neglect.

He never received much of a formal education. The limitations of a classroom did not fit his temperament. Growing up with sparse nurturing from any immediate family, Nes counted on mazel und bashert. His fate was that he received the guidance and care of gamblers and kurvahs. Nes obtained his education primarily in alleyways, pool halls, and bordellos.

Among the shifty and sometimes disreputable gamblers, Nes learned the mechanics of successful manipulation. Even at a very young age, Nes kept his eyes and ears open. When approaching any given wagering opportunities wisely, they become less of a game of chance. Nes learned to figure odds and how to hedge bets. By the time that he began to put his tuches offen tish and place substantial bets with his own gelt, he won far more than he lost. Also from the gamblers, Nes learned that a dreidl can be used for divination as well as gambling. Whenever Nes was faced with making decisions, he would lean on the guidance of a spinning dreidl.

When Nes was a little pisher he was often comforted by the kurvahs on their soft mattresses, his head on their fluffy pillows and his tiny body between their perfumed sheets. They dried his tears, stroked his head, and sometimes allowed him to attempt to nurse on their bountiful welcoming bosoms. As he approached maturity, many of those same women took him to their beds in earnest. They also introduced him to their younger sisters and cousins as well as their daughters. Nes perceived such treatment as only natural.

Luck would have it that Nes was at the airfield when the first shipment of furs from Planet Shney arrived on Planet Birobidzhan. Inspiration and serendipity led him into the shtrayml business. The focused attention that young Nes learned in the pool halls and back alleys combined with the sense of entitlement that he imbued in the bordellos gave him the skills that served him well marketing his shtraymlekh to the rabbis of Planet Birobidzhan. His attention to details, inherent math skills, and his ability to remember esoteric scriptures that served his interests made his business very successful.

As a young man, everything seemed to be going his way. He succeeded with little planning and minimum effort. Nes saw no reason to question his circumstances. He traveled widely and enjoyed himself immensely. He chose to spend Purim in Niu Niu Yark on a whim. He met Shprintza Freyda by chance. He proposed marriage because of a spin of a dreidl. It was certainly sudden and unexpected but Nes was deeply enamored with Shprintza Freyda.

Shprintza Freyda was a meydl from a small stehtl but she always knew that she was destined for a life beyond such limitations. She too believed in mazel und bashert. She decided to go to Niu Niu Yark for Purim to fulfill her destiny. Her meeting Nes at the street celebration in that shtot was certainly a matter of chance but she was sure that the resulting marriage was fate. Nes spun a dreidl - his form of divination - while Shprintza Freyda was sleeping and proposed marriage over breakfast. Shprintza Freyda agreed without hesitation, ready to begin the life that she was truly meant for.

The marriage, without a shidduch or any other sort of planning, and the birth of their first child, of course, altered everything for both young people. The marriage necessitated that Nes give up his potentially lucrative position on the exploratory flight to the Home Planet. This left Nes uncertain of his pathway forward. In the time of those swirling uncertainties, Nes relied on the guidance of a dreidl. The spin of the dreidl suggested that the best course was to relocate his budding family to Planet Shney.

Shprintza Freyda was certainly aware that Nes had a propensity for dalliance. She chose to turn a blind eye to the indiscretions in those last few months before departure from Planet Birobidzhan. Shprintza Freyda felt assured that all of the running around would come to a cold stop when the family boarded the shuttle to Planet Shney.

Shprintza Freyda’s intuition appeared to be accurate. In truth, the long flight offered no outlets for the sorts of diversions that were the tendency of her husband. The passengers were disproportionately male. All of the women passengers were married. Most were traveling with their husbands. The rest were on their way to reunite with a husband that had preceded them.

Nes was never looking for romantic encounters with strangers. Rather, his desires were the comfort and familiarity of his formative years. There was no bordello with a bevy of kurvahs aboard the ship, which would have been what was to Nes’ propensity. So, Shprintza Freyda had no real concerns of Nes wandering during the flight, but this she did not know.

Shprintza Freyda had a few tricks up her sleeve for that long flight through the void. She was a meydl from a small stehtl but her family had a large Meditsinish Gortn adjacent to the house and she had extensive knowledge of herbal medicine and lore. Like our Matriarchs Rukhl and Leah, Shprintza Freyda also knew that there were herbal concoctions that could be used to enhance vitality and focus her husband's attention. Dissimilar from Rukhl and Leah, Shprintza Freyda used other herbs that protected her from any unanticipated pregnancy. The long flight from Planet Birobidzhan to Planet Shney unfolded as an erotic blur, a second honeymoon for the young couple. Nes was in a state of intoxicated enamoration and unaware of Shprintza Freyda’s hand in maintaining that condition.

Here are the links to the rest of the story as posted so far:

1 - The Miracle of Vilna on Planet Shney

https://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2025/01/the-miracle-of-vilna-on-planet-shney.html

2 - Nes and Shprintza Freyda Spin the Dreidl on Planet Birobidzhan

https://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2025/01/nes-and-shprintza-freyda-spin-dreidl-on.html?m=1

3 - From Shloflozikayt to the Vision of a Marvelous Shtot

https://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2025/02/from-shloflozikayt-to-vision-of.html

4 - A Strategy for the Yeshiva Takes Shape and Nes Opens a Pool Hall on Planet Shney

https://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2025/02/a-strategy-for-yeshiva-takes-shape-and.html

5 - With the Best Intentions, On a New World

https://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2025/02/with-best-intentions-on-new-world.html

Wednesday, January 29, 2025

The Miracle of Vilna on Planet Shney

by Zvi Baranoff

The greatest, as well as the most diverse, yeshiva ever conceived is located in Vilna on Planet Shney. Also, some of the most monumental Houses of Worship on any planet surround that campus. The numerous shuls represent multiple streams of thought and reflect the incredible diversity of the Yeshiva. The Shtot of Vilna on Planet Shney is named after the City of Vilna (Vilnius) on the Home Planet.

The ancient City of Vilna situated on Planet Earth was a prominent center of Jewish study, often called "Yerushalayim D'Lita" (the Jerusalem of Lithuania). The Yidden of the original Vilna were dispersed and most were killed during a particularly virulent period of purges, pogroms, expropriation, and extermination. The yeshivas and shuls there were all looted and demolished.

Adjacent to the most spectacular of those shuls on Planet Shney, there is a grave that is widely known as a holy site of pilgrimage. On the granite headstone are engraved the words Nes Gadol and the image of a dreidl. Interned in the mausoleum is the founder of Vilna, of Blessed memory.

There is a mechitza that designates the left side of the site for women and the right side for men. The dividing curtain stays in place from dusk until dawn when it is removed to accommodate the many women pilgrims that choose to pray all night or sleep by the grave. Men are barred from the site until the next morning.

The holy site is illuminated at night only by the moons and the stars. Women doven, swaying and wailing, some throughout the night. They tear at their clothes and throw themselves on the grave. It is widely believed that such outward signs of piety will sway Nes’ intervention in their favor.

The women that pray at this site come with hopes for assistance in finding a husband, conceiving children, and for fulfillment in their domestic lives. The men generally pray for help with financial schemes, highly speculative investments, and luck at gambling, as well as assistance in the unraveling of complicated emotional entanglements.

On the streets immediately surrounding this holy site, vendors offer inexpensive sustenance such as knishes and lokshen. Nearby there are also several inns that offer sparse low cost lodging particularly for pilgrims. Not much farther, there are a wide array of restaurants that sell more substantial food and hotels that accommodate travelers with preferences that are more refined. The most exquisite option for food, lodging, and entertainment in Vilna, or anywhere on Planet Shney, is the Nes Gadol Hotel and Casino, a towering skyscraper designed to resemble a dreidl.

On the Home Planet, the gravesites of saintly people were treated as holy places. The graves of great rabbis, sages, and miracle workers became pilgrimage sites for the Yidden and even for some Goyim. The gravesites were often in faraway places that were difficult to reach. Harsh deserts, high mountains, conflicts, international borders, bandits, and other hindrances were faced for the opportunity to pray at such holy sites.

The holy shrine in Vilna on Planet Shney is the most far-flung of any Jewish pilgrimage site, if you consider what travel it would entail for most Yidden. The overwhelming mass of our people still reside on the Home Planet. Their ancestors were not among those that found transit to Planet Birobidzhan. For nearly three centuries contact between Planet Earth and Planet Birobidzhan had been severed. Even now, booking transportation between the two planets is extremely limited and the travel time is excruciatingly long. But, even on the far away Home Planet of Earth, Yidden are aware of this holy site.

Beyond Planet Earth, most Yidden live on Planet Birobidzhan, the birthplace of the entombed holy man. Travel from Planet Birobidzhan to Planet Shney is a significantly shorter distance but even with our most up-to-date ships, it is still nearly a two year shlep.

However, from Moskve on Planet Shney, travel to Vilna is not in the least grueling. There is a comfortable high-speed elevated train route between Moskve Tsenter Shtot to Vilna Tsenter Shtot with service six days a week. The train departs in the morning from Moskve and returns in the evening except for Freytag when the train leaves Vilna in the afternoon so as to return before sunset and the beginning of Shabbos.

The very existence of the Shtot of Vilna arose from a prophetic vision that occurred shortly after Nes arrived on Planet Shney. In an altered state of awareness, Nes saw the valley with the hidden hot spring that enables the tropical foliage and warm weather that is nowhere else on the otherwise harsh world of Planet Shney. Date trees now grow throughout the valley, in addition to the unique native palm trees that grow only in this one microclimate. The hot spring feeds theVilna Mikvah and also the luxurious swimming pool at the Nes Gadol Hotel and Casino.

Construction of the Yeshiva and several of the Shuls were contracted and financed by Nes. The train route was proposed and financed many decades earlier by Nes. He also established a trust that subsidizes fares in perpetuity.

Luck and fate, mazel und bashert, define life. Mazel is assuredly determined by the stars that we are born to. Bashert, perhaps transcends mazel. Luck is luck. Fate is fate. The dreidl spins and lands where it will. We rejoice or mourn and then spin the dreidl once more. Perhaps leaving the planet of one's birth and living under other constellations changes luck but leaves destiny unaltered. Without doubt, greatness was Nes’ destiny. His story began far from Vilna, in a shtetl on Planet Birobidzhan.