HaRav Yaakov Koppel Pasternak Zatzal described to me Chanukah in the Bialistoker Yeshiva. It was full of dancing and singing “big time”. A Chanukah in Bialystok was a major Simcha (perhaps like Simchas Torah). In general, there was loads and loads of Simcha, much more than most places, since Simcha was an Ikar of their Shita. There is a letter written by the Alter of Novardok, which was reprinted. It said just a few words:
וּחְמְשִׂתּהֵבְּרַה הָוְצִמ לֶשׁ הָחְמִשְׂבּ Have loads of Simcha Shel Mitzva.
He told me that he remembers one Chanukah seeing R’ Gershon Liebman Zatzal dancing in the middle. This Yeshiva was as poor as can be, and they barely had what to eat. But the Alter Zatzal taught them to laugh at Olam HaZeh. Issues that would normally bother people and “eat them up” with aggravation, were a joke in Novardok.
Having decent clothes wasn’t simple either. The Novardokers were like soldiers, who tried to prove how they could live B'simcha with a minimum of Olam HaZeh. For his special Chanukah dance, R’ Gershon put on a “new” pair of Tzitzis in honor of the occasion. He took an old pair of Tzitzis from one Shaimos box, and another pair from another box, and sewed them together. He made himself a giant pair of Tzitzis, and so he danced.
I was told that Novardokers in general would wear large Tzitzis (like the Steipler Zatzal, who was also a Novardoker). Novardokers were at war with “Yovon”. In those days, Yovon were the communists in Russia who didn’t allow Torah & Mitzvos. Despite them, the Novardokers built Yeshivos with Mesirus Nefesh, and were persecuted and thrown in jail.
R’ Shmuel Birnbaum Zatzal who learned in Baranovich told that he saw the Mashgiach, R’ Yisroel Yaakov (son-in-law of the Alter of Novardok) dancing on the table at a Chanukah Mesiba.
