Dear Friends,
Here is a story I read this week – for the first time in my life.
Sometime towards the end of the 1950’s, my grandfather z”l met a Jewish friend in one of the clandestine Minyanim (prayer quorums) in Czernowitz, and heard him saying Kaddish Yatom (Kaddish for orphans). The friend was one of those who could be trusted, for, if he hadn’t been, he wouldn’t have been invited to join the clandestine Minyan. When my grandfather asked him which of his parents had died recently, he gave a startling answer:
“I have two sons. Neither of them is living the life I would like them to lead. It is clear to me that when the time comes for me to depart from this world, they will not say Kaddish for me. So I thought about it, and came up with a solution: I’ll say Kaddish on myself, in advance…”
Such beauty, simplicity and purity! Do you understand? The man was saying Kaddish Yatom on himself.
But my grandfather did not like that idea, and said to him: “Instead of being involved in goodbyes and in Kaddish, in death and sadness, be involved with life. The underground community needs a mikveh very badly in order to maintain Jewish life here. Give everything you have – body, soul and money – in order to build a mikveh and that way you will be a partner to actions of life and light, hope and joy.”
And that is what the man did; he stopped saying Kaddish for himself and devoted himself to the setting up of a mikveh.
“One is supposed to listen to the candles and contemplate what they are telling us,” so said the Chabad Rebbes about Chanukah candles. We do not celebrate only the past, not only the victory of the Maccabim and the miracle of the small flask of oil that took place in the year 3596 – 165 B.C.E. The holiday of Chanukah has to be relevant, carrying a message and meaning for us in the year 5777 – 2016.
What, indeed, do the Chanukah candles tell us? If I would have to define Chanukah in one word, it would be “Life”. And if in a whole sentence, it would be that Chanukah is a holiday that reveals and emphasizes a light-emanating future that is hidden deep in the dark present. We must lift up our heads and search for life and for hope, happiness and light in every situation. My grandfather lived at a time and in a place in which shadows and darkness prevailed, and still, he managed to bring light, life, hope and happiness to a person who was already saying Kaddish about himself.
May we all enjoy a happy and light-emanating Chanukah!
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Zalmen Wishedski