Rabbi Fischel Schachter
One of the featured speakers at the January 1st Hakhel Yarchei Kallah Event in Flatbush was Rabbi Fischel Schachter, renowned Maggid Shiur and educator and he spoke on the topic of “Essential Chanukah Lessons and Takeaways.” He began by noting that when you think things can’t get worse, you always get surprised. The lesson of Chanukah is that there is something deeper and more important within oneself. If someone is very sick, r”l, and one is being fed intravenously, after he recovers and has a seuda hadoh (festival of thanksgiving to Hashem), he can really appreciate that custard.
When a person has difficulty davening, he might wonder whether it is worth the effort and is struggling with his urge to give up praying. Later on when he does manage to daven with great kavanah (concentration and inspiration), it was only because of those time when his earlier davenings were done despite struggles [with his yetzer hora, evil inclination.]
The bald eagle, Rabbi Schachter noted, was recently declared to be the national bird of the United States. Why? Perhaps it is because this bird uses all of it kochos, powers.
Chanukah is about being real about ourselves, about being emestik. What are such situations? When you wish good for someone else, even if that makes the situation more difficult for you as an individual.
What Does the Ribbono shel Olam Want from You?
One should realize that picking the right stock doesn’t guarantee you a better Olam Habah (reward in the next World or heaven). Rather one should reflect on what the Ribbono shel Olam (the Master of the World) wants from you.
The Chofetz Chaim and the Imrei Emes were riding together on a train. The Yidden near each stop on the journey came to the station in order to greet and gain inspiration by seeing the holy Chofetz Chaim. On the first stop, the Imrei Emes suggested that the Chofetz Chaim that he open the window and wave to the enthusiastic audience that had come to see him.
The Chofetz Chaim in horror said that he would fall prey to the yetzer hora that would want him to feel great and thereby lose his humility and that would cost him his Olam Habah. The Imrei Emes said that it would be worth it for the Chofetz Chaim to have a diminished Olam Habah if that would result in all the Jews outside of the train getting chizuk, spiritual inspiration by being able to gaze at the holy Jew. Upon hearing that argument of the Imrei Emes, the Chofetz Chaim opened the window and acknowledged the cheers of the audience at the train station.
The Jewish Couple and Their Young Daughter
Rabbi Schachter told the story of a Jewish couple and their young daughter trying to escape from the Nazis. They tried to hide in a neighbor’s barn, but the neighbor a goy caught them. He told them that he could not allow them to hide in his barn because if he was caught the German Nazis would automatically execute him and his family for giving refuge to the Jews.
However, he said that he and his wife would take the couple’s daughter because she didn’t look Jewish and that would be safe. Recognizing the truth of their neighbor, they agreed to leave their daughter with the farmer but with the hopes that they might be able to survive and be able to retrieve their daughter. Unfortunately, the husband and wife were soon captured by the Nazis and sent to a concentration camp where the wife died. After liberation, the husband went back to his home town to try and get back his daughter.
When he came to the farmer’s house, he knocked on the door and it was opened by his daughter who had been raised as a non-Jew by the non-Jewish farmer and his wife. The step mother asked the girl who was at the door and was told that a horrible looking man was trying tell a crazy thing, that he was her father.
Buying Pink Chanukah Candles In a Cold Bitter Snowstorm
The wife and her husband came to the door and told the man that he had to leave and that he was mistaken that the girl was his daughter. The girl doesn’t recognize him. Trying to figure out what to do he remembered a Chanukah a few years before the nightmare began. He recalled buying a set of candles to light the menorah. His daughter cried that she wanted only pink candles. Trying to calm her down, he went out in a cold bitter snowstorm to acquire those purple candles that his daughter was crying for. He got them and thus pacified the daughter.
He then asked the girl if she remembered those pink candles that he got for her on that stormy night for the Chanukah menorah. After a few seconds, she looked at him and cried out “Tatty! Tatty!” And she swung her arms around him and left with him and grew up to be a true Jewish woman, and was blessed to marry a Jewish man and develop a wonderful family. All because of the memory of those “pink” candles on a cold Chanukah night.
In the Ner Chanukah, we get a vision of our future. We live in a world of great darkness. But the light of Chanukah even during the darkest night of the year can give one the powerful insight to make sense in all the craziness surrounding us.
