They spent a pleasant Shabbos together, singing zemiros and speaking divrei Torah. On Motzei Shabbos, after thanking his host, he said, "From the looks of your beautiful house, I understand that Hashem blessed you with wealth. But there is something I was wondering about."
"Go ahead and ask," the host said.
The guest said, "Why do you keep a broken olive oil bottle in your dining room China closet?"
The man replied, “That oil bottle is very precious to me. It carries the story of my life.
"My father was niftar when I was young. As the oldest child, I was responsible for supporting my widowed mother and my younger siblings. Kind people had rachmanus on me and helped me get into business. Baruch Hashem, I had immediate success. There was plenty of money in the house. However, together with my financial success came my spiritual decline. The first thing to go was my yarmulke. Within a short time, I was totally secular.
"One afternoon, I saw a young Jewish child sitting on the curb, crying. It is always painful for me to see a child crying, probably because I was orphaned as a child, so I asked the child whether he wanted to tell me what had happened. The child said, 'Chanukah is approaching, and my father sent me to buy olive oil. He warned me to be careful because we are poor, and he would be upset if the bottle broke. I tried to be careful, but a cat ran right up to me. Startled, I fell, and the bottle broke.' The young boy showed me the broken bottle lying in the gutter. He said, 'How can I go to my father without the Chanukah oil?'
"I gave the child some money and told him to buy two bottles of olive oil: one for me and one for his father.
"When the child said, 'How can I go to my father without the Chanukah oil?' I remembered how my father lit Chanukah lecht each year. I thought to myself, 'The day will eventually come when I will go up to heaven, and I will meet with my father again. I asked myself, 'How can I meet with my father without Chanukah lecht?' I took the broken bottle shards from the gutter because something told me this was a turning point in my life.
"That year, I lit the Chanukah lecht. Soon afterward, I was keeping Shabbos. Then came tefillin. Now, baruch Hashem, I have a beautiful family, all following the Torah’s ways. It all began with the broken olive oil bottle. Now you understand why I saved it all these years!"
Rebbe Yechezkel of Kozmir zt’l wouldn’t permit his chassidim to watch him light Chanukah lecht. He explained that Chazal (Bava Basra 57:) say, “It is forbidden to look at women when they are washing.” Women represent the Jewish souls. It is forbidden to look at them when they are being washed from their blemishes. When Rebbe Yechezkel of Kozmir would light the Chanukah lecht, he washed the souls of the Jewish nation.
Meir Einei Chachamim (12:2) writes, “Believe with emunah sheleimah that when you stand to light Chanukah lecht, all the sparks of your neshamah and the neshamos of your father and grandfathers, all the way up to Adam HaRishon are standing there with you. This applies to every Yid who lights Chanukah lecht. The neshamos hope that perhaps with your hislahavus and inspiration by the Chanukah lecht, they will merit a rectification and reach their origin and source.”
