CANDLES THAT ILLUMINATED FROM AFAR

“I had a birthday, and my husband made a big surprise party for me. He invited all of my friends, and they baked a beautiful cake in my honor. Among the many birthday gifts, the most incredible one I ever received was the seifer with my writings from when I was at the most truthful stage of my life. I read my own descriptions of the holy day of Shabbos, and I felt once again the intense spirituality that I experienced as a young girl. I began to cry…” * An amazing story about a surprising and urgent instruction by the Rebbe to publish a second collection of stories on candle lighting, leading several years later to the awakening of the pintele yid.

Translated by Michoel Leib Dobry

Rabbi Aharon Eliezer CeitlinI heard the following amazing story on a recent Shabbos from the Chassid Rabbi Aharon Eliezer Ceitlin, one of the Rebbe MH”M’s shluchim in Tzfas and the executive director of the vast network of local Chabad kindergartens that provide a Chassidic education to over one thousand children throughout the Holy City.

Rabbi Ceitlin recently returned from a visit to the United States and his native Canada, deeply moved by the amazing sequence of Divine Providence that he experienced when he gave over a sicha of the Rebbe at the Montreal Chabad House of his friend, Rabbi Moshe New.

“On Shabbos Parshas Shoftim,” Rabbi Ceitlin began, “I was staying in Montreal. That morning, I went to daven at Rabbi New’s Chabad House, the Montreal Torah Center. Rabbi New asked me to speak before the congregation.

“Rabbi New was a very good friend and I simply couldn’t refuse him. I thought to myself: What could I speak about? The month of Elul and t’shuva? Perhaps the weekly Torah portion? Should I tell a special story about the Rebbe that I had heard that week? Each option had its own benefits and drawbacks. While a story really wasn’t the most appropriate thing to give over on Shabbos, it was the thing I could best deliver in the English language. Discussing Elul, t’shuva, or the weekly Torah portion would have been far more appropriate, but I wasn’t sure that I had the all the proper words necessary to convey the message.

“As I was climbing the steps to the speaker’s platform, I still hadn’t made up my mind. Finally, like an inspiration from Heaven, I decided to tell the following story:

“Everyone who ever came to the Rebbe for Sunday dollars recalls the long lines winding towards the small entrance to 770, where the Rebbe stood and greeted every visitor with a shining countenance, presenting each of them with a crisp dollar bill to give to charity.

“Thousands of people stood in the long line, many of whom stopped before the Rebbe when their turn came and exchanged a few words with him in request of a bracha or to ask him a few questions. As a result, there was a need to maintain order, urging everyone to finish quickly and keep the line moving for the countless people still waiting.

“On the men’s side, there were the members of the Vaad HaMesader, who stood in special locations for this purpose. When the women passed, Mrs. Ester Sternberg of Crown Heights was there to provide direction, and whenever necessary, to nudge women out who were taking a bit too much of the Rebbe’s time and holding up the line.

“Not everyone knows that over a period of many years, Mrs. Sternberg headed the Neshek Campaign in New York. This organization established the objective of urging and encouraging women to light Shabbos candles. Mrs. Sternberg and the other women affiliated with this organization were privileged to receive special attention and constant support from the Rebbe.

“One year, Mrs. Sternberg turned with a request to those women who had already resolved to light Shabbos candles and had actually begun to do so. She asked that they write down their impressions, describing the feeling of spiritual elevation, and the purity and holiness they had experienced through lighting Shabbos candles. After collecting a suitable number of stories and accounts, she put the best of them into an attractive book form, which was then published and distributed to women who were just taking their first steps into the world of Yiddishkait.

“The seifer created an amazing revolution among numerous women. Many who had previously refused to make a good resolution and start lighting Shabbos candles read the seifer and were greatly impressed by the effect that candle lighting had in bringing calm and tranquility to the Jewish woman – especially from the viewpoint of one who was neither religious nor Shabbos observant. As a result, they decided that they too would begin lighting Shabbos candles.

“A few years later, Mrs. Sternberg became very ill, to the point that she was even confined to a wheelchair. Then one day, her husband came home with a special message for her from the Rebbe: ‘Publish the second part of the seifer – even before Rosh Hashanah.’ The answer came out at the end of the summer, leaving only five or six weeks until the High Holidays – not very much time to produce a seifer, particularly when she was in a poor state of health…

“Yet, when the Rebbe makes a request, you don’t think about hardships – you follow orders and take action. The problem was that she didn’t know where to begin in carrying out these instructions in so short a period of time…

“Mrs. Sternberg immediately called her friend who worked in Camp Emuna with the young baalos t’shuva. She asked her to put together a selection of articles, stories, songs, and other anecdotes from the girls on the subject of lighting Shabbos candles. This would be a good start towards producing this seifer. She figured that she might get a few stories in stilted unpolished syntax, but one thing was certain – the Rebbe’s instructions would be fulfilled!

“In addition, she publicized her request in various places that every woman who had begun to light Shabbos candles should put her thoughts in writing. Neshek volunteers also took the initiative and made contact with even more women in request of feedback.

“The joint effort bore fruit, and the seifer was published before Rosh Hashanah, based primarily on the accounts of the girls from Camp Emuna. Each of the campers received a copy of the seifer. Neshek Campaign workers were instructed to distribute the seifer everywhere. And the Rebbe naturally received the first copy of the seifer, responding with much pleasure and satisfaction.

“Many years passed. The whole episode had long been forgotten, and no one had the slightest idea why the Rebbe had urged Mrs. Sternberg to publish the seifer in such a short period of time.

THE MYSTERY IS SOLVED

“Then one day about two years ago, the phone rang in Mrs. Sternberg’s home.

“‘Hello, I wanted to know if you still have copies of the second part of the seifer you published,’ asked the woman on the line. Mrs. Sternberg replied that she had no extra copies, except for three that she had saved for herself.

“However, the woman on the line would not relent: ‘I’m literally begging you – and when you hear the whole story, I’m sure you’ll agree to send me one.’

“‘We have some good friends,’ the anonymous caller said, ‘but while the husband and the children have become very close to Lubavitch, the wife wants no part of it. She isn’t even prepared to agree to light Shabbos candles.

“‘Recently,’ the caller continued, ‘we discovered that when she was a young girl, she went to Camp Emuna, and it was exactly at that time when the girls had been asked to write about their impressions of Shabbos and lighting candles. It turned out that she had also written something, and it was for this reason that we would love to give her this seifer as a gift. Who knows? Maybe it will have a positive influence upon her…’

“The woman was right. In such a case, Mrs. Sternberg simply couldn’t refuse. She took a copy of the seifer from her library and agreed to give it to this woman as a gift. She even went to the trouble of going to the post office herself and sending the package to the address she had received from the caller.

“Months passed, and the caller never acknowledged receipt of the package. Mrs. Sternberg felt a slight sense of bitterness in her heart. ‘I made every effort to accommodate her,’ she thought to herself. ‘Couldn’t she at least pick up the phone and let me know that the seifer had reached its destination?’ Yet, as often happens with such occurrences, everything was soon forgotten with the passage of time.

“Then one day, the phone again rang at the Sternbergs’ house. The woman on the line identified herself by name, but Mrs. Sternberg didn’t know who she was. She said that she had gone to Camp Emuna as a young girl, and the seifer on Shabbos candles had been intended for her. ‘Mrs. Sternberg, I really want to thank you for sending me the seifer, but most importantly, for getting me to write those things I wrote as a girl,’ she said with much emotion.

“It turned out that the seifer had done the job. ‘I had a birthday, and my husband made a big surprise party for me. He invited all of my friends, and they baked a beautiful cake in my honor. Among the many birthday gifts was the most incredible one I had ever received. It was the seifer with what I wrote when I was at the most truthful stage of my life.

“‘I read my own descriptions of the holy day of Shabbos, and I felt once again the intense spirituality that I experienced as a young girl. I simply began to cry… In the seifer, I wrote in an articulate Russian that when I return to my parents’ home, I’ll give a real ‘zetz’ to everyone about my Shabbos experience. I added that I now knew that the path of Torah and mitzvos was the best and the most proper one to follow, and any other path of compromise was wrong from its very foundation…

“‘I couldn’t believe it,’ the now mature woman said. ‘My own words had influenced me more than thousands of persuasive statements from friends and family. I can’t thank you enough. Your project restored peace and domestic harmony to our home. But above all, it brought my true essence back to G-d.’”

CLOSING THE CIRCLE

As mentioned earlier, Rabbi Aharon Eliezer Ceitlin told this story during his drasha at the Chabad shul in Montreal, just before the weekly Torah reading.

“When I finished telling the story,” Rabbi Ceitlin recalled, “I explained in my humble opinion why this instruction from the Rebbe had come with such swiftness and urgency, and had it not been during summer vacation, Mrs. Sternberg wouldn’t have turned to her friend at Camp Emuna and it wouldn’t have reached this girl. It’s quite amazing to see how every word of the Rebbe has special meaning and direction, and nothing ch”v goes for naught. Above all, the Rebbe shows concern for every Jew – man, woman, and child – not just for their present-day situation, but for their future as well…

“I descended the rostrum at the conclusion of my talk and proceeded to walk over to my place in shul. Suddenly, a member of the congregation, a bearded Jew wearing a fedora, came over to me and said with much emotion: ‘It’s my wife!’ It turned out that this Jew was a guest from Philadelphia, and he had come by Divine Providence to spend that Shabbos in Montreal with his wife. It was she who had called Mrs. Sternberg and asked her to send the seifer to her friend!

“The congregants sat in stunned disbelief, swept up by the incredible revelation they had just witnessed before their very eyes.

“During the farbrengen after davening, the husband continued to give more details of that woman’s reaction to the whole episode. Later, many people went to the home of the shliach, where the farbrengen resumed. Throughout that Shabbos, they made good resolutions in Torah matters, including some who had been considered hard nuts to crack. Words fail to do justice to the incredible atmosphere that prevailed then. It spoke for itself.

“This proves once again that a Chassid simply has to speak without any personal considerations. He just has to say what he’s heard from the Rebbe and connect other Jews to the wellsprings of Chassidus. There’s no such thing as a Chassid who has nothing to give over from the Rebbe – a Chassidic saying, a sicha, a word of Torah, or even a story. The Rebbe will take care of the rest…”

(Dedicated in commemoration of the upcoming twenty-fifth yahrtzait of Rabbi Ceitlin’s father, R’ Yehoshua Heshel ben R’ Aharon Eliezer Ceitlin, mashpia of the Chabad community in Montreal, who passed away on the 11^th of Shvat 5748.)