Avraham was a simple and unassuming Jew who kept the mitzvos faithfully. He did not have much money to his name, and with nine children to support, finances were always tight, but he kept the smile on his face and persevered. He had a beautiful family and a wonderful wife, and those were far more important.
There was one mitzvah that was especially dear to Avraham’s heart, and that was hadlakas neiros for Shabbos. Avraham cherished this mitzvah and made sure to fulfill it in the best ways possible. Despite his poverty, he spent freely on good quality oil for his wife to use to light the Shabbos licht. Candles may have been cheaper, but oil is considered worthier, and he wanted to do the mitzvah in the best possible way.
There were weeks that the family had to cut out certain foods from their diet due to lack of funds. There were weeks that they made do with less warmth or less light. But there was one thing they never cut back on, and that was the Shabbos neiros. They were happy to forgo other necessities, but the licht for Shabbos never got downgraded. Week after week, Avraham would lovingly purchase the best oil and wicks for Shabbos.
As the children grew up, they saw how their parents went out of their way for this mitzvah, sacrificing their comfort and necessities. They saw the joy in their father’s eyes as he returned home from the market and carefully set up wicks. They watched the glow on their mother’s face as she brought flame to wick and lovingly lit the neiros. It was only natural that with time, all nine children inherited their parents’ special love and respect for the mitzvah of hadlkas neiros.
Shloimele was the youngest of the family, and he loved standing next to his father and watching as he prepared the licht for Shabbos. Like the rest of the family, hadlakas neiros was his favorite time of the week. His eyes would round as his father would tell him about the beauty and wonder of this special mitzvah, and he would earnestly nod along.
One week, as the family crowded around their mother, watching with shining eyes as she whispered tefillos before the dancing flames, little Shloimele reached out and mistakenly knocked over one of the glasses of oil. Thankfully, the fire went out immediately and did not catch on to anything else, but the hot oil trickled down Shloimele’s arm, burning him terribly and causing a very large and noticeable scar.
Being that this mitzvah was so precious to Avraham, the fact that one of his children had gotten hurt from it was a source of anguish to him. However, he understood that a mitzvah that is performed through difficulty and suffering is worth even more, and so instead of slacking off, he took this as a sign that he should persevere in his efforts to perform hadlakas neiros in the best possible way.
And so, despite the terrible scar on Shloimele’s arm, the family continued welcoming the Shabbos each week with excitement and joy, sacrificing other pleasures so that their hadlakas neiros would be performed optimally. This continued on for many months.
Then WWII broke out, and Europe was thrown into turmoil. During the first few months of the war, Avraham was separated from his family and found himself on the Soviet side of the border. Before long, he was caught for keeping mitzvos and sentenced to fifteen years in a Siberian labor camp, doing backbreaking work for the Russian war effort. He was sick with worry over the fate of his family, not knowing who was living and who was not, but as a prisoner of the Soviets, he had no way of finding out.
While Avraham had never been considered a rabbinical figure or a leader before the war, the spirit of Yiddishkeit burned strongly within him, and he knew he had to do his utmost to preserve his Jewish identity despite the difficult circumstances. Seeing that no one else was doing so, he arranged a minyan for davening. Many were afraid to risk their lives and daven with a minyan, but Avraham knew that this was vital to keeping his Yiddishkeit intact, and he managed to encourage enough men to think like him, and a daily minyan was born.
Even after the war was over, Avraham continued to languish in the Siberian labor camp, serving his sentence. Throughout the entire time he was there, he worked tirelessly to keep Yiddishkeit alive under the noses of the Soviets. Thanks to his devoted efforts, the minyan continued, and with the help of Hashem, it was not discovered.
One day, Avraham was called into the camp office. Without preamble, he was informed that he would be released two days later. “You can leave the country or settle wherever you’d like,” he was told. “Your service for Mother Russia has come to an end.”
A dazed Avraham left the office, shocked and shaken but also enormously grateful. He could not believe that after so many years, he was finally free to leave the camp! As the news finally sunk in, he danced all the way to the little shack where the secret minyan was held to share the news with his friends.
His friends, who had become almost like brothers through their shared experiences in the labor camp, were happy for him, and they congratulated him excitedly.
“You must stay strong,” Avraham encouraged them. “Even though I will be gone, you must continue to persevere in your campaign of Torah and mitzvos. Who is willing to take responsibility for this minyan in my stead?”
There was complete silence. No one was willing to assume leadership of the minyan.
Avraham let out a mournful sigh, a pained sigh. For so many years, he had nursed the minyan with the last of his strength, fueling himself and the other members with the spiritual energy they needed to survive their ordeal. How could it be that no one wanted to take over the reins when he left? He glanced around the room again, but he could not meet anyone’s eyes.
The night before his release, he let himself into the little room used as a minyan and lit a candle for some light. He picked up the only siddur that they had, and then the tears came. For a long time, he wept and wept. He had given so much for the minyan, for the other Jews in the camp. What would be after he left? Would everything be lost? Would all his efforts be wiped out? Would the Yiddishkeit in the camp wither and die when he departed?
His pain was so intense that he didn’t even notice his sobs getting louder and louder. Soon, he was yelling on top of his lungs, twin rivers of tears flowing down his cheeks. “Ribbono shel Olam! Please help Your children remain true to You in this forsaken place!”
Outside the little shack was a young guard on patrol duty. He heard the screams coming from the small room and opened the door. It was an open secret amongst the guards that the Jews used this room to pray, but being that they were model prisoners who otherwise followed their orders precisely, the guards let it pass without informing their superiors. Now however, there was a lone man in the room, and he would not stop yelling.
“Excuse me!” the guard called into the room. “It’s the middle of the night now; you should be in your barrack. What are you doing here, crying?”
Avraham, engrossed in his tearful tefillos, didn’t even hear him. He continued crying bitterly.
Annoyed, the guard entered the room and spoke on a higher volume. “What are you doing here?” he demanded loudly, trying to make himself heard over Avraham’s sobbing.
But Avraham continued to ignore him.
Now the guard was more than just annoyed; he was beginning to get angry. He began to make spooky shadows using the flickering candlelight, trying to catch Avraham’s attention. When his finger tricks weren’t working, he took off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves, ready to make more menacing shadows that would hopefully pull the Jew from his stupor.
Avraham looked up. He saw the young guard, poised with his sleeves up above the light of the candle, and his face turned white. “Shloimele!” he cried, making out the distinct scar on the guard’s upper arm.
The guard blinked. He stared at Avraham and blinked again. “Tatte?” he asked in a tiny voice, his face paling. He hadn’t seen his father in many years, but now that his memory had been refreshed, his father’s eyes were unmistakable.
“Shloimele!”
Within seconds, father and son fell upon each other in a long, tight embrace. Somehow, despite the terrible war and the passage of many years, they had discovered each other again. Then and there, they sat down together and recounted their respective experiences during the years of separation.
“Sometime during the war, I was captured by the Russian army and sent to a training camp,” Shloimele explained when Avraham finished his own story. “It was impossible to keep the mitzvos there, and slowly, my Yiddishkeit faded away. After many years of training, I was sent here to be a guard.”
They sat silently for a long time, pondering over the fact that they had been together in the same camp for so long, but neither of them had known about the other’s existence.
“And to think that tomorrow, you would have left the camp forever, and we would have never found each other,” Shloimele whispered in wonderment. “We discovered each other just in time.”
“Shloimele,” his father responded in a tremulous voice. “Don’t you see? All the years, I did my utmost to honor the mitzvah of hadlakas neiros in the best possible way. And it was the outcome of that mitzvah – the burn on your arm, that brought us back together, right here in the flickering candlelight.”
The following day, when Avraham was released from the Siberian camp, his son Shloimele snuck out with him. Together, they traveled to Eretz Yisrael, where the spark of Yiddishkeit in Shloimele was reignited. Before long, he returned entirely to Torah and mitzvos.
Avraham’s full reward for the mitzvah he had so devotedly kept was still waiting for him in Olam Habah, but he had merited a tiny taste in This World with the complete return of his beloved youngest son.
Have a Wonderful Shabbos!
This story is taken from tape #A276