So What If It Is Permissible

Weekly Story by Rabbi Sholom DovBer Avtzon

E 12 So What If It Is Permissible

Weekly Story by Rabbi Sholom DovBer Avtzon

In honor of Tes and Yud Kislev Rabbi Tzvi Telsner of Melbourne, Australia farbrenged. During the farbrengen he mentioned the mesiras nefesh of the Cantonist soldiers and related the following story. I decided to post it as its message is one of the lessons of Chanukah, as will be noted after the story. Your feedback is most appreciated.

There was a Jew who emigrated from Russia to America around the year of 1900. His family noticed something extremely peculiar. He would never sleep on a bed, whether he was in his own house or somewhere else. Instead he slept on the floor. His children would ask him to explain why he is doing this, but he didn’t offer any explanation.

This went one for many years, until he was in his mid-eighties, when his granddaughter asked him to please divulge or explain the secret to her. For some reason he decided that now is the appropriate time to disclose his story. So he said; “You know I was forcefully conscripted to become a soldier in the Czar’s army. I was just eleven years old, when they scooped me up and separated me from my family.

At that time I was learning in the local Cheder and yes I was quite knowledgeable and learned in Jewish thought and halacha (law). Even though I was in the army, I made sure to go to the closest Jewish community and obtain whatever was necessary for each and every holiday.  I was extremely meticulous in observance of the mitzvos. A few days before my bar mitzvah, I went to the Rabbi of the community and asked him if he can obtain for me a pair of Tefillin, as my bar mitzvah is in a few days. The Rabbi did so and I made sure to put on The tefillin every week day.

Some years later, one day I awake and saw many beds in the room and people wearing white outfits. I asked one lady where am I and she replied bluntly “Be happy you are among the living. Over eighty percent of the people who come here don’t survive.”

After some while I realized that I had been affected with the dreaded typhus and was found in the barracks delirious and was brought to the hospital, and boruch Hashem I was recovering and gaining my strength. A few weeks later, I was able to walk around and was going to be discharged, when I asked the nurse, what is she serving me?

She curtly replied, the same food that we serve all the patients. Why should we serve you anything different?

So, I rephrased the question and said, Yes, that is what I was asking, what are you serving all of us?

You want to know everything? The soup is fattened up with the feet of pigs!

Hearing this, the color drained from my face, that means that over the course of all these many weeks that I was here, I ate a sizeable amount of pig meat. At that moment I made a resolve and vowed, that in order to atone for this grievous sin, I will take away a certain enjoyment in life forever. After a moments thought, I vowed never again to sleep on a bed. So for all the years since then, I slept on the floor and not on a bed.

Rabbi Telsner concluded that is mesiras nefesh of a Jew, and he concluded by saying, he heard this story from someone who heard it from the granddaughter herself, the former Prime Minister, Golda Meir.

I chose to relate this story as it brings out the story of Chanukah.

The Jews needed oil to light the menorah in the Beis Hamikdash. But the question is; Why did they search for an untouched jug, when there was plenty of oil available in plain sight? The Greeks did not destroy the oil, they merely made it impure. Yet the halacha is if the entire community is impure then the service can be done with what is impure. And therefore according to halacha since they didn’t see any pure oil, they were permitted to use that impure oil and kindle the menorah!

Yet, the Jews were not satisfied with this solution. True we are permitted to use that oil for the menorah, but then we would be given in to the Greeks argument, that the oil shouldn’t have to be pure. This was their argument, you want to do mitzvos, do them. But do them because of your understanding, not because this is the will of the Creator! We don’t mind if you light the menorah, but why with pure oil? Oil is oil and use the oil you prepared, but that we have touched and broken the seal. So although it is now permissible to use that oil, until we obtain pure oil, we will not give in to their schemes. In fact it is something we must have mesiras nefesh for, and find oil that is pure.

The same thing happened in our story. A person who is hospitalized and has no possibility of obtaining kosher food, yes he can and should eat what he is being served in order to nurse himself back to health. But just because it is permissible, doesn’t mean that it is good! This Jew was resolute that he must atone for it, just as the Jews were resolute to find pure olive oil.

This concept clarifies another interesting custom of Chanukah.

The halacha is that one has to light just one candle every night. Yet all Jews have the custom to add an additional light each night, which is going beyond the obligation of the law. Here everyone is being mehader in the mitzvah.  One may ask why specifically by Chanukah is this, the prevalent custom?

And the answer is, because, the whole mindset of Chanukah was not to suffice with the leniency of the halacha, but to have mesiras nefesh to do the mitzvah in its purest form.

Our sages state that the lights of Chanukah will never be nullified. Perhaps this is one of the messages of the lights that are to be a shining force in our lives.

Rabbi Avtzon is a veteran mechanech and the author of numerous books on the Rebbe and their chassidim. He is available to farbreng in your community and can be contacted at [email protected]