Wax and a Wick

Arriving in New York in 1977, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin came to see the Lubavitcher Rebbe.

Begin explained, "I came here because I am en route to Washington to meet President Jimmy Carter for the first time. So it is most natural for me to want to seek the blessings of this great sage of the Jewish people. Rabbi Schneerson is one of the paramount Jewish personalities of our time. His status is unique among our people. So yes, certainly, his blessings will strengthen me as I embark on a mission of acute importance for our future."

Five days later, Begin sent his personal advisor, Yehuda Avner, to brief the Rebbe on the White House talks.

Near the end of the three-hour audience, the conversation turned more personal, and the Rebbe shared the following (as related by Mr. Avner):

"I will tell you what I try to do. Imagine you are looking in a cupboard and I tell you to open it. You open the cupboard and you see inside a candle.

"But I tell you, 'That is not a candle. That is a lump of wax with a wick in it.'

"When do the wax and the wick become a candle? When you bring a flame to the wick. Then the wax and the wick turn into a candle. That is to say, they fulfill the purpose for which they were created.

"This is what I try to do. That each man and woman will fulfill the purpose for which they were created.

"When you bring the flame to the wick, the wick is the soul, then it brings to life the body which is the wax. And the body and the soul fulfill the purpose for which they were created."

Mr. Avner asked, "Rebbe, have you lit my candle?"

"No," answered the Rebbe. "I have given you the match. Only you can light your own candle."

For more on Mr. Avner and the Rebbe visit chabad.org



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Someone once approached the Rebbe to ask for his help in promoting the suggestion to remember the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust by leaving an empty chair at the Passover Seder. (In the 70s a similar suggestion was made to leave an empty chair to remember Jews in the Soviet Union.)

The Rebbe disagreed with this suggestion. One of the reasons was that the suggestion puts the focus on the negative. The Rebbe agreed that there should be an extra chair at the Seder. But why, he asked, should it be empty? Let it be filled by a person who, had he not received this invitation, would not have attended a Seder at all!

The Rebbe was not just offering a different suggestion. He was showing an entirely different approach to the issue. Instead of having our thinking about the loss of six million Jews result in an empty chair, he wanted that the emotion aroused be directed to a positive purpose.

Take a Jew who is alive today who doesn't even seek to take part in a Pesach Seder - and make him feel part of the Jewish people. This counteracts Hitler's efforts and demonstrates that nothing - neither Pharaoh, nor Hitler, nor for that matter the openness of American society - can break the connection that a Jew shares with his spiritual heritage.

The person replied disappointedly that what the Rebbe was suggesting would be very difficult - too difficult. Not everyone could go out and pull in a Jew from the street.

The Rebbe responded by saying that first, although his suggestion was harder, it would add to the joy of the holiday. And second, it's not as difficult as it seems! G-d gives special powers and the bigger the obstacles the greater are the powers that G-d bestows upon us.

Adapted from The Chassidic Approach to Joy by Rabbi S. Majeski