Chanukah

My zeide re­counted what he heard from Reb Aizel in the days when glass kerosene lamps were in use:

“Some peo­ple see a bluish-red cir­cle sur­round­ing the glass, ” Reb Aizel said, “while oth­ers see a pure flame. The ex­pla­na­tion: those with weak vi­sion see the cir­cle; those with pure vi­sion, with lichtike eyes, see no cir­cle at all — that is, they per­ceive no con­ceal­ment, only G-dli­ness. ”

My un­cle, R. Leib Chas­dan — the Se­bezesher shochet in Homil — re­lated in the name of the al­ter chas­sidim:

At all times, let your gar­ments be white, and let oil not be want­ing on your head.¹⁸

A chos­sid should al­ways vi­su­al­ize him­self in white gar­ments, with a jug of oil bal­anced on his head. By mov­ing even a hair­breadth he’ll com­pletely soil his clothes.

18. Kohelet 9:8. ↩

The care­taker of the Al­ter Rebbe’s ohel in Ha­ditch was R. Chaim Meir. (His son-in-law — Zal­man Ber Kli­mav­itzky — was the care­taker in our own times. I of­ten sent him two or three rubles from my grand­fa­ther to help him out and to pur­chase olive oil to burn near the ohel.) R. Chaim Meir told my grand­fa­ther that all of the di­rec­tives con­cern­ing the ohel were is­sued by the Mit­teler Rebbe.

Once, hav­ing re­ceived an ur­gent pidyon ne­fesh and run­ning to take care of it, he ap­par­ently for­got to knock on the door be­fore en­ter­ing — and was hurled out. As he lay in the court­yard he dreamt that Frei­dka of blessed mem­ory told him: “Chaim Meir, you didn’t knock on the door! Look, do you see the birds? — they are ne­shamos that come here! But, since chas­sidim have lit­tle re­gard for dreams, you will be given a sign… ”

When he awoke a bee flew over and stung his ear, and for the rest of his life he was deaf in that ear.