The Klausenberger Rebbe Under a DP-Camp Chuppah

When I saw this photo my DH took of me candle-bathing on the last night of Chanukah, I was immediately reminded of a different photo which I could not tear my eyes away from when I came across it last week.

This other photo is of the Klausenberger Rebbe performing the wedding of 2 Holocaust survivors in a DP camp.

The Klausenberger Rebbe, I think, was one of the most phenomenal human beings of the previous century. After losing his precious 11 children and his beloved wife in the Shoah, the Rebbe devoted the rest of his life rebuilding. With a vengeance. Lighting candle after candle in the wake of the deepest darkness the Jewish people has ever known.

Candle by candle, the Klausenberger Rebbe managed to bring Jewish life back to the survivors in the DP camps, like this bride and groom. And thousands of others. He remarried and had 7 more children. He revived his own decimated Chassidus in the US and Israel, establishing solid new institutions and communities.

Looking at this photo with the Rebbe’s closing his eyes (which I decided to frame and hang on my wall) I imagine him looking inward, summoning strength to focus on the candles he’s lighting and not to be swallowed up by the darkness of rage and grief and horror that ravaged the lives of so many who survived the Holocaust.

And that, too, is what I see when I look at, lehavdil, the photo my DH took of me. I see myself, eyes closed, soaking up the pure light and supreme holiness of those candles. As if to say, “It’s so easy to be blinded by all the darkness. But I DO NOT want to be! I want to light one candle. And then another. To see the light not only when my eyes are closed, but when they are open as well. Like the Rebbe.