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The Short Vort
Good Morning!
Today is Erev Rosh Hashanah 5783, and September 25, 2022
The Lighter Which Continues to Bring Light
It began as a regular Tuesday.
My mother woke me up in the morning. I headed out to meet the school bus to yeshiva.
We lived in Crown Heights at 636 Brooklyn Ave on the 13th floor of the 16-floor building.
My next memory of November 9, 1965, is being dropped off back home by Eddie Spaghetti, the bus driver (all the kids called him that, and he would laugh along. (at least, I hope he did).
My brother and I waited for the elevator with a crowd of others who had returned from work.
We entered the elevator at 5:25.
With the elevator at full capacity, the door slowly closed, and the elevator began its ascent.
Everything was exactly the way it was every day of the week.
Until it wasn't.
Blackness enveloped the elevator, and it came to a sudden halt.
We were trapped in the darkened, crowded cubicle.
The great Blackout of 1965 had begun.
At that point, we had no idea we were among over 800,000 people stranded and stuck in elevators and subways all over New York City.
There were flashes of light as people began flicking their cigarette lighters.
One man took advantage of the light to force open the decorative door, which revealed the steel inner door with its huge lever.
Another man pushed the lever, and the elevator door flew open.
Miraculously we had stopped about six feet above the lobby, and as the door flew open, we could see those on the ground floor.
There was a very small opening at the bottom of the elevator.
With us in the elevator was Mr. Weinstein, a man my brother and I knew from the building.
He had a thick Yiddish accent and blue numbers tattooed on his arm.
He took command and said authoritatively, "Let's at least save the boys!"
He then pushed something into my hand and said, "Es zol zeyn far aShmira.” (This will guard you)
Immediately, my brother and I were picked up and lowered into the waiting hands of those in the lobby.
We were the only ones small enough to be lowered down.
Before we disappeared into the mass of people, Mr. Weinstein called, "Hashem Yishmor!"
My brother and I looked at each, and we did not know what to say or do.
My father was not due home until seven, and the staircase up to the 13th floor was darker than the night.
I thought, "Mr. Weinstein said Hashem is watching over us, so it must be true.”
At that moment, I heard a familiar voice.
We turned, and there was my father entering the lobby.
Surprisingly, his last two appointments were canceled, and he came home early for the only time I could ever recall.
Even more shocking was that my father was toting an old flashlight.
I never noticed a flashlight in his car before or after, yet, somehow, that night, he had a flashlight.
We began to trek up the thirteen flights.
On floor eleven, my father's flashlight began flickering and fading fast.
Then we heard my mother's voice.
"Moshe, is that you? Do you have the boys with you?"
My mother was walking downstairs with a candle to meet us.
Mr. Weinstein's promise that Hashem would watch over was working overtime that night in November 1965.
When I entered our darkened apartment, I gave my mother the object Mr. Weinstein pressed in my hand in the elevator.
I had no idea what it was.
It was a cigarette lighter.
He obviously thought we might need it.
My mother correctly took it from me and put it away for safekeeping.
Little did I know then that I would never lay eyes on this strange gift for fifty-seven years.
By the morning, the lights were back on, and I was back in school.
A few months later, Mr. Weinstein passed away.
Years passed, and lives moved on.
In 2015 my mother left this world, and I inherited a small cigar box marked “636 Brooklyn Ave”.
Fast forward to September 2022.
One day last week, I spoke casually to a group of men after the 11 PM Maariv.
I randomly (for reasons I can no longer remember why) mentioned that in the blackout of 1965, I was stuck in an elevator.
I briefly related how my brother and I were saved and how an elderly holocaust survivor gave me his cigarette lighter.
I added, “This year, the secular date of the anniversary of the blackout, November 9, falls on the 15th of Cheshvan just as it did 57 years ago.
I mused, “I wonder what ever happened to that cigarette lighter?”
I was unaware of a man in his seventies listening attentively to every word.
As I walked out of the building, the fellow approached me.
“That was some story you told about being stuck in the elevator.”
I nodded in agreement.
“I don’t live around here, and I have never been to Passaic before.
However, I was particularly intrigued by the older gentleman who gave you, the lighter. You did not mention his name. Do you remember what his name was?”
“Yes, I do. His name was Mr. Weinstein.”
“My name is Weinstein, and that man in the elevator was my grandfather!
I was a teenager, and he told me the story of being stuck in the elevator with the two boys.”
I stood there stunned.
He asked me, "Do you have my grandfather’s lighter?”
I had not seen or even thought about the lighter in over half a century.
Mr. Weinstein’s grandson pleaded, “Do you have the lighter?”
His face conveyed a sense of desperation and longing for his grandfather’s lighter.
Suddenly, I recalled the box I had brought from my mother’s home seven years ago, marked “636 Brooklyn Ave.”
I had never thought to open it; however, I knew exactly where it was.
I told the man to meet me in my office in one hour.
I retrieved the box and opened it.
There were a few old keys and a lease from 1963, and there it was: a silver cigarette lighter.
My mother attached a note by the lighter: "Given by Mr. Weinstein night of blackout November 9, 1965."
I returned to the Shul to personally give Mr. Weinstein's grandson the lighter.
His eyes lit up and then filled with tears as he caressed the long-lost precious lighter.
He held it lovingly.
It was very tarnished. However, a faint engraving could be seen.
Hebrew letters could be made out.
Mr. Weinstein's grandson carefully rubbed away some of the tarnish.
Suddenly, two larger words above smaller words were recognizable.
The two larger words were “Shomer Yisroel”; below them were also engraved in Hebrew, “Warsaw, Erev Rosh Hashanah 5700.”
Mr. Weinstein’s grandson looked at me and, through tear-filled eyes, said, “Thank you. My grandfather, before he died, told me he had a cigarette lighter given to him by his grandfather at the beginning of the war in 1939.
His grandfather told him it would be a Shmirah for him. He kept it with him during the war and hid it with him even in Auschwitz.
When the lights when out in the elevator, my grandfather was sure the war had begun anew.
The Nazis must be bombing again.
In one last act of Chessed, he told us he gave the lighter to the small red-headed boy as he was sure that only he and his brother would survive the bombing.
Later, when he realized it was an innocuous blackout and the war had not re-started, he wanted to get the lighter back. Unfortunately, he passed away soon after.
I have been davening for 57 years to be reunited with the lighter one day.
Today, when you told the story, I knew Hashem answered my Tefillos.”
As I silently stood in awe of Hashem’s ways, I thought, what are the chances of this man showing up in my Shul for Maariv?
And of my telling the story of the blackout on that night?
“What were you doing here at 11 PM Maariv tonight?”
“I wasn’t planning on being here.
In fact, I had never heard of Passaic.
I was flying from overseas to Newark, and from there, I was catching a connecting flight to the West Coast.
My connecting flight was delayed, and I asked someone what the closest late Maariv to Newark Airport was, and they told me to come to the Ahavas.
My Zaide always told me to say Shalom Aleichem to the Rav of the Shul, so I followed you out of Shul and heard your story.”
“Your commitment to Tefillah B’Tzibur is amazing and inspiring!”
“I must admit, I would have Davened b’Yechidus.
However, when I heard the plane was delayed, I looked through my phone and realized I should say Kaddish tonight.”
“What do you mean you realized you should say Kaddish? Are you an Avel? Do you have Yahrtzeit?”
“No, I don’t. However, on my phone, I have a list of all of my relatives and when they passed away, and if there is no one to say Kaddish, I try to say a Kaddish for them. In fact, I just saw tonight is the Yahrtzeit of one of my family members.
I did not even have the time to see which one.
Let me check for whom I was saying for.”
Mr. Weinstein’s grandson scrolled through his phone until I heard him gasp.
“What’s the matter?”
“Tonight is the Yahrtzeit of my Zaide’s Zaide!
Tonight is the Yahrtzeit of the man who gave my Zaide the watch! He died in the Warsaw Ghetto.”
“What was his name?”
“His name is my name, Shmuel Zalman ben Aryeh Leib.
I came here seeking a late Maariv and am leaving in possession of my only physical link to my past.”
As he rushed back to Newark airport, I stood in awe of the true Borei HaOhr- the true creator of light.
“If Not Now, Then When?”- Hillel
Ron Yitzchok Eisenman
Rav
Congregation Ahavas Israel
Passaic, NJ
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