We're Coming Home | Rabbi Fischel Schachter

So Aharon had to brave the European cold to go daven Maariv on Chanukah in Vienna. No Judaica stores, but the Shamesh always sold candles and different things. And he went down, bought a box of candles and some oil and wrapped himself in his fur coat, came home, and his little daughter started to scream and cry. She wanted pink candles and he brought blue candles. Now I know you've heard bigger tragedies than that. And she said: No, no, no, Daddy, go back! And his wife said: You're not going back in this cold. Who says the Shamesh is even there? And Aharon said: Chanukah is once a year. And he went back. And the Shamesh wasn't there and he found him in his house, and he got him to go back to the Shul, and he brought home the pink candles and she ran over and hugged her father, and they had their Chanukah. And a couple of years down the pike, things started to change, and change badly in Austria. Really went bad. There was the Anschluss. They're running away from Vienna, and they're trying to avoid the ghetto. Father, mother and daughter. And they're going from farm to farm and they're hiding out. And one night, a farmer comes out with a shotgun and says, Get off my property! He says: I remember you. We were colleagues. We taught together in school. He said: But now you have to get off my property. Can you at least keep us here overnight? I could wind up being killed. You know what? That kid. Leave the kid here. The kid had blond hair, blue eyes. They said: No, no. We're taking our girl with us. Are you out of your mind? You're taking the kid with you? You leave that kid here! And he threatened with his shotgun and they had no choice. They left the kid there. What happened in the next couple of years, I don't know, you don't know, no one knows. Only Aharon is left or whatever was left of Aharon. And he's going from farm to farm, looking for his daughter. And he bangs on a door and he sees her. She's a teenager now. And he hears the mother say: Christina, get the door. And she opens up and she says: Who are you? What do you want? And he said: You're my daughter. And she went running and said: There's a crazy man over here that's saying I’m his daughter! In seconds, the father came out with the shotgun. He recognized him and said: Get off my property now. But that's my daughter! And he grabbed him and started pulling him out, and he was looking for some words, some words to say, and finally he said, Chanal’e, the pink candles. Don't you remember them? And suddenly there was a look of recognition in her eyes, and the last couple of years were deleted, and she charged toward him. Abba! Daddy! And they knew they couldn't stop her. There's something about the נרות חנוכה that's part of us, that's within us, that doesn't get lost. Where do we light נרות חנוכה? It's put in the worst possible place, from a strategic standpoint. By the door toward the outside, toward the bottom, darkest time. Because Chanukah light is about a pilot light that's within us. We stare at the נרות. The Sefarim say, by looking at the נרות, it generates a little pilot light that's within us. It doesn't make a difference how badly we blew it. It doesn't make a difference how far away we are from any feeling of being close to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. It doesn't make a difference how much we're tossed into pain, and it looks like our lives are in a wreck. Somewhere in the Chanukah licht, there's a power. If we're careful with our eyes, then we’re zoche to see it. And we can all cry: Abba, we're coming home.