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HOLIDAY READING

Rabbi Hanoch Teller

Light in the Darkness

osef was a prisoner of Zion. invite the inmate for a talk. The pris- When no one was watching, he
He fervently wished to leave oner will be offered coffee, tea, meat secretly slipped a part of a slice of
Ythe Soviet Union and come to or a visit to a restaurant in civilian bread or a small piece of potato into
the Land of Israel, a wish which for clothing. An officer from the secret his pocket. Later on, he carefully
many others resulted in punishment police might tempt the prisoner with placed these scraps on a small ledge
and a prison term from the Soviet a letter from his family, or by permit- in his cell and prayed that a guard
authorities. ting a visit from a friend. would not notice his collection.

There were hundreds of Prisoners of To earn these privileges a prisoner The day before Chanukah, Yosef
Zion; brave men and women coura- merely has to be willing to inform on could barely contain his excitement.
geous enough to stand up to a ruth- a cellmate or confess to a crime he So far his little gathering had gone
less regime. Yosef was unusual in that never committed. unnoticed and there was only one
he not only wished to live in the Land Yosef would never inform on a cell- final, critical detail to be arranged.
of Israel; he tried in the most dra- mate or confess to a crime he hadn’t Trying to attract as little atten-
matic way to carry out that desire. committed, so he never got any spe- tion as possible, Yosef purchased
The day that he attempted to escape cial privileges. Needless to say, he was a pack of cigarettes in the prison
to Israel he was arrested by the infa- denied all religious articles, as well as store, although he didn’t smoke. He
mous KGB – the Soviet secret police permission to perform mitzvot. knew that packets of cigarettes were
– and sentenced to death. Due to But the KGB, for all their terror, accompanied by matches, and they
pressure applied by free countries intimidation, and frequent punish- were the crucial missing ingredient
all over the world, his sentence was ments, couldn’t break Yosef’s iron for his plan.
eventually commuted to a long and will to keep G-d’s commandments. With trembling fingers, Yosef opened
harsh prison term in the horrible up the box of matches and discovered
Vladimir Prison in Siberia. Somehow he managed to observe, in that there were 37 matches inside –
the most primitive fashion imagin-
The Vladimir Prison is a chilling able, whatever mitzvot he could. He exactly the number he needed, with
factory engaged in destroying man’s virtually risked his life not to work on one extra to serve as a shamash, for
spirit. Inside the prison compound, Shabbat. He refused to eat non-ko- the lights.
there is no standard diet or menu. sher food and avoided chametz on Late on the first night of Chanukah,
Prisoners’ rations are selected from Pesach. when everyone was sleeping and no
18 unnourishing varieties which guards were in sight, Yosef inserted
vary in the number of calories from One frigid winter, a single thought the matches into his slivers of dry
sub-average to starvation level. Like- managed to warm Yosef’s soul: bread and slices of potato. These
wise, the amount of exercise and the holiday of Chanukah was scraps were his secret Chanukah
fresh air allotted to a prisoner can approaching. menorah!
range from two hours down to none. Yosef dreamed of how he would be The matches burned for only a few
Contact with the outside is limited to able to observe the mitzvah of light- seconds, but they provided endless
several letters a year, but this too can, ing the candles, a seemingly impossi- light and inspiration for Yosef Men-
and often is, curtailed. Technically ble act under the circumstances. Cer- delevich in the depths of the Vladi-
a prisoner is allowed two meetings tainly, the prison authorities would mir Prison in Siberia.
a year with his family, but years can never permit it and would react Heard from Yacov Mordechai.
pass without any visits at all. harshly to the very proposal of such
The KGB has an elaborate and a notion. Regardless, Yosef put his
remarkably pragmatic way of con- mind to the mission and developed a
trolling an inmate’s body and even clever, viable scheme.
his thoughts. After the initial shock Every day he saved a little bit from Rabbi Hanoch Teller, internationally-ac-
of life at Vladimir has been expe- his meager rations, even though this claimed storyteller extraordinaire, is an
rienced, a KGB representative will meant subsisting on next to nothing. award-winning author and producer.

It’s only the G-d of light who can defeat the darkness in the human soul. | 41
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