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This is a beautiful story I heard not once, but many times from my heilige Rebbe Reb Shlomo Carlebach, tzl. Maybe you know it already, but that’s okay because some stories are meant to be told and heard over and over.

Once a chasid came to the Holy Reb Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev and asked him for help with a passport so that he wouldn’t need to go to the authorities to get it. The Rebbe went into his room for a few moments and came out with a blank piece of paper. The chasid was a little freaked out but the Rebbe assured him it would be fine. It takes so much emuna to walk up to the border and hand the guard a blank piece of paper. But that is exactly what the chasid did. Baruch Hashem, all went well – the guard looked at the “passport” and treated him like a king and helped him throughout his journey. The chasid came home and all was well.

Many, many years later in 1935, a Munkatcher chasid went to the Rebbe of Munkatch, the Rebbe Chaim Eleazar Shapira, and asked him for a special passport to help him as he had to go to Nazi Germany. The chasid asked him for a passport like the one the holy Reb Levi Yitschak had given his chasid.
The Munkatcher went into his room and was there for three hours. He came out with his face red from crying. He also handed his chasid a blank piece of paper but the paper was wet with tears. The Rebbe said that really our generation is not on the level of this kind of passport so promise me that you will never tell anyone about it as long as I live.

The chasid came to the Nazi border and the guard asked for his passport. The chasid gave him the blank piece of paper. The guard began exclaiming that it was a great honor to have him come to his country and gave him a letter to the police of each town so they will take care of you and protect you. He received a car and a driver and they paid for his hotel rooms and baruch Hashem, he too arrived home safely.

The Munkatcher Rebbe died the following year. Three years later the chasid became very sick and he realized his time for this world was about up. He called his family close to him and told them the secret of his holy Munkatcher passport and he asked that the passport be in his hand when they bury him.
Reb Shlomo told us that every Gemara starts on page two – page one is blank – Hashem gives us a Munkatcher passport so we can learn Torah. And when you are at the Holy Kotel and you realize that, “tachlis”, there is not much to really see there but you begin to daven from your heart the gates of Heaven open - it is because Hashem is giving you a holy Munkatcher passport.

May we all give each other “Munkatcher passports” – may we all open the gates for each other, may we all open the gates and let our walls down and no longer ever feel separate from Hashem, from our children, from our spouses, from our nation and from ourselves!!

My dear Reb Shlomo Carlebach, tz’l, once taught us that the first time Hashem spoke He said “Let there be light”. We all need light. It is possible that right next to me is the greatest treasure, or the thing I want the most, but there is no light and so I cannot see it. Chanuka is the only holiday that takes place only at night. We all have to go through a lot of darkness before we get to the real light. Night is the time for secrets; it is the time for whispers. It is the time of dreams. In the month of Kislev, nine out of the ten dreams mentioned in the Torah (all in Sefer Breishit) are read in the parshiot of Vayetse, Vayeshev and Meketz. So Kislev is the month of dreams. We were learning that according to the Holy Reb Rizner, the month of Cheshvan is the month of whispering. Well, perhaps it is the month of whispering while awake and Kislev is the month of the whispering in our dreams.

In order to sleep a person must feel safe, you must feel surrounded. The letter of the month of Kislev is a “Samech” – a perfect circle. In order to embrace someone I create a “Samech” around them – I am really telling them that I am ready to hold them up. I will not let them fall. A woman walks around the chuppa 7 times building the walls of her home around her husband, telling him she will surround him in their life together, she will hold him up and the man replies by giving her a ring – a samech – to tell her that he too will hold her up, he will surround her with his love and caring.

We light the Chanuka lights by our door to shine our light out to everyone in the street – all those lonely people who have not yet found their own soul, their own home. Chanuka in the Gemara is “eish oobeito” – a man and his house. You have to be together to light your candles. You cannot do it on your own. We need to come together, to make peace between husband and wife, parents and children, us and the world to really light our Chanuka lights.

Rav Kook once asked a deep question – why is the blessing for the Chanuka lights actually in the singular – ner chanuka – the candle of Chanuka and not the candles of Chanuka? He answers that the lights of Chanuka represent all the blessings of enlightenment that Am Yisrael has given to the world. He says that all of our potential spiritual gifts are included in the dedication of the Holy Temple on Chanuka – Torah, prophecy, wisdom, justice and so on. In certain situations it may seem that the lights each need their own emphasis in order to do its work. Sometimes these divisions can lead to distances between people and even strife. Ultimately we will see that all lights, the light of each and every one of our souls all have a commonality – they are really a single light. So we make a blessing on the candle of Chanuka because we understand that someday soon we will actually see that all our lights are all one.

Reb Avraham Eiger says there are two ways of seeing in this world. One way is with your eyes open and one way is with your eyes closed. Now, really seeing with your eyes open is not a simple thing. Many of us are easily deluded by what we think we see and cannot easily grasp what there is to be seen. The Holy Ishbitzer says that Yitzchak Avinu could not see but he was in Eretz Yisrael and Moshe Rabbeinu was given the gift to see Eretz Yisrael but he could not go in. So what does it mean to see with your eyes closed? We close our eyes to see that which is not yet here, that which we are longing for the most. Reb Shlomo added that on Chanuka Hashem gives us a gift that when we sit by our Chanuka lights and watch them we can see in their light that which we are longing for the most. When we sit and look into the eyes of our soul mate, Hashem allows us a glimpse to see reflected back in their eyes that which we are longing for.

I bless all of us we should merit to really see what is in front of us – who we are, who our spouses are and who our children are and what Hashem wants of us. And I bless us all to tune into what are the things we are longing for the most. May Hashem answer all our prayers and help us bring about the complete Redemption!

Happy Chanuka