Holy Wildfire 

When the Piaseczner Rebbe buried his Warsaw Ghetto manuscripts in milk cans, he hoped they would somehow find their way to future generations. Indeed, his Aish Kodesh, published after the war, is now finding a new audience with Rabbi Meir B. Kahane’s interpretive translation, plumbing the depths of the Piaseczner Rebbe’s thoughts to answer the question, “If Hashem loves me, why am I in pain?”

“Pain may be undesirable or unpleasant, but it’s not bad,” Rabbi Meir B. Kahane states without fanfare. “In fact, people will willingly endure or even generate pain. If you knew there was gold at the top of a mountain, you would climb that mountain, with all it involved, to get it. Because you don’t really mind pain when you know that the payoff is worth it.”

It is a message that Rabbi Kahane (pronounced ka-hain) has distilled from the monumental sefer Aish Kodesh, written in the Warsaw Ghetto by the Piaseczner Rebbe, Rav Kalonymus Kalman Shapiro Hy”d, in an acclaimed new interpretative translation, A Fire in the Darkness (Menucha). This masterful guide for personal growth is based on the monumental work Aish Kodesh, which addresses the weighty issues of pain and suffering specifically in light of a good G-d. The Rebbe gives insightful and practical guidance for growth during even the most painful of times and in doing so powerfully demonstrates that there is nothing people go through that they can’t grow from — even a Holocaust.

As much as the Piaseczner Rebbe encouraged the broken, starving, despondent Jews of the ghetto, Rabbi Kahane sees the ideas of Aish Kodesh as essential for the current generation.

“The Piaseczner Rebbe talks about how you don’t have to deny your pain, and you don’t have to feel uncomfortable or ashamed that you’re in pain,” explains Rabbi Kahane. “Okay, you’re in pain. But just know that what comes out of that will make you better, and that can be a very validating feeling. Really? I’m bigger than this? If I can keep myself up, I’m going to be bigger than everything I went through?”