Rabbi Hanina ben Dosa lived in such poverty that his family often had nothing for Shabbat.
One Friday, his wife stood in the empty kitchen, ashamed. The neighbors would notice the silent chimney, the dark window. She turned to her husband.
Hanina, who had long since made peace with being poor, did not promise her food. He promised her trust.
"Heaven will provide for the Shabbat meals," he said.
He told his daughter to prepare a Shabbat light. The girl confessed they had no oil. "Then light a wick," he said, "in a vessel filled with vinegar." It was absurd. Vinegar does not burn.
The daughter did as she was told. The wick caught. The vinegar burned through the entire Shabbat, from sundown Friday to the emergence of three stars Saturday night. One of the sages later remarked: "He who tells oil to burn can tell vinegar to burn."
And when Hanina's wife went, embarrassed, to close the oven she had heated out of pride — not wanting the neighbors to see an empty fire — she opened the door and found the chamber full of loaves, piled hot, enough for every meal.
Taanit 25a and Gaster's Exempla #163 preserve the miracle. The Shabbat of a family that trusts will be lit even when the pantry is empty.