There lived in Europe in the last century a well-known Chasidic rabbi who was rebbe to tens of thousands of chasidim. He was known as the Zidochover Maggid. One Friday as he sat and learned Torah with a group of his disciples, a woman entered his study carrying a chicken which she wished to prepare for the Shabbat meal. However, there was a question on the kashrut of the bird, so she had brought it to the Rabbi to ask if it was permissible. Now, on the face of it, the chicken had lesions on its lung which would normally indicate that it was treife, but to the astonishment of his students, the Rebbe spent hours studying many texts in an attempt to find an opinion which would permit the chicken. It was incomprehensible to them just why the Rebbe would go to such lengths when he could just as easily give the woman a ruble to buy another chicken. After hours of study the Rebbe stood up and pronounced the chicken kosher! The Rebbe's disciples couldn't believe their ears, but he had labored and succeeded in finding a way to rule the chicken permissible. The happy woman went home to prepare her Shabbat meal, and the scholars resumed their study.
Soon after she left another woman entered the hall in a state of hysteria. "Rebbe, Rebbe!" she screamed, as she fainted to the floor. When she was revived she resumed her wailing, crying, "Rebbe, you must help me, my husband, the doctors have given up hope!" Again the poor woman fainted and had to be revived. The Rebbe stood by her side and said, "Tell me please, what is the exact nature of your husband's ailment?"
She replied that he had serious lesions on his lungs. When he heard that, the Rebbe comforted her saying, "I just ruled that this type of malady is kosher. Go home and don't worry; your husband will live for many years." And this, in fact, is what happened. Only then did the students understand that through his ruach hakodesh (spiritual insight) the Rebbe had known that he would need that halachic ruling to help a fellow Jew. Through his pronouncement which allowed the chicken to be used he also, so to speak, negated the fatal effects of the same illness on a fellow Jew.
