When the Ponevezher Rav was a young man, he visited the Chofetz Chaim at his home in Radin. When he entered the house, he saw the rebbetzin busy in the kitchen, but from the attic upstairs he heard screaming and wailing, the likes of which he had never heard before. Even more amazing, the rebbetzin did not seem to be perturbed at all by the noise.
“What is all the wailing about?” the future Ponevezher Rav asked the rebbetzin.
The rebbetzin told him that her husband, the Chofetz Chaim, had heard that a woman in the nearby city of Eishishok was having great difficulty in childbirth, posing a danger to both herself and the baby. So he was davening to Hashem on their behalf. The rebbetzin said this as if it were nothing unusual.
“If this is what the Chofetz Chaim is like,” the Ponevezher Rav said, “then I will stay here in Radin to learn under him.”
And thus, the Ponevezher Rav became a talmid of the Chofetz Chaim.
This story has a sequel. Many years later, when a rabbi told over this story to an audience, an elderly man approached him after the speech. He said, “I am the baby that was born in Eishishok that day thanks to the prayers of the Chofetz Chaim.”
Adapted from The Unbroken Chain by Rabbi Dovid Sapirman, with the permission of the author.
