Faiga was first married to a wealthy man, and had received a lot of gold upon her marriage. Ten years passed, and the marriage was harmonious, but they were not blessed with children. They divorced, and she returned all the gold she had received.
Three years passed in loneliness. Then she married Reb Chaim Moshe, a widower with six young children. She undertook to care for these orphans, hoping that the merit of the mitzvah would result in her being blessed with a child.
Years of waiting passed... Faiga Daskal was already forty-one years old, and her life until that point had been full of piercing pain and anguished yearning. She focused all her entreaties on her greatest desire: “Ribbono shel Olam, please give me a child from Your treasury! A son who I can raise to serve You and learn Your Torah; a child who will bring You nachas!”
Brokenhearted, she traveled to the Ahavas Yisrael of Vizhnitz. She went in to him with tears rolling down her face, and told him the story of her life. She cried and pleaded to be blessed with a child.
The Ahavas Yisrael nodded his head, as though agreeing with her words. She left his room, sensing that she had not yet attained a yeshuah. The Rebbe hadn’t promised anything — he had only blessed her! So she wrote a new kvittel, mustered up the courage, and went back in to the Rebbe to present her plea.
“But I gave you a brachah!” The Rebbe was taken aback.
“Yes, but the Rebbe didn’t promise,” she replied.
The Rebbe opened his left hand, and with the finger of his right hand, he made a sign on his palm, as though signing for the brachah to be fulfilled.
The Ahavas Yisrael’s promise was fulfilled. On Wednesday, the evening of the second day of Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan 5691, Faiga gave birth to a precious son, a charming child who illuminated her life and filled her heart with boundless love. His name was Shmuel Yehuda, for his mother’s father, Reb Shmuel Fruchter, and for her father’s father.
The child’s pure soul descended to this world after so many years of tears and pleas. The mesirus nefesh and tefillos saturated with emunah formed his very foundation, and stood him in good stead.
When she looked at little Shmuel Yehuda’le’s pure blue eyes, Faiga had no way to foresee what was in store for her child, the challenges he would face, and the many obstacles and tribulations that would be scattered on his path in life. In both ruchniyus and in material matters, his life would be far from the usual. But he was well equipped, with exceptional middos and a pure soul that aspired to shleimus — surely due to the tefillos, tears and pleas of his mother, and above all, the brachah of the Rebbe, the Ahavas Yisrael of Vizhnitz.
It’s interesting to note what is stated in the book Sar HaTorah on the Tchebiner Rav (p. 505):
A baby of a relative was once brought to his home, a child born after years of waiting. When they entered the room with him, the Rav rose and said, “M’darf zich oifshtellen far an oisgebetener kind — we need to stand up for a child for whom so many tefillos were offered.”
