Rav Mordechai of Slonim once told how the holy Ba’al Shem Tov confronted his student, Rav Nachum Czernobyler and asked him why he had split the very heavens that day during the afternoon Mincha prayers. Defending his actions, the Meor Einayim recounted how he had traveled by wagon in the freezing cold weather. Just as they neared the neighboring village, the old gentile wagon driver passed out in the snow and died. When the wagon got to the village, the gentiles attacked Rav Nachum, screaming that he had murdered the wagon driver and how they would retaliate by lynching him.
“I begged them to let me have my last rites, and as I davened Mincha to Hashem and beseeched the heavens, the wagon driver’s body revived – he got up and, before the frightened and astonished villagers, declared how he had died of frostbite and hypothermia and not by my hand. After he told them this, he fell back down again dead, and I was saved and reprieved. Perhaps that is what you heard from the Heavens?” (Mizekeinim Esbonon II - page 57:3)
