By Tuvia Bolton
One day, a very distraught woman showed up in the town of Lubavitch. Women usually did not wander about all alone one hundred years ago, but this poor woman had made an arduous week-long journey because someone told her that the Lubavitcher Rebbe could help her.
"Is this where Rebbe Shalom DovBer is? I must see him," she pleaded to one of the Rebbe's secretaries. "I've come from so far away, and your Rebbe is my only hope. Please, I must see him! Only he can help me." But her cries were to no avail; the Rebbe wasn't receiving.
"If you write your request on a paper I promise that I will give it to the Rebbe and the Rebbe will see it, but I can't promise more than that. I'm sorry," he said apologetically.
With no other choice the poor woman found a quiet place to sit and write her request. She was an agunah, a living widow. Her husband had strayed from Judaism about two years ago and then upped and left her. She had no source of income, three hungry children to feed, and she could not remarry without receiving an official divorce bill (Get) from her husband. But she had no way of tracking him down, and no one even knew where to begin. The woman was at the end of her wits; she had no money, no husband, no experience, and now her last hope, the Rebbe, was vanishing before her eyes.
"The Rebbe probably won't even pay attention to my letter," she said to herself. But she handed it in and hoped for the best.
The answer was fast in coming. Less than an hour later the Rebbe's secretary stood facing her with good news.
"The Rebbe says that you should travel to Warsaw."
She was overjoyed! But her smile faded as she realized that there was no more to the message.
"But where in Warsaw? What should I do there?"
"That is all the Rebbe answered," answered the secretary. "I'm sorry, there was no more."
She even wrote in another letter asking for some details, but no response was forthcoming this time.
When the Chassidim heard the story they took up a collection and bought her a round-trip train ticket with enough money for a month's room and board. Two days later there she was, standing bewildered in the Warsaw train station with her old suitcase and no idea where to go or what to do next.
People were rushing by her, occasionally bumping into her, someone almost knocked her over, but she just stood there. She had the address of a hotel on a crumpled piece of paper in her hand. She took it out of her pocket but she didn't want to walk anymore, she was tired, she just wanted to give up. "The children are in good hands," she thought to herself. She was alone and confused and she wanted to cry. Someone else bumped into her. "Maybe I'll just go back home." The thought was still in the corner of her mind when she heard someone say, "Excuse me."
She snapped out of her reverie and saw standing before her a neatly dressed Jew with a reddish beard. "Excuse me," he said in Yiddish, "I notice that you are standing for a long time. Are you feeling all right? Perhaps I can be of some help? Are you waiting for someone?"
"I'm here because the Lubavitcher Rebbe said...," and she mechanically repeated her entire story. "Tell me," said the man when she had finished, "what was your husband's name and what did he look like?"
"Ehh, well..." She was still in a semi-daze. "His name was Feivel, but I'm sure he changed it. And he was heavyset. He walked with a sort of a limp, and he had a thick black beard, but I'm sure he's shaved the beard off, and he has a sort of mark on his forehead. It's been two years, who knows how he looks now...." She almost began to weep when he interrupted her. "I think I know where he is. Please follow me. It's not far from here." He escorted her out of the station, down the street to a large busy intersection, and gave her directions how to go from there to a certain tavern. "I believe that your husband is sitting in the back of that bar, playing cards and gambling."
After everything she'd been through, she asked no questions. She just nodded to the stranger and began walking according to his directions. And after an hour she found it! She took a deep breath and entered the dimly lit tavern, dragging her suitcase and feeling terribly out of place.
