Rav Yechiel of Alexander zy”a once traveled with son, the Yismach Yisroel zy”a, for a vacation. In the middle of the night, Rav Yechiel did not feel well. He felt so weak that he thought he might faint. There was no doctor in the vacation town, and he asked his son to say Vidui with him, as he felt that his end was near.
The Yismach Yisroel told him, “Tatte, go to sleep. I promise you that you will feel fine when you wake up in the morning.”
Rav Yechiel said, “If anyone else said that to me, I would think that he was just trying to comfort me. But I know that you are a man of truth, and if you make this promise, I am sure it will come true.”
He went to sleep and, when he woke up in the morning, he was fully healed. He asked his son, “How did you know that you could make this promise?”
The Yismach Yisroel answered, “I based my words on the explanation of the Ruzhiner Rebbe zy”a of the pasuk in Tehillim (13:2-3): ‘How long will You hide Your face from me? How long will I take counsel (eitzah) in my soul?’ He explained that as long as a person is looking for eitzos to help himself, indicating that he believes he has the power to find his own solution, his salvation is far from him. But once one realizes that he has no eitzos other than to turn to Hashem, his salvation is near.”
He concluded, “If there had been a doctor here, I would have done my hishtadlus and summoned him. But since we were in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the night, we had no eitzos. Therefore, I placed my trust solely in Hashem to send the yeshua.”
