A married man with a family came to me who had become addicted, lo aleinu, to drugs, to the extent that even on Shabbos he was not able to restrain himself from smoking his drugs. After many efforts on his part and hard work, he was weaned off the drugs.
However, then a story of insomnia began for him. After eight months had passed, he asked that I permit him to use drugs only in order to sleep. I consulted with knowledgeable people who told me that this was a very dangerous gamble, because such a person can easily fall back into drugs, and the drugs before sleep are nothing other than the counsel of the yetzer, and from here he enters a slippery slope straight to the lowest depths of the abyss...
He continued to ask and to request permission from me, because he promised that he would never return to drugs ever again. It was before Shabbos that I traveled to Meron. I told him that in Meron I would pray for him that Rashbi should give me correct advice for him. When I returned, he appeared and again his request was in his mouth, that he cannot sleep and that he needs a solution...
“What is the answer that Rashbi gave you?!” he asked, and sat down outside. He himself is a special person and a person of a lofty soul who truly and sincerely seeks a real solution and does not play games. He truly cannot sleep...
In the meantime, an elderly Jew entered to me at kabbalas kahal. I asked him what he does in his life. The Jew answered me that he is a doctor and that his specialty is sleep problems. Anyone who suffers from insomnia, he is the great expert in the field... I heard this and I already understood everything.
I called him from outside and connected them. I said to him: “Rebbe Shimon did not answer with an answer, he sent here the expert to you to treat you personally”!!!
It is superfluous to note that the excitement, both of the expert and of the patient, soared to the heavens!!!
I do not ask everyone what he engages in, and here Hashem placed it in my heart to ask him, with wondrous Divine providence [hashgacha]!!!
Moreinu HaRav shlit”a
