The night of the yechidus came. I wrote to the Rebbe the entire story in a letter. The ill man was also being accompanied by his wife, and she would also be joining them in the yechidus. I was instructed by Rabbi Klein to go in with them, so that I would be available to translate.
At first the Rebbe told them all to sit. The wife of the sick man sat on one side and the 3 brothers sat on the other side, and I stood in a corner and tried to make myself invisible.
The Rebbe read the letter that described their request, and then turned to them and said that if they want their brother to be well, then they need to see to it that everything that they eat, and especially everything that he (the ill man) eats, must be kosher.
I translated to them what the Rebbe had said [at first the Rebbe wasn’t satisfied, and said “nisht dos hob ich gemeint”, so I translated again, and this time the Rebbe nodded in agreement].
Then the Rebbe asked the ill man to show where he has the disease, and he agreed. The Rebbe put on his glasses and bent forward over his desk and peered at the area that he was shown. Then he turned to me and said “Pinye, zog em az ich zeh gornisht” [Tell him that I don’t see anything there!]. Then the Rebbe gave them numerous brochos, and then he turned to me and said “Efsher kenst em zoggen er zol noch amol veizen, genoi vu dos iz geven” [Can you tell him to show me (the disease) again, precisely where it was].
The ill man readily agreed, and the Rebbe once again put on his glasses, and peered very intently at the spot he was shown. Again the Rebbe said “zog em az ich zeh gornisht”.
The yechidus ended and they left (backing out, as I had instructed them. I, on the other hand, was so petrified by what I had witnessed that I was rooted to the spot and could not move a muscle. I had to be dragged out by Rabbi Leibel Groner).
The next day the doctor examined the sick man, and exclaimed: “I don’t know what happened, but whatever you had is gone, it disappeared!”
This took place in Av, and I got married (about 4 months later) in Kislev. By the wedding I didn’t see them, and I found this surprising (they were very close with my father). I asked my father about this, and, the day after my chasuna, he told me their shocking story:
They had been careful with kashrus for a while (while in NY and afterwards in Miami). But, during the summer, they spent some time in a vacation resort, where kashrus was very challenging, and they became lax. Not long afterwards the disease returned with a vengeance, and within a week the man was gone. This had just occurred, and they were still in the middle of shiva.
I didn’t ask any questions, but I immediately went – in the midst of my sheva brochos – to the shivah house. When I got there, one of the brothers came down to meet me. He didn’t greet me, or wish me mazeltov. His first words were: ‘Look what happens when you don’t listen to what the Rebbe said’!
There are many important lessons to be learned from this amazing story, but I would like to focus on one point: There seem to be two distinct messages that the ill man heard from the Rebbe. On the one hand, the Rebbe told him very emphatically that he is not ill, there is no disease present in his body. The Rebbe repeated twice that he sees nothing there. On the other hand, the Rebbe told him that his being cured, being healthy, is contingent on them keeping kosher.
One way to understand this: In the Rebbe’s room, in the Rebbe’s daled amos, there is no illness and no negativity. In the presence of the Rebbe, the man was already cured. We could say that while there he was elevated above the limitations and shortcomings of the physical world that are the root of illness and imperfection. (As Chazal teach us - when the Yidden stood in front of har Sinai they were cured of all of their ailments).
But that was not that he was actually cured; that was a healing, rather, that was a result of the lofty place he was in. His body itself was not cured, and therefore there was the danger that – as his body would descend from this lofty plane, the disease would reappear.
The Rebbe therefore said that they need to do something to cause the person’s body to be inherently healed. Their following the laws of kashrus would be the means with which they would bring the healing to the ill man’s physical body, that would be his personalized cure. That would be the way that his body would be inherently healed with no risk of the disease returning.
[Rabbi Yudel Krinsky recently shared a story: It was the first year, before the Rebbe had formally accepted the nesius, and he wrote to the Rebbe – on behalf of his father – to request a brocho for another shoichet in Boston who was in urgent need of a refuah sheleima. Rabbi Chodakov called him into the Rebbe’s room, where the Rebbe discussed the situation with him. In the course of the conversation, the Rebbe asked if that shoichet learns chassidus. When Rabbi Krinsky said he didn’t know, the Rebbe said: “We need to make a keili (for his refuah sheleima) in teva (in nature) as well, so let him start learning chassidus, and that will be the keili in teva”!]
