Rav Nachum Teitelbaum shlit”a relates:
A year and a half ago, before Pesach 5782, my older sister invited us, for the first time, to spend the first days of Pesach in her home. We agreed happily, since at the time my sister and brother-in-law had been married for over ten years and were still childless. I understood that my sister wanted to feel v’samachta b’chagecha and to spend the Yom Tov with my rambunctious children, who bring with them plenty of mess and action, joy and happiness. She also knew that hachnasas orchim is a segulah for having children, and she chose me to assist her in carrying out this segulah.
We understood that it was the right thing for us to be happy with her on Yom Tov and to stay at their home for the night of the Seder.
It was a wonderful Shabbos and Yom Tov. We enjoyed a special form of hospitality. My brother-in-law and sister created a good, warm atmosphere throughout the day. They were understanding of my children’s rambunctiousness and of the traces of mess they left behind. We sang uplifting zemiros together on the night of the Seder and during the day’s seudah. At the culmination of thirty hours of hospitality, we prepared to leave with a warm feeling in our hearts. Standing in their doorway, we blessed them from the depth of our hearts that they be zocheh to a yeshuah, so that their home would no longer be so silent, and that they would no longer need to bring guests only so that there be someone to make noise.
When I left my sister’s house I was feeling deeply the desire to see their home filled with zera beirach Hashem. Up until then I would mention their names at every opportunity and every time I davened at kivrei tzaddikim, and from time to time we would do some sort of segulos in the family, but we had somehow grown accustomed to their situation. The pain notwithstanding, you could say that we had gotten used to the idea that they needed a yeshuah, and their situation was a sort of a fact of life that did not arouse so much pain in us, for this is the way of the world.
Now, after visiting them at home and seeing everything firsthand, I felt the deep gap between my happy, noisy family and their empty home. I felt such compassion for them! I wanted with all my heart and soul to see them have a yeshuah. On the way home I asked the Creator of all the worlds to lead me in the proper way. “Ribbono shel Olam,” I begged, “I don’t know what I am to do in order to bring about a yeshuah for my sister and brother-in-law. Please, lead me to do what You need me to do, to what chizuk I am to take upon myself, or which tefillah I am to daven. Please, Hashem, save me! Open the gates of mercy and ratzon and be mezakeh me to bring about a yeshuah for my dear sister.”
That was my tefillah from the depth of my heart, and wondrously enough, the next day I was answered. You asked – you received.
As is the custom in many communities during the days of Chol Hamoed, in our shul in Bnei Brak they bring speakers to deliver shiurim on various subjects in Torah, halachah, and inyanei d’yoma, to uphold the injunction of our Sages that the Yamim Tovim were given so that Am Yisrael be occupied with Torah.
I participated in the shiurim as well. During one of the shiurim a question came up; someone interrupted and shouted out something that contradicted what the speaker was saying. Another listener tried to quiet him down, a third one tried to compromise, and a bit of a tumult ensued. Suddenly, the speaker lifted his voice, directed his gaze at me, gave me a sharp look, and spoke harshly to me. I felt as if he was pouring boiling water over me. I’d had absolutely nothing to do with the whole thing. I hadn’t interrupted him and I hadn’t said anything afterward either. He mistakenly thought I was at fault. I have no explanation for his behavior other than that Hakadosh Baruch Hu heard my tefillos and brought this shame upon me. These were not simply bizyonos, and while it was taking place there were at least 250 people looking at me. Nothing like this had ever happened to me before, and I had never before heard a Yid speak the way he was speaking. There was no point in my trying to justify myself and explain that I hadn’t opened my mouth at all. I saw that anything I would say would only make things worse. The only thing that could save me would be if the floor beneath me would open up and swallow me immediately.
But the floor remained just as it was, and I couldn’t leave the beis medrash either, since doing so would create additional unpleasantness. I waited for the shiur to end, they said Kaddish d’Rabannan, and during the Kaddish I made my way outside to avoid meeting anyone. I hurried home, happy that the house was empty. My wife had gone out with the children to visit her mother, and I went into the bedroom, insulted, exhausted and in pain, to recover from that degrading spectacle.
It was hashgachah pratis that this happened in the year 5782, after four years of my listening to the Hashgachah Pratis phone line, which was launched in 5778. If this
