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 had happened before it was launched, there is no doubt that I would have reacted differently. I was liable to sink into deep pain and blame, and who knows how I would have emerged from the story, but as someone who had listened attentively to the phone line for four years, I was well aware that there was no possibility for anything or anyone in the world to cause benefit or harm to himself or another if it is not the will of the Creator.
I stood there and said that I forgave the speaker, I thanked Hashem for the kapparah of my sins, and asked that indeed I would be zocheh to complete forgiveness from on High. Dozens of stories that I had heard and read in the newsletters came to mind, and the deep acknowledgement that the shame was the best thing that could have happened to me was revealed in all its glory. I placed my right hand on the mezuzah and turned to the King Who hears all tefillos, Who knows all that our hearts hold and all our thoughts, with words from the depth of my heart, words I never would have believed I had the strength to say. I said that now my heart was warm to help assist my dear sister and bring about a yeshuah for her, and therefore I was begging Hashem to grant her living offspring. I whispered and begged and pleaded and begged, and v’chol ma’aminim – “all believe that He responds to whispered prayers.”
Then some fear rose in my heart. Perhaps tomorrow the yetzer hara will come and cool me down from this excitement, I thought, this great ability to be accepting of shame, and then, chas v’shalom, there would be a blemish in the brachah I gave my sister. What should I do? I called the Hashgachah Pratis phone line and pressed 242 – these are the numbers you need to press to bring you directly to the last recorded shiur in Shaar Habitachon. And behold – hashgachah within hashgachah! For a Jew who wants to be strengthened in hashgachah, there was a story told from the previous Erev Pesach, 5782, about a Yid named Reb Yechezkel Bracher, a chazzan who was invited to a shul abroad for the Shabbos of Parshas Parah, to sing in honor of a Shabbos sheva brachos. There was an old man there who felt this chazzan had taken his place, and he shamed him publicly several times in the middle of the tefillah, and he also told him loudly, near the bimah, that it was fitting and proper that he had shown up for Parshas Parah, since it was appropriate to call him a “parah adumah.”
While he was still blushing, an avreich who was davening in the shul, Rav Mordechai Tzvi Green, came over and pleaded with him to forgive the old man and be po’el a yeshuah for a family member who had been married for seven years and was still childless. The chazzan blessed him wholeheartedly, that in the merit of his forgiving the elderly man for the shame he had caused him, the avreich from the Berger family would be zocheh to have children.
Back home, he told his wife everything that had happened to him, the “parshas haparah.”
His wife said, “And how about not ignoring your own flesh and blood? Before you daven for a Yid you don’t even know, pray for our relative, a bachur who’s close to thirty who needs a shidduch!”
“The shame was so great,” Reb Yechezkel answered her, “that it can be divided among several families. May this relative of the mispallel and also our relative be bentched, and may our relative find a fitting zivug speedily.” He davened for him as well, and indeed both of the brachos were fulfilled completely. A few weeks later the bachur was engaged, and a year later, on Parshas Parah, Reb Yechezkel was invited once again to that same shul abroad, with an additional invitation to participate in the kiddush in honor of the birth of a daughter to the overjoyed Berger family.
This story I heard on the Hashgachah phone line strengthened me with the confidence that I had acted correctly and enabled me to understand that this was a wonderful eis ratzon. Just as Reb Yechezkel had bentched two people and they both had a yeshuah, I too could utilize this eis ratzon. I recalled a relative of my mother-in-law’s, a 40-year-old woman of great dignity who had not yet established a home, while all her younger siblings had already built homes of their own. I davened for her to find a suitable zivug. I also asked for another relative who lived nearby, who over the course of eight years had only one daughter, that he be zocheh to a son, and I asked for myself as well, that I be zocheh to be marbitz Torah to talmidim, and thus to actualize the strengths that Hashem granted me.
I promised that when my sister would see a yeshuah and the rest of the yeshuos would occur, I would publicize this story on the Hashgachah phone line, in order to strengthen more Yidden, just as I had been strengthened by the stories told on the line.
I am now making good on my promise. On Erev Pesach of this year, almost a year after the incident, my sister came home with a treasure in hand, more precious than pure gold – a healthy daughter; may she give them nachas for many long, good years. In the month of Nisan, a good proposal came up for my mother-in-law’s relative, and the shidduch was closed, b’sha’ah tovah, and the wedding has already taken place. In Chodesh Adar 5783, the relative who lives near me was zocheh to make a bris for his son. I as well, without any effort on my part since that tefillah, have been called to be marbitz Torah to talmidim in a yeshivah l’tze’irim since Elul of 5782. May Hashem help me fulfill my job faithfully, for the greatness and glory of Torah.
I thank Hashem for His great chessed, for the bitter shame and the sweet ending. May we all be zocheh to see yeshuos, nachas, simchah, and harchavah. May Hashem shine His Countenance upon us and bring peace to His nation Yisrael. Kesivah vachasimah tovah!