The following is the anecdote of Rabbi S. N. L., from Bnei Brak:
Baruch Hashem, I have five daughters and I get a lot of satisfaction from them. However, the truth was that it had already been more than ten years since I had married, and I still had not the merit of having a boy. This bothered me a lot, to the point that it sometimes influenced my mood. Almost every day the desire that every Jew has for a male child was renewed. When was I going to deserve what the Guemara says: “Blessed is he who has sons” and to be counted among those who have sons? When would I have the merit of fulfilling the long-awaited mitzvah of “and you shall teach them to your son”?
I have the merit of being able to study two full sessions a day, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, in a respectable kolel in the city where I live, Bnei Brak. Then came an apparently normal day, that I did not think that it was the decisive day that was going to change my fortune. In a conversation between friends that I happened to hear, the topic that would affect me soon, and that would approach the day on which I would merit my personal salvation, was touched upon.
That day I arrived, as usual, at the kolel in the afternoon to study in the second session of the day and I sat down in my regular place. Nearby there were two avrechim debating a few Torah words from the Zera Shimshon, and I could hear their heated friendly discussion.
As I saw that they were being very meticulous even with the smallest letter of these topics of Torah, I became interested in knowing who that great author was whose words they mentioned with such appreciation. They told me, with great emotion, that the Zera Shimshon they were studying was the work of a Gaon of old, a man whose work has been proven to be helpful, and his book has become known to all the world because of its powerful propitious faculty, and because of the promise of its author to bless with sons, and grandsons, wise and knowledgeable, among the other numerous and considerable salvations that he assured in the introduction of his book.
Hearing what they said, I thought, “That is precisely what I need. That is what I hope so much: ‘wise and knowledgeable sons’.” This meeting had not been fortuitous, obviously, but rather, it had been the product of Divine providence. It was not by chance that I overheard them talking; that conversation was meant for me. Based on what I heard in that conversation, I decided to establish a fixed study of the auspicious book Zera Shimshon, to merit the fulfillment of the promise of its author, the Tzaddik. So, I took immediate action. I began to participate once a week in a shiur on the Zera Shimshon that was taking place close to where I lived. In addition, I dedicated other times to study his words of Torah.
Dear brothers and sisters, I shudder throughout my body for the fact that I have the merit of telling you the happy ending of the story. Around this time, last year, I had the merit of holding my son in my arms. And a great and uncontrollable emotion seized me when, reflecting, I realized that the week in which I entered my son into the pact of Avraham Avinu was the same week that the previous year I had decided to start studying the Zera Shimshon. I saw with my own eyes and experienced in my own flesh that there is no detail that escapes the blessing that the Tzaddik promised.
Ribí S. N. L. concludes his personal story with an affectionate appeal:
After I saw the great power of the author of the Zera Shimshon, I call upon the entire House of Israel to join with those who fulfill the will of this sacred Tzaddik of old: establish a fixed study of this book so auspicious and, without a doubt, you will also have the merit that all the fantastic blessings of the author are fulfilled in you, and you will deserve to have children, and children of children, wise and knowledgeable, with houses full of everything good, both wealth and honor; long life and sustenance in abundance. Each one with the salvation they need. Amen. Ken yehi ratzon!
