By Yehuda Z Klitnick
On the 7th of Av 5660 1900, the Rebbe Reb Yochonon Perlow was born, the sixth son of Reb Yisrael of Stolin, the heilige Frankfurter, and to the Rebbetzin Brocha Shaindel. At the bris he was named Yochonon, after his zeide Reb Yochonon of Rochmostrivsk. The Frankfurter told his Rebbetzin “Having brought such a Neshome to this world is enough.”
The Rebbe used to travel with another person, to a certain town and stayed at a hotel that was owned by a widow and her son. The owners did not know who the guest were. The son saw that the guest was a heilige person, especially after he requested a private room to eat in. And he asked that my mother personally prepare his food for him. Still, we didn’t know who he was.
“On one of their visits,” the son said, “My mother prepared everything he asked for. When they were ready to leave, he paid for his stay, and said to my mother, ‘Is there something you need help, or need a favor? I am ready to do for you anything we can.”
“My mother answered, ‘We suffer from the ruler of this city, who constantly creates libels and accusations against us, and we can’t take it.’
The guest asked her, ‘How many candles do you light on Erev Shabbos?’ She told him how many.
He told her, ‘This Shabbos, light an extra candle. When that candle goes out, so will the ruler.”
The man left the hotel with his escort, and I also went along to escort him.
“On Erev Shabbos my mother lit an extra candle, and said the bracha with more kavanah than usual. When we finished our seudah on Shabbos night, the candle began to give out its last light. All of a sudden, we heard a terrible cry from outside. We went out to see what the matter was, and we saw that the ruler had fallen off his horse. When we returned to our house we saw that the additional light had died, and so had the ruler.”
“I happened to notice that there was a man in the street who was staring at the guest. He hurried up to catch up to him. Finally, the man in the street said to me, ‘Do you know who that man is? That’s the Stoliner Rebbe from Loitzk!’ That’s when I realized who had visited our hotel. It really made my mother happy to find that out. It was amazing how they hid their identities from us.
15th of Sh’vat, (1948) Heals a Blind boy
R' Dovid Freind told this story. A customer of his had only one son, that contracted an eye disease. It had affected his whole face, and turned it black. Doctors were working hard to find a way to heal this boy. R' Dovid assured the father that when he next went to visit the [Stoliner] Rebbe he would mention the boy and ask the Rebbe to daven for him to get healed. They both agreed to that, so the next time R' Dovid went to see the Rebbe he mentioned the boy.
But the Rebbe didn’t answer him. He mentioned the son to the Rebbe several times, but each time the Rebbe didn’t answer him. One day the Rebbe asked R' Dovid how the boy was doing and feeling. R' Dovid answered that the boy was not doing well at all, and the situation was dire.
The Rebbe asked him, “Does the boy’s mother keep Yiddishkeit?”
R' Dovid answered, “She doesn’t believe in anything.”
The Rebbe said, “Ask her if she is ready to accept on herself the mitzvah of kindling lights every Erev Shabbos. If she is, then bring both parents to me.”
R' Dovid asked the parents, and the mother agreed to that condition. The parents traveled to New York and went in to see the Rebbe. The Rebbe told them, “Bring your son to such and such a doctor, here in New York.”
They went to the doctor with their son. The doctor examined the son, and told the parents, “I can heal your son, but it will be hard on all of us. It involves a very complicated operation, and it’s not certain he will be able to see again. And I must warn you, after the operation his eyes must be bandaged, and the bandages may not be taken off his eyes for at least 6 months. If you are prepared to do that, we can set a time for the operation.”
R' Dovid asked the Rebbe if he agreed to this. The Rebbe agreed, and a time was set for the operation. After the time was scheduled, the Rebbe told R' Dovid, “Immediately after the operation tell the parents to remove the bandage from the boy’s eyes, and they should immediately light a candle. And not only that, no one, not the parents, the boy, or R' Dovid, should speak about this until after it had happened.”
R' Dovid was confused by these instructions, but the Rebbe was firm. Before it came time for the operation, R' Dovid was careful that only his name should appear on the hospital documents, especially on the agreement to conduct the operation. The operation was on a Shabbos, and took six hours to perform. after it was finished they wheeled the boy away from the operating room into a room where he would stay for a while.
R' Dovid drew near and attempted to take the bandages off the boy’s eyes. The doctor resisted him, but R' Dovid showed him that he had signed all the papers, and it was therefore his privilege to take off the bandages. The doctor reluctantly agreed. So, R' Dovid removed the bandages, and lit a candle.
To the doctor’s and the parents’ astonishment, he asked the boy “What do you see?” And the child answered “A candle!” When the mother heard this she fainted. R' Dovid called up the Rebbe and told him the highlights of what had occurred. The Rebbe told him, “Come to shul in Williamsburg for Melave Malka. We will all wait for you.”
The chassidim waited in shul. They understood that the Rebbe was stretching out the time of Melave Malka beyond the norm, but they had no idea why. R' Dovid finally arrived, and told the Rebbe the entire story from start to finish. When he was done, the Rebbe said to him, “Dovid, you see the entire oilam here? If they would know what I can do, they would have a completely different look at me and be better in Ruchniyus.”
The Rebbe, even though he was sick and week, never gave up, and with his “last drop of blood”, as he said, built a foundation for our generation, as the Stoliner Chassidus flourishes. On the 21st day in Kislov 5716, at the young age of 56 the Rebbe passed away.
Reprinted from the Parshas Vayeishev 5786 email of Pardes Yehuda.
