A Son-in-Law for the Kotzker

The Divrei Chaim of Sanz tested the young genius as a possible match for his daughter. Afterward he remarked, "He learns like the Noda BiYehuda, but I cannot take him as a chosson for my daughter. He is too sharp for me." The Kotzker Rebbe, Rav Menachem Mendel, the Seraf of Kotzk, took him as a son-in-law instead. As the young man stood under the chuppah, the Kotzker said, "May it be Your will, Hashem, that his sick, weak body be able to hold such a great, brilliant mind."

Not long after the wedding, the Kotzker's daughter Sora, the Avnei Nezer's wife, burst into her father's home, crying uncontrollably. Between sobs she explained that her young husband had contracted pneumonia and was coughing up blood. "There is no need to worry," the Kotzker told her. "He will live a long life. He is named Avrohom and you are Sora, and the verse says, 'Avrohom and Sora were old, coming along in days.'"

The blessing was fulfilled until the age of seventy-two, when the Avnei Nezer's Rebbetzin passed away. He then grew weak and sick, and he understood that because his father-in-law had blessed him through this verse, his life was bound to Sora's. Now that hers had ended, the berachah had run its course. When the Imrei Emes of Gur came to console him on the loss of his wife, he told him this story, his father-in-law's blessings, and how he knew that his own end was now near.