Saved by Melave Malka

Rav Yaakov Leiser of Peshervorsk writes that his father-in-law once related the following to him on motzaei Shabbos, the 20th of Teves, saying, “I once heard this tale about Rav Simcha Yissochor Dov of Cheshunov.”

It was a cold winter night, and the Divrei Simcha’s two brothers-in-law, the Maharam of Pristik and the Vizhnitzer, came to make a request. “Please make an exception to your rigorous schedule. We need your rooms. We have nowhere else to go for melave malka, since the stove broke down and the rooms are bitterly cold. How can you turn away all the disappointed chassidim?”

They stood pleading before the resolute figure of the Divrei Simcha, the son of the Shinover Rav. At the time he was just a young bachur, but he had his own room, with a warm stove heating it. In the end he relented, to his brothers-in-law’s delight, and agreed.

Every motzaei Shabbos of that winter, the melave malka took place in the Divrei Simcha’s room. On one such night he had a dream. His saintly mother, the tzadekes Chava Rachel, appeared to him in a vision. “My son, my precious child, you have been saved. A decree of a terrible disease is descending now upon the world. But by agreeing to let your brothers-in-law and the chassidim hold their melave malka as your guests, you earned the merit that cancelled the decree and kept you alive.”

The next morning he told the dream to his father, the Divrei Yechezkel. That summer one of the chassidim did fall sick, and the power of the dream became clear. As soon as the Divrei Yechezkel turned his gaze toward his son, the Cheshunover, the sickness departed and the chassid recovered fully.

“Well, well,” the Peshervorsker Rebbe said as he finished his tale, “it does seem that up in Heaven they consider melave malka quite important.”