Saved by Melave Malka

Rav Yaakov Leiser of Peshervorsk wrote that his father-in-law told him this story on a Motzei Shabbos, about the Divrei Simchah of Cheshnov, son of the Shinover Rav.

On a cold winter night, the Divrei Simchah's two brothers-in-law, the Maharam of Pristik and the Maharan of Vizhnitz, came to him with a request. “Please make an exception to your strict schedule. We need your rooms. We have nowhere else to hold melave malka, because the stove has broken and the rooms are bitterly cold. How can you turn away all the disappointed chassidim?”

At that time the Divrei Simchah was only a young bochur, but he had his own room with a warm stove. He stood firm for a while, but in the end he relented, to his brothers-in-law's delight.

Every Motzei Shabbos that winter, the melave malka took place in his room. One night he had a dream. His holy mother appeared to him and said, “My son, my precious child, you have been saved. A decree of a terrible disease is descending on the world, but by agreeing to host your brothers-in-law and the chassidim for melave malka, you earned a merit that has 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 fell sick, and the power of the dream became clear. As soon as the Divrei Yechezkel turned his gaze toward his son, the Cheshnover, the sickness left and the chassid recovered fully.

The Peshervorsker Rebbe would end the story by saying, “It seems that in Heaven they consider melave malka to be something quite important.”