Do Me a Favor and Succeed

Rav Eliezer Dovid Friedman of London, zt"l, told the following stories about the Ahavas Yisrael. He began by recalling that, according to the Tiferes Shlomo, Reb Zisha of Anipoli had a daily morning ritual. After reciting birkas haTorah, he went out into the marketplace looking for Jews to bless with the bounty of shefa (spiritual abundance) he had just drawn down from saying his own birkas haTorah. He would bless the first Jew he met, no matter who he was.

Similarly, Rav Friedman related, "I was on the bus in Givas Shmuel and I sat next to a Jew I knew from Grossvardein who, unfortunately, was not counted among the most religious. However, he came from a Chassidic family and was not ignorant of the value of a Rebbe's berachah. He told me that he was once passing by the holy tzaddik, the Ahavas Yisrael of Vizhnitz, in Grossvardein, and he went in for a berachah.

"After he left, the Ahavas Yisrael sent his shamash after him. Surprised, he came back in. He was even more taken aback when the Ahavas Yisrael said to him, 'Tit mir a toyva, un zayt matzliach' ('Do me a favor, and you should succeed'). 'You should know,' he said to me, 'that year I had tremendous success in all my endeavors. Whatever I did was successful.'"

Rav Friedman concluded, "The Ahavas Yisrael obviously sensed that it was an eis ratzon, an auspicious moment when his berachos could achieve much, and he sought out the first Jew to bestow them upon, whoever that Jew was."