Asarah B'Teves

Thou­sands of peo­ple mer­ited to re­ceive the re­sponse from the Rebbe, “I will men­tion it at the Ohel [ of the Frierdiker Rebbe];” words that left the re­cip­i­ent op­ti­misti­cally wait­ing for sal­va­tion. How­ever, early on, chas­sidim were still un­fa­mil­iar with the sig­nif­i­cance of this an­swer.

In the year 5712 (1952), R. Zal­man en­coun­tered a cou­ple in Toronto who had been mar­ried for seven years but had not yet mer­ited chil­dren. Be­ing the Rebbe’s shli­ach, they begged him to re­quest a bracha from the Rebbe on their be­half, and R. Zal­man promised them that he would.

Upon re­turn­ing to New York, R. Zal­man went to 770 and per­son­ally ap­proached the Rebbe to ask for bracha. The Rebbe replied that he would men­tion them at the Ohel of the Frierdiker Rebbe. Feel­ing it was some­thing short of a bracha, R. Zal­man’s gra­cious heart com­pelled him to ask for more. He boldly spoke up, “But Rebbe, why can’t the Rebbe give them a proper bracha?” The Rebbe didn’t re­spond and con­tin­ued on to his room.

The fol­low­ing year, R. Zal­man vis­ited Toronto and was de­lighted to meet the cou­ple hold­ing a baby girl. Com­mu­ni­ca­tion at that time was poor — long-dis­tance phone calls were not com­mon—and the good news hadn’t reached him in New York. The cou­ple ex­pressed their cer­tainty that their daugh­ter was born be­cause of the Rebbe’s bracha. In grat­i­tude to the Rebbe and to his shli­ach, they gave R. Zal­man a sub­stan­tial do­na­tion, de­spite not be­ing so well-off.

Im­me­di­ately upon re­turn­ing to Crown Heights, R. Zal­man hur­ried to in­form the Rebbe of the good news. He stood by the el­e­va­tor, in the same spot where he had stood a year ear­lier when he re­quested the bracha. As the Rebbe re­turned to his room af­ter min­cha, R. Zal­man ap­proached the Rebbe and re­spect­fully said, “The Rebbe surely re­mem­bers that last year I asked for a bracha for chil­dren on be­half of a cou­ple in Toronto. I am now happy to in­form the Rebbe that they were blessed with a healthy girl. ”

With­out say­ing a word, the Rebbe con­tin­ued to­wards his room. As he was about to open the door, the Rebbe turned around and said to Reb Zal­man with a smile, “ Nu, Reb Zal­man, ‘I will men­tion it at the Ohel’ is a proper bracha!”