The Holy Rebbe Of Kretchnif Ztz"l

לזכות רבי אפרים אבא בן מרים שושנה וכל משפחתו לברכה והצלחה וכל טוב סלה!

Rav Ephraim Rubinstein Shlita is a Mashgiach Ruchani in Yeshivas Noam HaTorah in Bnei Brak. He relates the following story that happened to him as a 14 year old boy [if you don't believe it - call him up and ask him yourself:-)].

I was 14 years old and was learning in a yeshiva high school in Rechovot called "Yeshivat Ha-Darom". I suddenly lost my voice. My mother thought that it was temporary laryngitis but my father was very concerned. I went to Dr. Markowitz who examined me and told me some scary news. He explained that in order to make sounds, ones vocal cords must rub against each other. He said that he couldn't find my vocal cords....

Afterwards, I heard about Dr. Chiliak who examined me and found my vocal cords but couldn't manipulate them to enable me to talk.

For 3 months I had no voice. My father told his colleagues at work about my problem. One of them suggested that since we live in Rechovot, why don't we go to the holy Rebbe of Kretchnif, Rebbe Moshe Dovid [d. 1969]? I had no experience with Rebbes but we had nothing to lose. My parents and I arrived at his home at 4 pm and the waiting room was packed. At 1am I finally was ushered in. It is hard to describe what happened in that room but I will relate it anyway.

My mother started to cry and said that when she was 12 she was distanced from her family and sent to a ghetto. First, she said, I heard that I had no mother anymore. Then I heard that I have no father either. The war ended and I returned home to discover that I had no brothers or sisters, either. Hashem left me alone in the world. This is what I need now, that my son should not be able to speak??! And she wept uncontrollably.

The Rebbe listened to her and said "Zi iz gerecht! Di Yiddene is gerecht". She is right! After a silence of a few seconds. the Rebbe said "Don't worry, everything will be OK. I promise. And you", he turned to me, "just so that your parents should see it with their own eyes, don't go back to yeshiva. Go home with your parents and tomorrow your problem will disappear". We left the room in shock. There were taxis waiting outside because they knew that at this hour they will find customers coming out of the Rebbe's home. We returned home.

The next morning I woke up very tired after little sleep. I went to shul and in the middle of davening I remembered that I was supposed to talk. I tried and was successful. My voice returned as if it had never disappeared.

The people in shul who witnessed the miracle were ecstatic. One person approached my father and said "You went to the Kretchnifer Rebbe, right? So what is the wonder?"

We returned to Dr. Markowitz and he was stunned to see me speaking like any regular person. He said to me "You were probably at the Rebbe. We [doctors] can't do something like this". He was a bareheaded, irreligious Jew.

The next Shabbos I went to the Rebbe's Friday night tisch. Immediately when I entered, the Rebbe motioned to me to come closer. Without asking whether I can speak or not, he said "It is not from me. It is all from Above". When I approached him to receive a li-chaim from his holy hands, he repeated "Remember that it is all from Above".

זכות הצדיקים יעזור ויגן ויושיע!!!

[Hamevaser Tamuz 5774]