A woman from the Chabad-Lubavitch Community in Brooklyn was pulled over by a N.Y.C. traffic cop. Standing outside her open car window and watching her search for her license and registration papers, the police officer caught sight of a picture of the Lubavitcher Rebbe in her open purse. “Excuse me, Maam,” he asked, “are you one of the followers of this Rabbi?”
“Yes,” she replied.
“Well, in that case I’m not giving you a ticket. Do you know why? Because this Rabbi,” he pointed to the picture she was now holding in her hand, “did a very big miracle for me.”
“Well,” said the grateful woman, “would you mind telling me about this miracle? I have time to hear the story.”
The policeman smiled and said, “It’s my favorite story, but I haven’t told it to any Jewish people, in fact I think that you are the first.”
“This is the true story,” he began. “I used to be in the police escort that once a week escorted the Rabbi to the Montefiore Cemetery (where the Rebbe’s father-in-law and predecessor, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, is interred). I got to know some of the young men who accompanied the Rebbe, and I learned a lot of things from them. They are very friendly, which you probably already know, and we talked a lot while the Rabbi was inside praying.
“Well, one day I saw that all the fellows there were really talking excitedly to each other, so I asked them what happened. They told me that the Rabbi does a lot of miracles for people, but today he did a miracle that was really something. I didn’t even ask what was the miracle that they were talking about, I just asked them if the Rabbi helps non-Jews also.
“‘Sure,” they said, ‘The Rebbe helps anyone who asks. Why? Do you need something?’”
“I told the young fellow I was talking to, that my wife and I had been married nine years with no children. A week ago, the doctors told us that we had no chance. We had spent a lot of money on treatments and had seen all sorts of big professors. We were running around like crazy for the last six or seven years, and now they told us that they tried everything and there is no chance for us to have a baby. You can’t imagine how broken we felt. My wife cried all the time, and I started crying also.
“The young man said to me, ‘Listen, the next time that you escort the Rebbe to the cemetery stand near the door of his car and when he gets out ask him for a blessing.’ So that is just what I did. The next time I was in the escort I stood by his door and when he got out, I said to him: ‘Excuse me, Rabbi, do you only bless Jewish people or non-Jews too?’
“The Rabbi looked at me like a good friend, it was really amazing and said that he tries to help anyone he can. I told him what the doctors said, and he said I should write down on a piece of paper my name and my father’s name* together with my wife’s and her father’s names and that he would pray for us. I did it, my hands were shaking so much that I almost couldn’t write, but I did it and gave the Rabbi the note.
My wife became pregnant and nine months later she gave birth to a baby boy! The doctors went crazy, they couldn’t figure it out, and when I told them that it was all the Rabbi’s blessing, they just scratched their heads and — Wow! I felt like the champion of the world!
“And here comes the good part. Do you know what we called him? What name did we give our baby boy? Just guess! We called him Mendel after the Rabbi. At first my wife didn’t like the name because it’s not an American name. I said to her, we are calling him Mendel so that each time we say his name we’ll remember that if it weren’t for the Rabbi this boy would not be here.
“When our parents heard the name, they really objected. They said, ‘With a name like that, all the kids will think he’s a Jew or something and they will call him names and be cruel to him. Why make the kid suffer for no reason?’ ‘That’s just what I want,’ I said to them. ‘When he comes home and says that the other kids called him names and beat him up because he has a Jewish name, I’ll tell him that I want him to learn from those other kids how not to behave. They hate the Jews for no reason, but you should love the Jews, you should help the Jews. You just tell them that without that Jewish Rabbi you wouldn’t be here at all, and then maybe they’ll start thinking differently too!’
Slightly adapted from Chabad.org by Tuvia Bolton
A popular teacher, musician and storyteller, Rabbi Tuvia Bolton is co-director of Yeshiva Ohr Tmimim in Kfar Chabad, Israel, and a senior lecturer there.
From Tuvia Bolton – “I heard this story from the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s secretary, Rabbi Laibel Groner.”
*To receive a blessing, we generally include our Jewish name and mother’s Jewish name. For a non-Jew we include the person’s full first name and father’s name. (If the person has two names include both).
“A Tzadik is greater after his passing than during his lifetime,” our Sages say. People continue to go to the Ohel of the Previous Rebbe and the Rebbe in Montefiore cemetery, Queens, New York, to pray. Or send an email to www.Ohelchabad.org.
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