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By Baila Brikman, Beis Moshiach

In Eretz Yisrael, there’s a school that trains frum men how to be good teachers. People from all types of backgrounds learn there. In one class alone, you can have a 25-year-old Lubavitcher, a 40-year-old Litvak, and a 32-year-old Breslover!

One year, the Lubavitcher students made a farbrengen in honor of Yud Tes Kislev. They gathered everyone together to speak about Chassidus and share stories about the Rebbe.

At the farbrengen, many students got up to speak. One of them was Shlomo Yehuda Solomon, a 40 year old Belzer chassid. “I’m not a Lubavitcher,” he announced, “but let me tell you an amazing story that my family had with the Rebbe.”

***

My Zeidy was a Belzer chassid named Reb Moshe Solomon. In the early 2000’s, he was the principal of a yeshiva in Eretz Yisrael. Whenever the yeshiva needed money, he would travel to New York to fundraise.

One time, Zeidy’s friend asked him for a favor: “When you go to New York, can you stop by 770 to daven that I stay healthy?” Zeidy agreed, and that’s how he found himself in 770 for the first time in his life.

In 770, Zeidy told some bachurim why he had come. They explained that he could write a letter to the Rebbe and put it inside an Igros Kodesh. “The Rebbe will find a way to answer you!” they told him.

Zeidy had never heard anything like that before, but they managed to talk him into it. He wrote a letter to the Rebbe, asking for a bracha for his friend. He also wrote about his work in the yeshiva and how he came to New York to raise money.

Zeidy put his letter into volume 19 of Igros Kodesh and opened it randomly to page 208. The letter on that page was written to people who were in charge of yeshivos, just like Zeidy! The Rebbe gave many brachos and wrote about the great zechus of teaching and spreading Torah.

Zeidy felt like he’d gotten a personal answer from the Rebbe! He went to the nearest sefarim store and bought that volume of Igros. He couldn’t wait to show it to us!

Baruch Hashem, his trip to New York was successful and he raised a lot of money for his yeshiva. He came back home to Eretz Yisrael and told our whole family what happened! When he took out the Igros Kodesh to show us the letter, he noticed a p.s. at the bottom: “I included a copy of my letter to Mr. Moshe Solomon.”

What?! That was Zeidy’s name!

Our whole family was amazed. Out of all the letters in Igros, Zeidy had opened to this one with his name in it! He really had gotten a personal answer!

I was so excited, I made a copy of the letter to show my friends.

***

When I showed it to them, boy was I disappointed! I expected them to get excited too, but they just shrugged. “So what?” they said. “There’s probably hundreds of Moshe Solomons that the Rebbe wrote to! Why are you making such a big deal about this?”

I didn’t know what to say, but one of my friends knew just what to do. He searched online with special software to check how many times the name Moshe Solomon was printed in the Igros Kodesh. “Guess what, guys,” he shouted. “There are only two pages in Igros with the name Moshe Solomon! One is page 208, in the letter that Shlomo Yehuda’s Zeidy found, and the other is page 207, the page right before that!”

After hearing that, we all realized that something very special had happened. Out of the thousands of letters in over 25 volumes, the letter Zeidy opened was the very one with his name in it! It was clear that the Rebbe had known that Zeidy would open to that specific letter.

***

The next time I was in my Zeidy’s house, I went straight to the bookcase and pulled out the Igros. I wanted to see the letter from page 207. Even though it was on the page right before the letter Zeidy found, none of us had seen it! When I opened up to that page, I couldn’t believe my eyes. This letter (from the year 5720/1960) didn’t just mention Zeidy’s name—it was actually written and addressed to him!

This is a summary of what it said:

Sholom U’Vracha!

I was happy to hear from the bachurim that you let them speak to your talmidim about the Frierdiker Rebbe on the day of his Yom Hilula.

I also got the pan that you signed, and I will read it at the ohel of the Frierdiker Rebbe.

You should continue to use the talents that Hashem gave you to spread Yiddishkeit everywhere, starting with your talmidim. You should do it with chayus! You should teach very clearly, so that all your talmidim will understand the ideas of Chassidus. That way, they can make the ways of Chassidus part of their daily lives!

The chachamim say that if you want to do something, nothing can stand in your way! And when you have the zechus of teaching so many talmidim, for sure nothing can stand in your way. There is nothing more important these days than learning Chassidus, because it adds chayus to our avodas Hashem.

With brachos for success in all of the above. You should have good news.

When I finished reading, I was pretty confused. Why did the Rebbe write a letter to Zeidy? I went over to Zeidy, who was sitting in the next room. “Zeidy,” I asked, “did you ever write to the Lubavitcher Rebbe?”

He looked at me strangely. “Just that one time, when I davened for my friend in 770.”

“And before then, you never wrote to the Rebbe?” I pressed. “Maybe someone else wrote for you?”

“No. Why are you asking?”

I took out the Igros and started reading the letter out loud. As I read, Zeidy’s face turned white. “I remember now!” he exclaimed. “I know what this is all about.”

“In the 1960’s, I ran a different yeshiva. One day, Chabad bachurim came and asked if they could speak with my talmidim about the Frierdiker Rebbe, because it was his Yom Hilula. I gave them permission, and they spoke with my talmidim. Afterward, they asked me to sign a special pan to the Rebbe.”

Zeidy took the Igros from my hands and started to read the letter again. “I can’t believe it!” he said emotionally. “After all these years, I had no idea that the Rebbe wrote a letter to me, and with such beautiful brachos! Now I know how much it meant to him that I signed the pan and let the bachurim speak with my students!”

***

Back at the farbrengen, Shlomo Yehuda Solomon finished off the story:

“Look at the Rebbe’s greatness! For whatever reason, Zeidy wasn’t supposed to get the letter until the time was right. And now, so many years later, the Rebbe made sure that he would get it!”

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