A Lag B’Omer Miracle Story. * The storm outside didn’t bother me. The puddles soaking my feet didn’t stop me. I knew one thing – that the conversation I had just heard was amazing Divine providence, and that I had to go to the Rebbe. The success of my visit to Crown Heights depended on this moment. * A touching story for Lag B’Omer, a yom segula for zara chaya v’kayama (children).

“I wasn’t born a Lubavitcher,” began Mrs. Penina Salhov of Kiryat Atta, one of the prominent women in N’shei Chabad. “I come from a traditional home. I married and expected to have a house full of mischievous little children, yet my future was not as rosy as I anticipated. One year passed and then another. Four years went by and the house was silent. Eight long years passed and the table was still set for two.

One Shabbos I resolved that I would begin dressing modestly. My husband was shocked. He thought I’d lost it, but comforted himself thinking it would pass and I would forget about it. But I didn’t forget. The next day I threw out all my clothes that were unsuitable for a Jewish woman and bought a new wardrobe. That was my first step towards a full Jewish life.

Shortly thereafter I met a lovely woman by the name of Chana Abramowitz. She told me she belonged to Chabad (“Chabad – what is that?” I asked her) and for the first time I heard about the work of N’shei Chabad and the Shifra-Puah organization. She asked me for my help and I volunteered to lend a hand, but it was hard – not physically, but emotionally. I would go to the home of a new mother and see the baby in the crib, experience the joy in the home, and would wonder when I would have children of my own.

In 5749, at the height of the elections, a man on the street gave me a picture of the Rebbe, the famous one in which the Rebbe is smiling and waving. I gladly took the picture and brought it home and put it in the dining area.

I don’t know why, but each time I passed the picture I felt the Rebbe giving me strength in my resolution to be modest. It wasn’t easy for me, and my husband still hoped it would be a passing phase. The Rebbe’s picture gave me the strength to persevere.

One day while sitting in the living room, I looked at the picture and suddenly knew what I had to do. I had to go meet the Rebbe! My husband was unimpressed, and I was disappointed at how he dismissed my desire to see the great tzaddik.

I cried a lot that night. When my husband tried to speak, to explain, to understand, I had only one answer for him. “I want to go to the Rebbe, to get a bracha for a baby!”

I approached Rabbi Diskin, the rav of the Lubavitcher community in Kiryat Atta. He tried to help me by calling Rabbi Eliezer Tzeitlin of Tzfas, who organized groups to 770 for Lag B’Omer. Rabbi Tzeitlin said he was booked up and I was so disappointed.

On Wednesday evening Rabbi Diskin called. “One of the ladies cancelled – now you can go,” he said, somewhat reluctantly.

“Great!” I nearly shrieked, wondering why he sounded hesitant. “When does the flight leave?”

“Tomorrow,” he answered, and that’s when I understood why he hesitated.

Tomorrow? Could I be here today and in America tomorrow? Then my practical side kicked in. Just one minute. Do I have something to wear? Yes. Do I have a suitcase? Yes. A passport? Yes. A visa? No!

“But I don’t have a visa,” I heard myself say to Rabbi Diskin.

In the end we decided I would go to the American Consulate the next day (the day of the flight!) and if I could obtain a visa I would go. In my heart I knew that visa or no visa, I had to be on that plane!

The secretary at the consulate was very nice. “No problem. It’s all taken care of.” I breathed a sigh of relief. “Come on Monday to pick it up.” She got up from her seat, smiled politely, and called the next person on line.

“Wait!” Was that my voice that was so audible in that quiet room? Everybody turned to look at me, but despite my embarrassment I continued talking. “You don’t understand. I can’t wait until Monday because my flight is tonight!”

“Today?” she asked in surprise. “Why did you leave it to the last minute? I can’t give you a visa unless you bring your ticket with you. Then I could send you to the department for emergency requests.

Tears filled my eyes and I left the consulate. I called Rabbi Tzeitlin’s travel agency and explained what had happened. The ticket was still in Tzfas; they had planned to give it to me that night in the airport. 

Hashem had mercy on me and the travel agent sent me to Tower Air, which was right near the consulate, where I got a ticket for the flight that night. I raced back happily to the consulate, but the ever-so-polite guard informed me that the consulate was closed. 

Closed?!

Malka Butel: Closed?! 

I could see secretaries still inside and boldly said, “But the woman said I should come back.” 

“Which woman?” he asked with a look that said he didn’t quite believe me. 

“Her!” I stuck my head in and yelled. “Right – you told me to bring you the ticket?” Once again I was surprised by how loud my voice was, and again everybody there stared curiously at me. 

Within half an hour I left the building with the visa in my hand.

770 was a magical world, the likes of which I had never experienced before in my life. The t’fillos, the farbrengens, the non-stop stream of visitors, and of course the highlight – standing in line for dollars, knowing that I would get to see the Rebbe and receive a dollar and a bracha from him.

The dollars added up, and by the end of my visit I had eleven dollars in my wallet that the Rebbe had given me on various occasions. I guarded them like a priceless treasure.

Lag B’Omer was approaching. Preparations for the parade were under way. It poured, and it looked like it would never stop. I was standing in 770 when I overheard two women speaking.

“You don’t have children yet, right?”

“Right.”

“You know that today is Lag B’Omer? You should make an effort to get a bracha for children from the Rebbe today.”

“How can I meet the Rebbe?”

“Wait for the Rebbe near the mikva on Union Street before he goes to the Ohel.”

“When is the Rebbe going to be there?”

“Right now!”

“How…”

I didn’t hear the end of her question because I was on my way to the mikva on Union Street. The storm outside didn’t bother me, and the puddles that soaked my feet didn’t stop me. I knew only one thing – that the conversation I overheard was incredible hashgacha pratis and that I had to get to Union St. before the Rebbe did. The success of my entire visit to Crown Heights depended on this moment!

I got to the mikva building drenched and trembling both from the cold and emotion. The Rebbe arrived. I don’t remember approaching him, but I heard my voice cry out, “Rebbe, I want children!”

The Rebbe smiled at me and gave me a bracha. I don’t remember how I got back to Eastern Parkway and got a spot to see the parade. It seemed miraculous. I ran through the streets ecstatically. I paid no attention to beeping cars, to people yelling, to red lights. All I could see before me was the Rebbe blessing me on Lag B’Omer with children.

The parade began. Just as the Rebbe came out, the rain stopped. Just like that. The drops seemed to simply hang suspended in the air, waiting in awe for the Rebbe to begin speaking.

Right after Lag B’Omer, our group passed by the Rebbe. I represented the families who had sent panim to the Rebbe with requests for children. They all received two dollars, but the Rebbe gave me four.

A woman came over to me and suggested that I do my part in bringing down the Rebbe’s bracha. How? I asked. She pointed at a store with baby furniture and said I should buy a carriage. It was nervy, but I wanted to do it. I knew I would be explaining to my husband what I had experienced at 770, but I wondered how I would explain this! I pictured his face as he met me at the airport and saw me leaving customs pushing an empty baby carriage. Instead of a carriage I decided to buy an adorable baby outfit that I hid among my clothes in my suitcase.

I returned home, and after everything I described, even my husband became hopeful, as I had prayed he would. He agreed to buy a carriage, but I was not allowed to tell anyone about it. For me this was the beginning of the realization of the Rebbe’s bracha.

At night while my husband was asleep, I would take the carriage out, bring it over to the Rebbe’s picture and whisper: In a little while I will use you b’simcha. In a little while, the Rebbe’s bracha will be fulfilled and you will carry a little baby from place to place. You’ll see!

Each night for a year I looked longingly at the carriage and davened to Hashem for a baby. Then the miracle took place…

A week passed and I fainted and needed intravenous solution. The pregnancy was difficult and the doctors recommended an ultrasound to see what was going on. The doctor looked at the picture and asked for my husband. I couldn’t breathe. The doctor cleared his throat and then, after what seemed like an eternity, he said, “No wonder the pregnancy is so difficult. She’s carrying twins.” Suddenly I remembered the Rebbe giving everybody two dollars, but four dollars to me!

The pregnancy continued with many difficulties. One day the doctor was concerned because he heard only one heartbeat. They hospitalized me and we sent an urgent fax to the Rebbe. In a subsequent examination, the doctor couldn’t understand why I had been hospitalized. “Who said there’s no heartbeat?” she asked. From my bed I told her, “There really wasn’t a heartbeat, but the Lubavitcher Rebbe made it happen!”

Despite the difficulties during my pregnancy it continued successfully, and with a heart overflowing with gratitude to Hashem who blessed me with two beautiful babies, I gave birth to a boy and a girl. I felt it was fitting that Yud Shvat was the day of my son’s bris.

The Rebbe Maharash was not present at the wedding of his son the Rebbe Rashab, which took place in the city of the kallah, Avrutch. After the wedding, the Rebbe Rashab and his kalla, Rebbetzin Shterna Sara traveled to Lubavitch. The chosson asked his kalla to request from her father-in-law the brachos she deserves, for had he been at the wedding, he would have bentched them under the chuppa. Agreeing, Rebbetzin Shterna Sara went to the Rebbe Maharash and asked for a bracha, to which the Rebbe replied, “I agree to give you my bracha on condition that you cut off the feather from your hat.” She came to Lubavitch wearing a hat which had a prominent feather on it, as was the style then. She cut it off, and the Rebbe bentched her.  [There is a small detail in the end, that I think is very special. In her later years, Rebbetzin Shterna Sara said about cutting her feather “this was such an easy thing to do, truly as light as a feather”.]

(שמועות וסיפורים ח״א ע׳ 78), Lma’an Yishme’u issue 55