Why
The Lubavitcher Rebbe Appeared In My Dream
On
Sunday evening, 17 Teives, I received a fax from a close relative
of mine who lives in Boro Park. It was a copy of an e-mail he had
received the night before from his brother Yankel [a pseudonym]
who lives in Eretz Yisroel.
Yankel
writes in the e-mail that his birthday “remains unknown.”
Their father
maintains that it is 30 Nissan, but:
In
my birth certificate, it is written that my birthday is April 28,
1949, 4:45 am. In the Luach T`midi for April 28, 1949, the
corresponding Hebrew date is 29 Nissan. This discrepancy has
always bothered me. On the one hand a father is believed to say
who his child is, and who the b’chor is (Bava Basra
134a.) On the other hand, although it was probably a Gentile who
wrote the birth certificate, they are usually quite accurate in
their recordings. (See Tshuvos Etzei Chaim in his Aguna Responsa.)
This
week it started to interest me again, corollary to my research on
Lunar months. Well, this morning the Lubavitcher Rebbe appeared in
my dream. He was discussing Torah with someone (not me), and he
remarked, “Du meinst de Gemara in Kesubos Tzadik-Dalet omud
Beis” [You mean the Gemara in Kesubos 94b]. At this point,
“Vayikatz Yankel vehinei chalom.” After Birkas
Hatorah, we (Chanah, Shmuly and Dovid [i.e., his wife and
kids; also pseudonyms]) checked the Gemara and found the amazing
solution!!! [On the last line of that page it says, “Bar
Chaf-Tes Nissan at,” which literally translated means,
‘You are a child of the 29th of Nissan’!]
Have
a Gutten voch,
Yankel
P.S.
My children wanted to know why it was the Lubavitcher Rebbe who
appeared in the dream as opposed to, say, the Klausenberger Rebbe,
who had much more connection to us? My response was that only
according to the Lubavitcher Rebbe is there a difference today as
to when exactly my birthday is. The Lubavitchers celebrate
birthdays, so according to them it is incumbent upon me to know
exactly which day my birthday is.
Submitted
by Rabbi Zushe Kohn, Crown Heights