Rav Nochum Cohen's brachos somehow always bear yeshuos, but he says there’s no magic trick: It’s all about locking into simple faith

Photos: Shmuel Drey

“ITwas one of the freakiest moments of my life,” recalls Sruli F. of the time some friends schlepped him along to meet Jerusalem mekubal Rav Nochum Cohen, who was being hosted at the home of an acquaintance in Manhattan.

At the time, Sruli — who went on condition that his friends would let him sit anonymously in a corner — was 28 and single. He had just started dating a certain young woman — again. Several years before, they had dated seriously, but in the end it hadn’t worked out. A shadchan had recently persuaded Sruli to give it another go.

And despite his friends’ assurances that Sruli would be left alone, Moshe, the host, took an immediate interest in him. He started quizzing Sruli and managed to pry out of him that he was still single.

Moshe quickly turned to Rav Cohen and said, “He’s 28 and he’s not married. We’ve got to find him a shidduch.”

“Rav Cohen looked and Sruli and asked, “What’s your name?”

Sruli told Rav Cohen his name and his mother’s name. He’ll never forget what happened next.

“His eyes rolled back in their sockets for a second, and then when he ‘came back,’ he turned to me and said, ‘There’s a girl that you dated previously, very seriously, no? She really, really wants to restart, and I think you should go call her.’

“There was nobody besides my parents and this girl who knew that we had actually decided to meet again,” Sruli says, wonder still coloring his voice. “My hands began to shake.”

Rav Cohen saw Sruli’s nervousness and reassured him with a smile, in Yerushalmi-accented English, “No worries, I promise. It’s good. You’ll be a chassan by Tishah B’Av, and you’ll be married before Rosh Hashanah.”

In the end, Sruli and the young woman were engaged in the middle of Elul, and got married after Succos. But in that moment, he didn’t know what to make of Rav Cohen’s brachah.

“A year later, I was spending Shabbos with my wife’s family, and the rav in shul started telling a story about Rav Nochum Cohen. And then he said, ‘For all those of you who have never met him, I highly advise you to go meet him the next time you’re in Eretz Yisrael.’ And I thought, wow, what are the odds?

“I’m definitely still a little creeped out by my personal story. But I definitely would like to go meet him again.”

Sruli’s story, as it happens, has a coda. Yitzchok Ginsburg of Lakewood was an eyewitness to that incident. When Rav Cohen — known by many in Eretz Yisrael with the kabbalistic honorific of “Baba Nachum” — visits America, Reb Yitzchok often accompanies him. He was present that night at Moshe’s house — and for another, very similar incident, later on, thousands of miles away in Eretz Yisrael.

“A Sephardi boy approached Reb Nochum to get a brachah for a shidduch,” says Reb Yitzchok. “Reb Nochum asks for his name, the bochur says his name and his mother’s name, Reb Nochum closes his eyes and goes… ‘up there,’ somewhere, then he opens his eyes and says to the bochur, ‘You dated a girl and she wanted you, but you sent her away. Why?’

“Almost the same thing, but the results were a little different. The boy starts answering why he ended the relationship, and he and Reb Nochum were going back and forth for about three minutes. In the end, Reb Nochum was maskim, and he gave the boy a brachah.

“Afterward, I got into the car and asked, ‘Kevod Harav, I’m with you most of the day, I see people come and go. I never saw you give such a clear answer as you did with that boy Sruli in New York, and he ended up marrying that girl. This one, no. What happened?’

“He answered me, ‘Yitzchok, that boy Sruli had emunah peshutah. When someone has emunah peshutah, I can see’ — and he pointed straight up. ‘Other people come to me thinking, “Let’s see what this rav is all about.” Then, I don’t see anything. I’m blocked.’ ”