The Chazon Ish left an indelible impact on the Halperns, and Nochum grew up hearing stories about the gadol.

His grandmother Mrs. Ada Reichmann, Nochum Halpern’s eldest daughter, once told her grandson that the Chazon Ish’s doctor advised him to exercise. But as the posek hador, he couldn’t be seen running and stretching in public.

Once when he was walking with Reb Nochum, though, they reached a deserted alleyway. “He told my grandfather this was his chance, and started running. My elter zeida said he was so fast, he couldn’t keep up with him,” Nochum relates.

Rav Chaim was actually witness to the very same thing on another occasion while walking with the Chazon Ish.

The Chazon Ish trusted Nochum Halpern implicitly, going so far as to say about him, “B’chol beisi ne’eman hu,” and trusted him with sensitive missions, like the one Nochum tells us about now. The Chazon Ish heard about a sefer Torah whose owners were desecrating it terribly, and charged Reb Nochum with purchasing the scroll at any price. When the owners refused, the Chazon Ish told him to just take it.

The door to the shul that housed the Torah was locked. Reb Nochum took out a random key from his pocket and tried it — and it unlocked the door. After taking the Torah, he tried to lock the door behind him, but it didn’t work this time. He would say that this random key worked to open the door but not to lock it, because locking the door wasn’t part of the mission the Chazon Ish had entrusted him with.

After a few days, the owners came to see the Chazon Ish. After they promised to treat the sefer Torah with utmost respect, he told Reb Nochum to return it. Then he once again asked him to try and buy it at any price. This time the owners agreed to sell it, and it’s still in use today in a shul in Bnei Brak.

Nochum shares another story about the Chazon Ish that touches on his fusion of halachic integrity with sensitivity to others.

“The Chazon Ish traveled outside of Bnei Brak with my great-great-grandfather, Reb Yaakov, for health reasons. He asked Reb Yaakov to meet him late that night with a ladder at a certain location in that city. When they met, the Chazon Ish explained that he had a halachic issue with the eiruv. But he didn’t want to fix it during the day, and have people start talking — the rav of this city would be hurt. So the Chazon Ish himself, with Reb Yaakov, went around the entire city fixing the eiruv under the cover of night.”

Nochum tells another story about the Chazon Ish that he says the Rebbetzin enjoyed very much. About 25 years ago, a cousin of Nochum’s was learning in Yeshivas Brisk and his dirah-mates weren’t sure where to light the menorah. He told them in Nochum Halpern’s name that the Chazon Ish had said that in an apartment like theirs, the menorah should be lit at the porch. The gadol had explained that since firefighters who need to enter a burning residence can come through the porch, it’s called a knisah, an entrance.

The bochurim heard him out and agreed to light at the entrance of the porch, with the exception of one bochur, who questioned the psak’s validity. Nochum’s cousin tried convincing him — “You can’t talk that way. This isn’t me talking, this is the posek hador, the Chazon Ish” — but the bochur remained adamant. This repeated itself a number of times.

Eventually, most of the bochurim lit at the entrance of the porch, with the exception of this bochur, who lit in his room.

Afterward, everyone returned to seder. When they returned to the dirah, they found it full of smoke and water. A neighbor came running and told them there had been a fire in the dirah while they were away. Firefighters had come, but because the door had been locked, they had entered through the porch.

Unsurprisingly, it was the skeptical bochur’s menorah that had caused the fire. It had burned his bed and half his dresser. There had been two gedolim pictures hanging top of his bed, one of the Chazon Ish and one of the Brisker Rav, and the one of the Chazon Ish was lying on the floor, face down.

When Nochum told the story to Rav Chaim, he showed no surprise: After all, the bochur had started up with the Chazon Ish; he had started up with fire!

Then Nochum shares something else he heard from Rav Chaim, in connection to his great-grandfather.

“Rav Chaim told me that Chazal say that a person should not be an areiv, a guarantor for a loan. He told me that he was an areiv only once.

“Yaakov Halpern gave a loan to whoever needed one, if the person had an areiv that he recognized. Someone from Kollel Chazon Ish once approached Rav Chaim and asked him to please sign as a guarantor on his loan, since Reb Yaakov knew Rav Chaim well. Feeling bad for him, Rav Chaim decided to make an exception to his policy, and signed.

“When it came time to pay back the loan, the yungerman didn’t have the money, and as Rav Chaim was the guarantor, he paid back the loan.

“I asked how much it was,” Nochum continues. “He said it wasn’t a lot, just a few hundred dollars. But the point he was bringing out was that if Chazal say one shouldn’t, one shouldn’t.

“I imagine my grandfather didn’t want to take the money,” Nochum muses, “but Rav Chaim insisted.”

Inside the Oasis

It’s life’s greatest joy and also, perhaps, its greatest avodah: building a bayis ne’eman b’Yisrael with one’s life partner. Nochum shares reflections on witnessing a marriage as sweet as it was complete.

“I’d heard numerous times from Rebbetzin Kanievsky, ‘The way to have an amazing marriage is with three things, to be mevater, mevater, and mevater,’ ” he says. “She used to describe what an unbelievable marriage her grandparents, Rav Aryeh and Rebbetzin Tzipora Chana Levin had. She told me that when they got married, Reb Aryeh told his kallah in the yichud room that he felt terrible that he wasn’t able to buy her a present, because he didn’t have the money. So he turned to his kallah and said, ‘I have a different present for you. I’m giving you a whole life of vitur.’ He would do anything and everything, he said, to do whatever was most pleasurable for her.

“Rebbetzin Levin became very emotional and told Rav Aryeh, ‘That is my present to you as well.’ And the Rebbetzin confirmed: That’s the way they lived. He thought and cared about her, and she thought and cared about him.

“I’ve heard the Rebbetzin say numerous times, ‘There is one recipe for harmony in one’s home: compliment, vitur, and giving.’

“Rav Chaim and the Rebbetzin had an unbelievable marriage. I had the zechus to be in the room many times when it was just Rav Chaim and the Rebbetzin,” Nochum shares. “The Shechinah that rested between them was something else, not really something that can be portrayed in words. After the Rebbetzin passed away, some people voiced their surprise that Rav Chaim was so, so heartbroken, and that his sadness was so intense for so long after the petirah. For me it was the biggest davar pashut. Rav Chaim missed the Rebbetzin terribly, that’s all there was to it. He visibly aged and grew weaker after she died.

“She meant so much to him. He used to say that when she wasn’t home, his learning wasn’t the same. Once when the Rebbetzin was heading out to say mazel tov at a bar mitzvah, Rav Chaim asked her to please hurry back, saying that when she was out, he worried for her…

“A grandson told me that once when the Rebbetzin was feeling unwell and went to the hospital for testing, Rav Chaim couldn’t sleep until he heard she was okay. The care, respect, and appreciation he showed and expressed was exemplary.

“Rav Chaim was an amazing husband,” he continues. “For example, he never made Kiddush, hamotzi, Havdalah, or started bentshing without first making sure the Rebbetzin was ready and gave the okay. Ever.”

The Rebbetzin would tell husbands how to show a wife appreciation. “Thank, compliment.” And then she’d add with a smile, “Even a bar of chocolate can do the trick.”

“Rav Chaim used to wake up at two and the Rebbetzin would get up too, to make him a tea or coffee. A grandson shared that one morning when they got up, the Rebbetzin was not feeling well. Rav Chaim wanted to do something for her to make her feel better. He asked her what he could do, but she said she was fine. So he brought his shtender next to her bed and learned there.

“The Rebbetzin was smart and sharp, and had a good sense of humor. She used to make Rav Chaim laugh.

“Every morning Rav Chaim and the Rebbetzin would say birchos hashachar aloud, and say Amen to each other’s brachos. The Rebbetzin used to say shelo asani shifchah instead of shelo asani aved.

“Around 16 years ago before Pesach, a grandson told me, they were saying brachos, and Rav Chaim mistakenly said shelo asani shifchah. He immediately corrected himself and said shelo asani aved. After they finished, the Rebbetzin told Rav Chaim, ‘For once you’re thanking the Ribbono shel Olam that I don’t make you work like a shifchah before Pesach.’”

Nochum continues with something the Rebbetzin told him one Shabbos morning. “There was a time that Rav Chaim wasn’t feeling well and wasn’t sleeping well at night, and he had a sh’eilah with birchos haTorah every morning. On this Shabbos morning, the Rebbetzin said that Rav Chaim told her the Chazon Ish had come to him in a dream last night and he had asked him what to do about his recurring sh’eilah with birchos haTorah.

“So the Rebbetzin jokingly told me, ‘ I told my husband that this morning you can definitely say birchos haTorah, because if you had the dream with the Chazon Ish, you for sure slept.’ ”

Nochum shares another anecdote, illustrating Rav Chaim’s deep respect and appreciation for his wife.

“I remember one Friday night, before the seudah, Rav Chaim was sitting at his place at the head of the table, deep in thought. The Rebbetzin was taking longer to come home from shul than usual, and of course, Rav Chaim was waiting for her. One of the grandsons who had come for the seudah said jokingly to Rav Chaim, ‘Maybe Savta doesn’t have enough guests?’ Rav Chaim smiled widely and beamed with nachas.”

Shared Torah

“I came in one afternoon and the Rebbetzin was beaming,” Nochum recounts. “She said to me, ‘Do you know what my husband told me today when we were eating lunch together? He told me that half of his Torah is my zechus! Do you know what that means? Half the Rav’s Torah? Do you know what it means? It means so much to me that my husband always makes sure that I participate in the siyumim he makes’” she would say.

Indeed, Rav Chaim went out of his way to make sure the Rebbetzin could partake. “Once when my husband was making a siyum, he insisted on making it downstairs so that I should be there,” she said.

“The Rebbetzin was a complete partner with Rav Chaim in every sense,” Nochum says. “She did everything, but I mean everything, so that Rav Chaim would be able to use every second for Torah, with yishuv hadaas. She told me that she always told the girls from the seminaries who came to her that truly everyone could have a husband who’s a gadol hador — it’s in their hands. She would speak to them about how a wife can do so much with seichel and encouragement. She would tell them about showing your husband that you are ready to do anything and everything for his Torah, about the husband and children seeing how dear Torah is to you. She would describe how after 120, a wife will sit next to her husband in Gan Eden. The Torah he learned will be theirs.

“She was the optimum, all-encompassing example of an eishes chayil, and an eishes chaver. Yes, she was the wife of the gadol hador and the daughter of the gadol hador, and she would speak of the greatness she witnessed in her mother, but Rebbetzin Batsheva became who she was. She worked on herself to achieve greatness. She wasn’t born Rebbetzin Kanievsky — she was moser nefesh, and she constantly grew as an eved Hashem, in every area.”

“Rav Chaim’s power of concentration was truly incredible,” Nochum says. “When the shidduch with the Rebbetzin was suggested, the Chazon Ish said it would be all right to talk about it in front of Rav Chaim, because if he was learning, he wouldn’t hear anything else.”

“It was amazing to see,” he continues, “how he would go straight back into learning between visitors. From one split second to the next, he was already deeply focused on whatever he was learning.

They Saw Something

Rav Chaim had incredible siyata d’Shmaya and the Rebbetzin had great pleasure relating stories about him, often repeating the same stories numerous times to groups and individuals.

“The Rebbetzin would tell the story of a chassan and kallah, baalei teshuvah, who came to Rav Chaim. The kallah wasn’t on the chassan’s level spiritually, but they both hoped she would grow along with him after the wedding.

“He went into Rav Chaim and she stayed outside at the bottom of the steps. When he came in, he told Rav Chaim he was a chassan and that he wanted a brachah. Rav Chaim told him to look for a different one, look for a better one.

“Aghast, he stammered that all he wanted was a brachah. But Rav Chaim simply repeated himself: ‘I’m telling you, look for a different one, look for a better one.’

“The chassan left Rav Chaim’s house pale and completely dazed. His kallah asked him what was wrong, and he told her. She broke down and started crying, and said, ‘Who told the Rav my secret, that I’m not Jewish?’

“The Rebbetzin also had unbelievable siyata d’Shmaya,” Nochum continues. “A lady once came to the Rebbetzin with her daughter. The girl’s name was Riva, they called her Rivi. She unfortunately had gone off the derech, to the point that she was going to marry an Arab, Rachmana litzlan.

“Her parents were heartbroken. The girl agreed to come meet with the Rebbetzin, but insisted her decision was final. The Rebbetzin started talking to the girl, telling her that this Arab didn’t care about her, that he was a liar, a bad person, that his care and affection were all a façade.

“The Rebbetzin said emphatically, ‘L’havdil, all a Yiddishe husband thinks about and cares for is his wife, that she should be as happy as possible, showing her true care and real respect.’

“The Rebbetzin spoke to Rivi for half an hour, but she wouldn’t budge. Finally, the Rebbetzin asked for five more minutes, and suggested they say a perek of Tehillim together. They opened a Tehillim at random, and it opened to perek mem-gimmel, with the pasuk ‘Shofteini Elokim, v’rivah rivi migoy lo chassid, mei’ish mirmah v’avlah sefalteini.’

“The Rebbetzin and the girl just looked at each other, and the girl said, ‘I’m not going to marry him, I’m dropping it.’ ”

Open Door, Open Heart

“The Rebbetzin was a walking mussar sefer,” Nochum says. “She was a private person, yet she opened her home day in and day out. The people came in streams, and not only did the Rebbetzin tolerate it, she brought them in, she listened, she advised, she cried, she laughed. And she never shut the door, not even when she’d feel depleted from hearing the deepest sorrows of those who came searching for guidance and brachah.

“Rebbetzin Batsheva exemplified the middah of savlanus,” he says. “One of her sons once told me that he never heard his mother raise her voice. Ever.

“The Rebbetzin’s pashtus and humility were unreal. Even if she related a story in which she played a vital part, she didn’t view herself as part of the story. It was just, ‘You see the koach of davening, or of tzniyus, or of Shabbos…’

“She’d say things like, ‘Baruch Hashem, the Ribbono shel Olam gave me the zechus,’ but it was never about her.

“The Rebbetzin recounted how an irreligious woman came to see her, dressed immodestly. She told the Rebbetzin she was scheduled for complicated surgery in a few days and asked for a brachah. The Rebbetzin asked her a little about herself, and the woman told the Rebbetzin that she had a weakness for new clothing, and would feel compelled to buy new things, a lot of which were immodest.

“The Rebbetzin told her, with no judgment, just pure love, ‘You know Hashem values tzniyus. And sometimes Hashem gives someone an illness so they should take the mitzvah of tzniyus upon themselves. It’s possible that’s why Hashem gave you this illness.’

“The woman left, and was admitted to the hospital. The day before the scheduled operation, without telling anyone, she checked herself out and went home. She sat at home, crying and speaking to Hashem. And then she decided to offer her personal korban. She went to her closet and took all the immodest clothes, piled them in the yard, and burned them.

“Afterward, she felt a sudden calm come over her. She went back to the hospital and didn’t tell anyone what she’d done. The next morning, the doctors ran some pre-surgery tests. They were astonished to find that the results were 100 percent perfect.

“A number of years after first telling me this story, the Rebbetzin told me she had shared the story with a group of girls coming closer to Yiddishkeit. Two days later, they returned to Rashbam Street with a story of their own to share. After their visit with the Rebbetzin, the girls were inspired to do the same as the woman in the story. The girls gathered their immodest clothing into a pile, lit a bonfire, and spontaneously broke into a dance around the bonfire.

“At the same time, not far away, the police found an enormous bomb, planted by a terrorist outside a busy shopping mall, that somehow, with no logical explanation, had not exploded.

“ ‘The police said it’s an open miracle they can’t explain,’ the girls told the Rebbetzin. ‘But we can.’”

Once, while the Rebbetzin was seeing people in her home, her five-year-old granddaughter ran in, sobbing. She calmed down long enough to say that her top button had fallen off while playing outside, and she was sad because she wasn’t tzniyus.

“There was a nonreligious woman there,” Nochum relates,  “who was deeply touched by the child’s tears, and said, ‘If this young girl reacts like this, I will also start to dress modestly from now on.’ The Rebbetzin had such pleasure telling this story.”

Then Nochum shares yet another story he heard from the Rebbetzin about tzniyus.

“There was a non-frum woman who came to the Rebbetzin dressed improperly. The Rebbetzin was about to daven Minchah, in Lederman’s, so she joined. After Minchah, the Rebbetzin spoke to everyone about tzniyus, but even when she was done, this woman stayed in her place.

“She said that after everything she’d heard, she felt she couldn’t get up dressed as she was. The Rebbetzin went upstairs, looked through her closet, and found a new blouse, which she gave to the woman as a gift.

“Her words always came from the heart, and therefore they entered others’ hearts too. People felt the genuine care.”

It’s not possible to fit Rav Chaim and the Rebbetzin’s kindness into words, the heart of pure gold that had ample space for every Yid.

Rav Chaim’s son Rav Yitzchok Shaul is a grandson of Rav Michel Yehudah Lefkowitz ztz”l through marriage. Rav Chaim learned from Rav Michel Yehudah in yeshivah ketanah. One of Rav Yitzchok Shaul’s children asked his great-grandfather Rav Michel Yehudah what Rav Chaim’s most pronounced trait was when he was in his shiur. He was certain that Rav Michel Yehudah would highlight Rav Chaim’s unrelenting hasmadah, but instead Rav Michel Yehudah answered, “His gutskeit, his lev tov. He was always the one helping the ones who needed help in their learning.”

Rav Chaim was famous for the succinct brachos he gave, usually consisting of just “brachah v’hatzlachah” (eventually shortened to “buha”) and Nochum tells us what the Rebbetzin had to say about that.

“One Shabbos morning after the seudah, someone asked the Rebbetzin something about Rav Chaim’s standard blessing of brachah v’hatzlachah.

“‘You want to know what my husband’s brachah v’hatzlachah is?’ she said. ‘Listen to this.’ ”

And Nochum tells us an incredible story the Rebbetzin recounted.

“There was a family that had seven daughters between the ages of 20 and 32 who weren’t married, followed by a 19-year-old son. One day this bochur comes home and tells his father that his rosh yeshivah wants to redt him a shidduch.

“‘You’re not embarrassed?’ The father reprimanded his son. ‘You have seven single older sisters and you want to start shidduchim?’

“But the father said that since it was the rosh yeshivah who redt him the shidduch, they would ask Rav Chaim what to do. Rav Chaim said they should go ahead, and wished them his standard ‘Brachah v’hatzlachah.’ The father protested, mentioning his seven older daughters, and again Rav Chaim said, ‘Brachah v’hatzlachah.’

“They went ahead with the shidduch and the son got engaged and married. Within 14 months, every single child got married.

“‘This week,’ the Rebbetzin continued, ‘someone saw the father coming back from his youngest daughter’s last sheva brachos.’

“The Rebbetzin told me that Rav Chaim relayed from the Chazon Ish that everything is included in the words brachah v’hatzlachah.”

Rav Chaim’s brachos were very potent, but so were the Rebbetzin’s, Nochum tells us. “In fact, the Steipler said, ‘If you want a brachah, go to my daughter-in-law.’

“Rav Chaim valued the Rebbetzin’s brachos very much, and always said that her brachos were worth more than his,” Nochum says. “The Rebbetzin told me that there was once a lady who came to her after losing a child, and she gave her a brachah that she should have twins. Then she told Rav Chaim, who said, ‘Why not triplets?’ And the woman had triplets.

“So the Rebbetzin told me that after this story she went to Rav Chaim and said, ‘You see, your brachos are worth more. I said two and you said three, and she had three.’

“I actually told the Rebbetzin that the story isn’t actually a proof of whose brachos were greater, because she said two, and Rav Chaim added one, and here we have triplets,” Nochum recounts. “The Rebbetzin laughed, and then Rav Chaim asked her what the woman had. The Rebbetzin said it was two girls and a boy, and then Rav Chaim started discussing how in regards to certain halachic matters, Chazal consider two girls like one boy. So the Rebbetzin’s brachah [of two babies] really was mekuyam, and her brachos are worth more….

“One Motzaei Shabbos during Melaveh Malkah,” Nochum shares, “there was this man, probably in his mid-sixties, who went over to the Rebbetzin to ask for a brachah for his grandson, who was scheduled for an operation the next morning at 8:30. The Rebbetzin immediately told him that the operation wasn’t necessary, and I didn’t see him even saying what it was for. This man seemed shocked and said, ‘But everything is all set, the doctor, the time of the surgery.’

“The Rebbetzin gently said again, ‘I’m telling you, it’s not necessary.’ ”

“One Shabbos morning,” Nochum continues with yet another story, “the Rebbetzin told me about a couple who were childless for many years. The wife came to the Rebbetzin, who went to Rav Chaim, who advised the woman to ask for a brachah from someone who was humiliated in public and didn’t respond.

“The woman waited a few months for this opportunity, until one night she was at a wedding and someone at the table really embarrassed another woman. That woman turned red, and was ready to respond, when the childless woman stopped her, and begged for a brachah.

“Nine months later they had a baby.”

Nochum follows up with another story, this one about the Rebbetzin’s ruach hakodesh. “I remember that one Shabbos day after the seudah, a woman came to the Rebbetzin very distraught. She was expecting and said that the doctors were saying something was wrong with ‘him [the baby].’ The Rebbetzin smiled to her reassuringly and said, ‘First of all it’s not a he, it’s a she, and secondly, she’s fine.’ ”

He adds that while there’s no question the Rebbetzin had ruach hakodesh, her knowledge of the baby’s gender wasn’t necessarily clairvoyant. He says Rebbetzin Kolodetski told him and his wife that her mother was very good at that.

“But that she was knew with certainty that all was truly okay [with the baby], was amazing to see,” he clarifies.

The Rebbetzin went out of her comfort zone, way beyond her nature, Nochum stresses. She was a neat, orderly person, yet her home was completely public property. Tens and hundreds of people walked through their bedroom every day. Things went missing, things got moved around, things got misplaced.

“I bought Rav Chaim and the Rebbetzin an expensive challah knife as a present,” Nochum says. “After they used it for a few years, it got stolen. I bought another one, the same as the first, and a very nice silver dish for the salt. The silver salt dish lasted one week before being stolen as well, and the new knife lasted about three to four weeks before disappearing too.

“There were hundreds of people every day. It’s mind-boggling if one really thinks about it, how much Rav Chaim and the Rebbetzin gave up for Klal Yisrael in so many areas. Rav Chaim gave so much of the dearest and most precious thing he had: time. He so badly wanted to use his time for learning and writing seforim.

“The Rebbetzin also gave her whole being for Klal Yisrael,” he continues. “At times I remember thinking that it wasn’t humanly possible for one person to do all the things the Rebbetzin did in one day. She loved and cared for every Yid like her own. She greeted everyone as if she were seeing a best friend that she hasn’t seen in twenty years. She heard the most painful tzaros from so many different people and cried along with them, she truly felt their pain as her own, and when she heard good news, she cried from happiness. It was her besurah tovah, her simchah.

“And she never got used to hearing tzaros. It never got any less painful, no matter how much she heard. On the contrary, she took everything so to heart… a regular person would have crumpled under a fraction of the weight of what she heard, and she did this day in and day out.

“If she was heading to bed for a short nap and someone needed her help, she’d turn around and help with the biggest smile. Then, completely wiped, she’d start heading to bed, and someone would come in to ask for an urgent brachah because her daughter was starting a shidduch. She’d then head back to bed, eyes literally closing, and as soon as she lay down, she’d hear that a kallah on her way to her wedding was here for a brachah. She’d jump out of bed, as if she had just rested for a few hours, and warmly greet this kallah, shower her with brachos from the depth of her heart, then sit down for twenty to thirty minutes to talk to her.

“This type of scenario was a daily occurrence. The Rebbetzin needed to help people, that was her oxygen. It’s not that she couldn’t say no because she was a pushover; she couldn’t say no because she needed to help people, because she felt a responsibility toward others. She couldn’t bear the thought that someone needed her help, and she hadn’t helped. She couldn’t sleep knowing that someone whom she had met wasn’t accepted to yeshivah, or because a little girl came to her crying and crying that she didn’t have any friends and wasn’t doing well at school…”

But first and foremost, above everyone else, Nochum says, was Rav Chaim and his learning. Nothing came on the cheshbon of her family. She prepared every breakfast, lunch, and supper for Rav Chaim, every single day. She never missed a meal, and she never allowed anyone else to do it for her. Rav Chaim and the Rebbetzin ate at least one meal together every day, and Rav Chaim wouldn’t start eating until the Rebbetzin sat down to eat as well.

“The Rebbetzin once jokingly told me that if not for this, she would never eat,” Nochum says.

Heavenly Communication

There was a man who used to daven in the Lederman shul, and after he was niftar, he came to someone he knew in a dream and said that the generation needs to be mischazek in answering Amen. He warned that in Shamayim it’s a very serious thing, and they’re very makpid on it.

When the Rebbetzin heard this, Nochum says, she introduced an initiative in which all the ladies in the ezras nashim in the Lederman shul who came to daven vasikin took turns saying brachos while everyone else answered Amen.

A young teenage girl whose mother passed away told the Rebbetzin that she wanted to take on something big l’illui nishmas her mother, and had committed to only eat and drink if someone would say Amen to her brachah. The Rebbetzin wanted to make this girl feel good, so she related this to Rav Chaim, who said, “She took something very difficult upon herself.”

A little while later, the girl came back to the Rebbetzin and told her that one night not long before, she was very hungry. But everyone was sleeping, and she had no one to say Amen to her brachah. She waited for a long time, and ultimately went to sleep very hungry.

That night she had a dream. Her mother came to her, and told her that this made a big commotion in Shamayim. Not only was it an illui neshamah, her mother continued, but a friend of hers in her class who was seriously ill would have a refuah sheleimah. The girl hadn’t known her friend was ill, but she shared the dream with her. Her friend was shocked; she hadn’t told anyone in the class about her illness, and of course, incredibly relieved at this message from Above.

“Rav Chaim was not himself the Yom Kippur before the Rebbetzin passed away,” Nochum relates. “He physically wasn’t well and he seemed almost weighed down. It was clear to me from two separate accounts that the Rebbetzin also felt something — like the Gemara in Megillah says, ‘the mazal feels it.’

“At our wedding, the women received a beautiful leather Tehillim. We gave one to the Rebbetzin, and she said that from then on, she would use it when she finished Tehillim on Shabbos. When I heard that she passed away with a Tehillim in her hand, I asked right away if the Rebbetzin had been using our Tehillim.

“A friend of mine who was there at the time said that about five minutes before, she was looking for our Tehillim. When she didn’t find it, she took her other one. But five minutes before she was nifteres, she mentioned my wife and me.

“That means a lot to us,” says Nochum simply. “We miss her very much.”

And Rav Chaim’s petirah eleven years later brought that sense of loss to the forefront again.

“I never dreamed there would be a day without Rav Chaim,” Nochum says. “As I was walking back from the levayah, aside from feeling the crushing blow of the loss of Rav Chaim, I had this feeling that to a certain extent, we lost the Rebbetzin again as well. It’s a different world. It was a world with Rav Chaim, and now it’s a world without Rav Chaim. He is so deeply missed.”

Nochum shares one last story. Many years ago, on Yom Kippur, Rav Chaim, who was already in his fifties, left his place right before Ne’ilah and went to stand near the Steipler. When asked to explain, he said, “The whole Yom Kippur I davened in my makom kavua, but when it came time for Ne’ilah, I was scared, so I went to stand next to Tatte.”

Klal Yisrael felt the same about Rav Chaim and the Rebbetzin. In losing them, Klal Yisrael lost two loving parents.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1080)