Dreams in the News

Somehow, dreams have been in the news recently.. At least twice in the past week, that I am aware of..

1. A story was reported in this past week's Chadash about Rav Nosson Kupshitz and the Chazon Ish, from way back when.

The story goes, more or less (from my memory of reading it 5 days ago) , that was just recently revealed, that a young Kupshitz, a nephew of a young Rav Nosson Kupshitz, had come to the Chazon Ish to ask a question. The Chazon Ish told him, with a smile as the story goes, that he should tell his uncle Rav Nosson to forgive Lederman. The young man didn't know what to make of this.

He goes and tells his uncle, who tries to think and can't think of anything anybody named Lederman had done to him that he should still be holding a grudge against.

I think the story went that Rav Nosson K went to the Steipler to discuss this (I might be mixing up the order of the names), and it turned out that this fellow Lederman had appeared to the Chazon Ish in a dream and told him that his move to the next world is being delayed, because he needs forgiveness from Rav N K.

Rav N k thought long and hard and then remembered that when he was younger and was learning on Friday afternoon in an empty beis medrash, there was a Lederman who would clean the beis medrash. He recalled that Lederman had asked him a few times to move to different seats so he could clean.

Rav N K then said he forgave him, and pointed to the story, when asked about it recently for the article, that one sees how serious causing bittul torah is, that this fellow had to come back because of the bittul torah he had caused, and needed forgiveness for it, even though to everyone it had seemed so minor.

2. A story has just come to light that right before 9 Av a senior administrator in the Histadrut jerusalem branch in which a seriously sick boy, a relative of hers, along with his mother, had appeared to her in a dream. In the dream, the child told her that he had been by Rav Elyashiv and had received a bracha that he would heal.

The woman wanted to go to Rav Elyashiv to get an actual blessing, but had no idea who the rabbi mentioned was. It took some time to figure it out.

She contacts some protexia, a fellow who had been a close assistant of Rav Mordechai Eliyahu, zt"l, who was the head of a workers union committee in the Bank of Jerusalem. She sent him the details of the dream in a letter by fax (can be seen on Bechadrei).

This fellow contacted Rav Elyashiv's grandson and faxed to him the details of what had happened, and requested an urgent meeting with the Rav to get a blessing.

Just yesterday he called back and told them to come right away to meet with Rav Elyashiv.

The fellow says he went to the rav's house, him along with the womans husband, and the sick boy, and Rav Elyashiv and his grandson were also present.

They related the story that had happened. When Rav Elyashiv heard the story, he responded with a smile. He then gave the boy a bracha and said he has nothing to worry about.

(Levi ben Neimah for anyone who wants to pray for the lad)

The story would be better if it finished with the kid getting immediately better. As to the smile, he could have either been amused at a story that he was involved in such a dream, or he could have been smiling that his involvement was revealed and understood.

Will we ever know? Doubtful.

But it is strange to suddenly have multiple stories like this coming out in the open in such frequency.